On this first day of the year, at least two reasons for celebration converge. For most people, the end of one year and the beginning of another is an event with religious and spiritual meanings. The years measure the time of our life; their passing makes us feel our transience. When we are children, birthdays are a reason to rejoice, for it is the occasion when we are the center of congratulations and celebrations. As we reach adulthood, although celebrations are not lacking, birthdays become a reminder that the end of life is nearer. Something similar happens with each new year: we celebrate that we have arrived alive at the end of a cycle. We rejoice and share with family and friends the achievements, hopes and projects.
The New Year is, therefore, a Christmas feast, since the counting of the years begins with the birth of our Savior.
The future is always uncertain, but we begin the new year accompanied by those who love and esteem us. This company lessens the uncertainty of the future. On dates like these, we become aware of the precariousness of time, the fleeting nature of life and the limits of our existence. When life shows us its limits, we look for a firm rock to lean on. Thus, a purely calendrical event, such as the passage from one year to the next, becomes an opportunity to open ourselves to the spiritual dimensions of reality, from which emanate meaning, certainty and confidence.
It is important to remember that these years, which end and begin, bear a number: they are the years that have passed since the birth of Jesus Christ. The New Year is, therefore, a Christmas celebration, since the counting of the years begins with the birth of our Savior. Today we begin the year two thousand twenty-five, a year of jubilee, in which the salvation that Christ brought to the world is offered to us with greater intensity, and his forgiveness and grace are more within our reach.
Time is a human reality, a dimension of creation, while eternity belongs to God.
In the reading from the letter to the Galatians that we heard on the celebration of January 1, St. Paul teaches us that when the fullness of time came, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law. When are the fullness of time? What does the fullness of time mean? Is it a transitory moment or a state that remains? If God sent his Son in the fullness of time, has that fullness already passed, or are we still living in it? What makes time full?
Time is a human reality, a dimension of creation, while eternity belongs to God. But when God enters time, he fills it with his eternity and makes it full. Time is full when it is filled with God. Since Christ was born, human time bears the imprint of God. Jesus Christ lived in time and on earth for approximately thirty-three years. But when he rose from the dead and ascended into heaven, he left his Holy Spirit, who dwells in the hearts of believers and constitutes the presence of God in the world. The Church is the realm of the Holy Spirit. As members of the Church, through faith, baptism, love, Eucharist, hope and prayer, we bear within us the gift of the Holy Spirit. We participate, albeit in a limited way, in the fullness of God. For this reason, our times are also full. We live even today in the fullness of God.
This is the mystery of Christmas: God became the son of man so that the children of Adam might become children of God.
On this day, we rejoice as we give thanks for the year that has passed and entrust ourselves to the one that is beginning. In the fullness of time, the Son of God was born under the law. This can be understood in its broadest sense: he was born under the law of death, which God had dictated after the first human sin. But Christ was born under the law of death to redeem those of us who were subject to it, in order to make us his children. This is the mystery of Christmas: God became the son of man so that the children of Adam might become children of God. And because we are children of God from baptism, the Father sent into our hearts the Holy Spirit of his Son, who enables us to call God our Father, crying out with Jesus: Abba! That is the Aramaic word with which Jesus addressed God at the beginning of his prayers. A word that means “Father”.
The principal gift of God and the foundation of peace is his Holy Spirit in us, the foretaste and guarantee of eternal life.
This is the great blessing we receive tonight: to be children of God. Let us purify our intentions. Since the future is uncertain, let us ask God that in this New Year we may be healthy, that we may be able to fulfill our work, that peace may reign in our families and that we may live in social harmony. All this is legitimate, provided that we ask, first of all, that God fill us with his Holy Spirit, that our identity as children of God be strengthened day by day and that, in every place and at every moment, his face shine upon us, granting us his favor and his peace. God’s principal gift and the foundation of peace is his Holy Spirit in us, the foretaste and guarantee of eternal life.
Through Mary, we receive from God all the blessings we can hope for and we are also children of God and heirs of heaven.
The Son of God, who was born under the law, was also born of a woman: the Virgin Mary. St. Paul does not mention her name, which we know from the Gospels. By her virginal motherhood, Mary made it possible for our times to be fulfilled. Today we celebrate Mary, Mother of God. This title, given with special conviction since the Council of Ephesus in 431, not only exalts the Virgin, but also affirms the identity of Christ: he who was conceived in Mary’s womb was, from the beginning, the Son of God made man. Therefore, Mary is truly the Mother of God, not because she gave birth to God, but because the one who conceived and gave birth was really the Son of God in human existence. 
This is the greatest feast in honor of the Virgin Mary, since giving human existence to the Son of God was her main mission.
Thanks to this divine motherhood, our times are full. Through her, we look to the new year with confidence, knowing that God is with us. Through her, we receive from God all the blessings we can hope for and we are also children of God and heirs of heaven.