Let's explore the Collect or Opening Prayer for New Year’s Day, the Solemnity of Mary, the Holy Mother of God.
O God, who through the fruitful virginity of Blessed Mary bestowed on the human race the grace of eternal salvation, grant, we pray, that we may experience the intercession of her, through whom we were found worthy to receive the author of life, our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son.
This prayer first appeared in the Gelasian Sacramentary for the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary into Heaven. It was later used in the Breviary of the Council of Trent after Night Prayer in the Christmas Season to conclude the hymn: Alma Redemptoris Mater.
The prayer begins with a very curious phrase: Fruitful virginity. Seems like a contradiction in terms, doesn’t it? How can a virgin be fruitful? It’s impossible! But not for God! With God all things are possible!
For God creates out of nothing. He picked up a pile of dirt (the Hebrew word for dirt, remember is ADAMAH) and breathed on it and it became ADAM, a man, formed from dirt, now bearing the image and likeness of God. Dirt made to love.
When the people of Israel were dying of thirst, GOD brought water from a rock. When they were starving in the desert, he turned the sand into a field of bread. He turned the weak little shepherd David into the conqueror of the Goliath. And, in the fullness of time, the author of life chooses a virgin’s womb to bear his only-begotten Son, our Savior.
Impossible? Sure. But not for God!
God who chooses the weak and makes them strong in Christ; (GOD???) who chooses the Blessed Virgin and makes her the most fruitful among all women ever. He even chooses you and me, the weak....and makes us strong in Christ. Without him we can do nothing. With him, we can do anything.
Anything. And that’s why we turn to him in our need. Mary knows that most of all. That’s why she is called “Blessed among all women!” That’s why we rely on her intercession, just as any child looks to his mother for help.
My favorite place to pray in Washington, D.C., where I lived for many years, is the Irish Chapel in the Shrine of the Immaculate Conception. There’s no fancy sanctuary or big mosaic...there’s not even an altar in this chapel. Just a statue of the Blessed Virgin with the Christ child playing on her lap in the middle of a gurgling fountain.
But on the wall, not far away, is a 1200 year old Celtic Prayer that boldly states: There is no hound as fleet of foot, nor young soul so quick to win the race, nor horse to finish the course, as the Mother of God to the death bed of one who needs her intercession.
It’s like the line in the Memorare: Never was it known that anyone who fled to Thy protection, implored Thy help or sought Thy intercession was left unaided.
Or the Collect for today’s Mass:
O God, who through the fruitful virginity of Blessed Mary bestowed on the human race the grace of eternal salvation, grant, we pray, that we may experience the intercession of her, through whom we were found worthy to receive the author of life, our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son.
