Pope Francis' Homily on the Solemnity of Mary, Mother
of God
"The Mother of the Redeemer goes before us and
continually strengthens us in faith, in our vocation and in our mission. By her
example of humility and openness to God's will she helps us to transmit our
faith in a joyful proclamation of the Gospel to all"
VATICAN CITY, January 02, 2014 (Zenit.org) - At 10 am on
January 1st in the Vatican Basilica, Pope Francis presided at the
celebration of the Mass of the Solemnity of Mary, Mother of God in the Octave
of Christmas and the celebration of the 47th World Day of Peace on the
theme: "Fraternity, Foundation and
Pathway to Peace."
Below is the homily Pope Francis gave during the Mass:
In the first reading we find the ancient prayer of
blessing which God gave to Moses to hand on to Aaron and his sons: "The
Lord bless you and keep you. The Lord make his face to shine upon you, and be
gracious to you. The Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you
peace" (Num 6:24-25). There is no more meaningful time than
the beginning of a new year to hear these words of blessing: they will
accompany our journey through the year opening up before us. They are words of
strength, courage and hope. Not an illusory hope, based on frail human
promises, or a naïve hope which presumes that the future will be better simply
because it is the future. Rather, it is a hope that has its foundation
precisely in God’s blessing, a blessing which contains the greatest message of
good wishes there can be; and this is the message which the Church brings to
each of us, filled with the Lord’s loving care and providential help.
The message of hope contained in this blessing was
fully realized in a woman, Mary, who was destined to become the Mother of God,
and it was fulfilled in her before all creatures.
The Mother of God. This is the first and most
important title of Our Lady. It refers to a quality, a role which the faith of
the Christian people, in its tender and genuine devotion to our heavenly
Mother, has understood from the beginning.
We recall that great moment in the history of the
ancient Church, the Council of Ephesus, in which the divine motherhood of the
Virgin Mary was authoritatively defined. The truth of her divine maternity
found an echo in Rome where, a little later, the Basilica of Saint Mary Major
was built, the first Marian shrine in Rome and in the entire West, in which the
image of the Mother of God – the Theotokos – is venerated
under the title of Salus Populi Romani. It is said that the
residents of Ephesus used to gather at the gates of the basilica where the
bishops were meeting and shout, "Mother of God!". The faithful, by
asking them to officially define this title of Our Lady, showed that they
acknowledged her divine motherhood. Theirs was the spontaneous and sincere
reaction of children who know their Mother well, for they love her with immense
tenderness. But it is more: it is the sensus fidei of the holy
People of God which, in its unity, never errs.
Mary has always been present in the hearts, the piety
and above all the pilgrimage of faith of the Christian people. "The Church
journeys through time… and on this journey she proceeds along the path already
trodden by the Virgin Mary" (Redemptoris Mater, 2). Our journey of
faith is the same as that of Mary, and so we feel that she is particularly
close to us. As far as faith, the hinge of the Christian life, is concerned,
the Mother of God shared our condition. She had to take the same path as
ourselves, a path which is sometimes difficult and obscure. She had to advance
in the "pilgrimage of faith" (Lumen Gentium, 58).
Our pilgrimage of faith has been inseparably linked to
Mary ever since Jesus, dying on the Cross, gave her to us as our Mother,
saying: "Behold your Mother!" (Jn 19:27). These words
serve as a testament, bequeathing to the world a Mother. From that moment on,
the Mother of God also became our Mother! When the faith of the disciples was
most tested by difficulties and uncertainties, Jesus entrusted them to Mary,
who was the first to believe, and whose faith would never fail. The
"woman" became our Mother when she lost her divine Son. Her sorrowing
heart was enlarged to make room for all men and women, all, whether good or
bad, and she loves them as she loved Jesus. The woman who at the wedding at
Cana in Galilee gave her faith-filled cooperation so that the wonders of God
could be displayed in the world, at Calvary kept alive the flame of faith in
the resurrection of her Son, and she communicates this with maternal affection
to each and every person. Mary becomes in this way a source of hope and true
joy!
The Mother of the Redeemer goes before us and
continually strengthens us in faith, in our vocation and in our mission. By her
example of humility and openness to God’s will she helps us to transmit our
faith in a joyful proclamation of the Gospel to all, without reservation. In
this way our mission will be fruitful, because it is modeled on the motherhood
of Mary. To her let us entrust our journey of faith, the desires of our heart,
our needs and the needs of the whole world, especially of those who hunger and thirst
for justice and peace, and for God. Let us then together invoke her, and I
invite you to invoke her three times, following the example of those brothers
and sisters of Ephesus: Mother of God! Mother of God! Mother of God! Amen.
[Translation by the Vatican]
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