“The world, without mothers, has no future: profits and profits, alone, do not give a future, on the contrary at times they increase inequality and injustice. Mothers, on the other hand, make every child feel at home and give hope”.
Vatican City (AsiaNews) – The world and the Church both need women's "resourcefulness" and "style" Pope Francis noted this morning in an address focusing the dignity that is due to women, following in the footsteps of Mary the woman "who brought God into the world”. The Holy Father was speaking to Professors and students of the Pontifical Theological Faculty Marianum, to mark the 70th anniversary of its foundation.
“We could ask ourselves: does Mariology serve the Church and the world today? The answer is yes. Going to school with Mary means going to a school of faith and life. She, a teacher because she is a disciple, teaches the alphabet of human and Christian life very well".
Francis underlined “two elements, well highlighted by Scripture: she is mother and woman”.
"Mother. Recognized by Elizabeth as "mother of the Lord" (v. 43), the Theotokos is also the mother of us all", indeed "the best of mothers (cf. Apostolic Exhortation Evangellii gaudium, 285) ". “Our Lady made God our brother and as a mother she can make the Church and the world more fraternal. The Church needs to rediscover its maternal heart, which beats for unity; but our Earth also needs it, to return to being the home of all its children”.
"Our Lady desires it," she wants to give birth to a new world, where we are all brothers, where there is room for every discarded part of our societies "(Encyclical Lett. Brothers all, 278). We need motherhood, one who generates and regenerates life with tenderness, because only gifting, caring and sharing hold the human family together. The world, without mothers, has no future: profits alone, cannot give us a future, on the contrary at times they increase inequalities and injustices. Mothers, on the other hand, make every child feel at home and give hope”.
"Our Lady - this is the other essential element - is a woman. Perhaps the oldest Mariological data in the New Testament says that the Savior was "born of a woman" (Gal 4: 4). In the Gospel, then, Mary is the woman, the new Eve, who intervenes for our salvation from Cana to Calvary (cf. Jn 2: 4; 19:26). Finally, she is the woman clothed with the sun who takes care of the descendants of Jesus (cf. Rev 12:17). As the mother makes a family of the Church, so the woman makes us a people. It is no coincidence that popular piety draws naturally on Our Lady”.
Woman, Francis continued, “needs a theology, so that is not abstract and conceptual, but delicate, narrative, vital. Mariology, in particular, can help bring to culture, also through art and poetry, the beauty that humanizes and instills hope. And it is called to seek more worthy spaces for women in the Church, starting with her shared baptismal dignity”.