Happy New Year! Today is also the feast of the Solemnity of Mary, Mother of God. (This feast is the octave of Christmas.)

"Mary, the all-holy ever-virgin Mother of God, is the masterwork of the mission of the Son and the Spirit in the fullness of time. For the first time in the plan of salvation and because his Spirit had prepared her, the Father found the dwelling place where his Son and his Spirit could dwell among men. In this sense the Church's Tradition has often read the most beautiful texts on wisdom in relation to Mary. Mary is acclaimed and represented in the liturgy as the "Seat of Wisdom."
-- Catechism of the Catholic Church 721

Below is an excerpt (in the spirit of today's feast) from what Hans Urs von Balthasar called Gerard Manley Hopkin's "sacramental poetry":

"I say that we are wound  
With mercy round and round  
As if with air: the same  
Is Mary, more by name.  
She, wild web, wondrous robe,  
Mantles the guilty globe,  
Since God has let dispense   
Her prayers his providence:  
Nay, more than almoner,  
The sweet alms’ self is her  
And men are meant to share  
Her life as life does air."   

--excerpted from the poem The Blessed Virgin Mary Compared to the Air We Breathe, by Gerard Manley Hopkins, S.J.