Merciful Mother

[MariaChristi]

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

As we begin this Holy Week with Mary, here are some words from a homily of Pope Benedict XVI given in 2005:

…The closer a person is to God, the closer he is to people. We see this in Mary. The fact that she is totally with God is the reason why she is so close to human beings. For this reason she can be the Mother of every consolation and every help, a Mother whom anyone can dare to address in any kind of need in weakness and in sin, for she has understanding for everything and is for everyone the open power of creative goodness.

In her, God has impressed his own image, the image of the One who follows the lost sheep even up into the mountains and among the briars and thornbushes of the sins of this world, letting himself be spiked by the crown of thorns of these sins in order to take the sheep on his shoulders and bring it home.

As a merciful Mother, Mary is the anticipated figure and everlasting portrait of the Son. Thus, we see that the image of the Sorrowful Virgin, of the Mother who shares her suffering and her love, is also a true image of the Immaculate Conception. Her heart was enlarged by being and feeling together with God. In her, God's goodness came very close to us.

Mary thus stands before us as a sign of comfort, encouragement and hope. She turns to us, saying: "Have the courage to dare with God! Try it! Do not be afraid of him! Have the courage to risk with faith! Have the courage to risk with goodness! Have the courage to risk with a pure heart! Commit yourselves to God, then you will see that it is precisely by doing so that your life will become broad and light, not boring but filled with infinite surprises, for God's infinite goodness is never depleted!"

... let us thank the Lord for the great sign of his goodness which he has given us in Mary, his Mother and the Mother of the Church. Let us pray to him to put Mary on our path like a light that also helps us to become a light and to carry this light into the nights of history. Amen

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Full text can be read HERE

 

[Byrnesy]

Wow, a very powerful message from our Holy Father! What a marvelous gift God has given us in the Blessed Mother. Mary seat of Wisdom pray for us that in this Holy week that we may enter into the journey of your divine son’s passion, death and resurrection. May we follow Him to calvary with your foosteps as our guide.

 

[MariaChristi]

Wow, a very powerful message from our Holy Father! What a marvelous gift God has given us in the Blessed Mother. Mary seat of Wisdom pray for us that in this Holy week that we may enter into the journey of your divine son’s passion, death and resurrection. May we follow Him to calvary with your foosteps as our guide.

Dear Byrnesy,

Thanks for your reply. In the same homily, Pope Benedict also encourages us:

… Not only does Mary have a unique relationship with Christ, the Son of God who, as man, chose to become her Son. Since she was totally united to Christ, she also totally belongs to us. Yes, we can say that Mary is close to us as no other human being is, because Christ becomes man for all men and women and his entire being is “being here for us.”

…The Mother of the Head is also the Mother of all the Church; she is, so to speak, totally emptied of herself; she has given herself entirely to Christ and with him is given as a gift to us all. Indeed, the more the human person gives himself, the more he finds himself.

The Council intended to tell us this: Mary is so interwoven in the great mystery of the Church that she and the Church are inseparable, just as she and Christ are inseparable. Mary mirrors the Church, anticipates the Church in her person, and in all the turbulence that affects the suffering, struggling Church she always remains the Star of salvation. In her lies the true center in which we trust, even if its peripheries very often weigh on our soul.

In the context of the promulgation of the constitution on the Church, Paul VI shed light on all this through a new title deeply rooted in Tradition, precisely with the intention of illuminating the inner structure of the Church’s teaching, which was developed at the Council. The Second Vatican Council had to pronounce on the institutional components of the Church: on the bishops and on the Pontiff, on the priests, lay people and religious, in their communion and in their relations; it had to describe the Church journeying on, “clasping sinners to her bosom, at once holy and always in need of purification …” (“Lumen Gentium,” No. 8).

This “Petrine” aspect of the Church, however, is included in that “Marian” aspect. In Mary, the Immaculate, we find the essence of the Church without distortion. We ourselves must learn from her to become “ecclesial souls,” as the Fathers said, so that we too may be able, in accordance with St. Paul’s words, to present ourselves “blameless” in the sight of the Lord, as he wanted us from the very beginning (cf. Colossians 1:21; Ephesians 1:4). (I underlined some but all his words blessed me.)

By God’s Grace, may we learn from Mary to be “ecclesial souls” . May this Holy Week be the holiest of our lives thus far. Please let us continue to pray for one another and for all those in most need of His Mercy.