Year of Faith and Mary

[MariaChristi]

…May the Virgin Mary, Mother of Christ and of all the Church, help us to realize and to bring to completion what the Council Fathers, animated by the Holy Spirit, kept alive in their hearts: the desire that all people might come to know the Gospel and encounter the Lord Jesus as the way, the truth and the life.

The above quote from the concluding words of Pope Benedict's Wednesday Audience invokes Mary to help us and all people: "come to know the Gospel and encounter the Lord Jesus as the way, the truth and the life."

The full text of the Audience is [HERE.](http://www.zenit.org/article-35695?l=english) The Pope gives a beautiful eye-witness account of the opening of the Vatican Council. Pope Benedict quotes prophetic words of John XXIII who opened the Council (on Oct. 11 , then the Feast of the Maternity of Mary - a feast no longer on the calendar, since superceded by the new feast inaugurated by Pope Paul VI : Solemnity of Mary on Jan. 1).

More prophetic words are quoted in his Audience address from Pope Paul VI, as our present Pope lives the continuity of God's guidance of the Church , in the Holy Spirit. This "Year of Faith" is a precious year of grace for us! Please let us continue to pray for one another, for the Church, and for all the world to which Jesus sends us by our Baptism.

Mary, Mother of Christ, Mother of the Church, pray for us.
Mary, Star of the New Evangelization, pray for us.