May God Show Us His Face and Bless Us!

By Fr. Christopher Foeckler, MJ • Phoenix, AZ

We start every calendar year with the Feast of Mary, the Mother of God, a very meaningful feast for many reasons, but I would suggest this is most of all because of the face and name of Jesus which we are told in the Gospel is given to Him on the eighth day (which of course is what January 1st is in relation to Christmas). 

The first reason this is important is due to the very meaning of the name of Jesus, which means “God saves His people” or simply “Savior”. The angel had assured the frightened shepherds that they need not be afraid “because their Savior has been born for them”, and this is, of course, part of what they recount to Mary once they find the baby wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in the manger. 

Another reason that the face and name of Jesus is so important on this first day of the new year goes back to one of the most ancient and most solemn of blessings mandated by God to the priests of the Old Testament with which they are to bless the people of God. We read from the Book of Numbers in the first reading of the Mass: “Thus you shall bless the people of Israel: you shall say to them, The LORD bless you and keep you. The LORD make His face to shine upon you, and be gracious to you. The LORD lift up His countenance upon you, and give you peace. So shall they put My name upon the people of Israel, and I will bless them.”

Then the blessing of God is given by His lifting His face upon them and by putting His name upon the people done in a spiritual way in the Old Testament, but now with the Incarnation – that our Savior has been born for us, He blesses us by showing us His face and by blessing us now in the name of Jesus!

The blessed Virgin Mary, the Mother of God is the first person to whom Jesus lifts His face at the dawn of a new age and He blesses her. She in turn contemplates the
face of her baby son – the Son of God and ponders it in her heart.

Let us ask Mary, the Mother of God, to ask her son Jesus to bless us throughout the new year of 2021: to lift up His face to us and in His name, to give us Peace!