A "New Year with Mary"?

[MariaChristi]

Dear All,

Pondering this Sunday's Feast of Christ the King, and the end of the official "Year of Faith", I'm already looking ahead.

Advent, our new liturgical year, begins Dec. 1, and I wonder: will it be a new year of stronger faith? I wonder if it can be a "New Year with Mary"??? In our parish we've kept a statue of Our Lady at the entrance to Church with a poster, suggesting ways to grow in faith during the past year. Her statue stood welcoming all who enter, with a little sign at her feet saying, "Mother of Faith". When the statue and signs are removed next week, I'm hoping we'll keep our "Mother of Faith" in our hearts. If you feel you haven't grown much this past year or if you want to grow more in faith this new year, perhaps you can spend a "New Year with Mary" . The Catechism of the Catholic Church helps us ponder:

CCC 2672 - The Holy Spirit, whose anointing permeates our whole being, is the interior Master of Christian prayer. He is the artisan of the living tradition of prayer. To be sure, there are as many paths of prayer as there are persons who pray, but it is the same Spirit acting in all and with all. It is in the communion of the Holy Spirit that Christian prayer is prayer in the Church.

In communion with the holy Mother of God
CCC 2673 - In prayer the Holy Spirit unites us to the person of the only Son, in his glorified humanity, through which and in which our filial prayer unites us in the Church with the Mother of Jesus.
CCC 2674 - Mary gave her consent in faith at the Annunciation and maintained it without hesitation at the foot of the Cross. Ever since, her motherhood has extended to the brothers and sisters of her Son "who still journey on earth surrounded by dangers and difficulties." Jesus, the only mediator, is the way of our prayer; Mary, his mother and ours, is wholly transparent to him: she "shows the way" (hodigitria), and is herself "the Sign" of the way, according to the traditional iconography of East and West. (Underlining is mine)

CCC 2675 - Beginning with Mary's unique cooperation with the working of the Holy Spirit, the Churches developed their prayer to the holy Mother of God, centering it on the person of Christ manifested in his mysteries. In countless hymns and antiphons expressing this prayer, two movements usually alternate with one another: the first "magnifies" the Lord for the "great things" he did for his lowly servant and through her for all human beings The second entrusts the supplications and praises of the children of God to the Mother of Jesus, because she now knows the humanity which, in her, the Son of God espoused.

There are several icons which are titled "hodigitria". See [HERE](http://campus.udayton.edu/mary/resources/icon3.html) for more info on icons. http://campus.udayton.edu/mary/images/vinje-1.jpg