Pope: Mary "teaches us the virtue of waiting, even when everything seems pointless"
The "mother of hope" in her "yes" to the angel appears to us as one of the many mothers of our world, courageous to the extreme when it comes to welcoming the story of a new person in the womb. " And then she is faithfully present under the cross, among the disciples frightened over the death of the Master and again in the nascent Church.
Vatican City (AsiaNews) - Mary is "mother of hope" because she "teaches us the virtue of waiting, even when everything seems pointless: she is always confident in the mystery of God even when it seems to be eclipsed for the sake of evil of the world". Pope Francis dedicated the catechesis that he proposed to the 20,000 people present in St. Peter's Square for the general audience to the Mother of Jesus.
Francis, who addressed a special greeting to a group of Russian Orthodox priests, emphasized in particular the "stand" of Mary, faithfully present under the cross and then among the feared disciples for the death of the Master and still in the nascent Church.
"Mary - he said - went through more than one night in her path as Mother. From her first appearance in the history of the Gospels, her figure stands out as if she were the personage of a drama. It was not simple to answer the Angel’s invitation with a “yes”: yet she, a woman still in the flower of youth, answered courageously, despite not knowing anything of the destiny that awaited her. In that instant, Mary appears to us as one of the many mothers of our world, courageous to the end when it is about receiving in their womb the history of a new man that is born.
That “yes” is the first step of a long list of obedience — long list of obedience! –that will accompany her itinerary as mother. Thus Mary appears in the Gospels as a silent woman, who often does not understand all that is happening around her, but who meditates every word and every event in her heart.
In this disposition there is a very beautiful cutting of Mary’s psychology: she is not a woman who gets depressed in face of the uncertainties of life, especially when nothing seems to go the right way. Nor is she even a woman who protests violently, who inveighs against the destiny of a life that often reveals itself with a hostile face. Instead, she is a woman who listens: do not forget that there is always a great relation between hope and listening, and Mary is a woman who listens. Mary accepts existence just as it is given to us, with its happy days, but also with its tragedies, which we would never have wanted to come across – until Mary’s supreme night, when her Son is nailed to the wood of the cross".
"Until that day, Mary almost disappeared from the plot of the Gospels: the sacred writers let this slow eclipsing of her presence be understood, her remaining silent before the mystery of a Son who obeys the Father. However, Mary reappears precisely at the crucial moment, when a good part of the friends vanished out of fear. Mothers do not betray and, at that instant, at the foot of the cross, no one of us can say which was the most cruel passion: that of an innocent man who dies on the gibbet of the cross, or the agony of a mother who accompanies the last instants of the life of her son. The Gospels are laconic and extremely discreet. They record with a simple verb the Mother’s presence: she “was” (John 19:25), she was. They say nothing of her reaction, if she was weeping, if she was not weeping . . . nothing; not even a brush stroke to describe her sorrow: on these details the imagination of poets and painters would then venture, giving us images that have entered in the history of art and of literature. But the Gospels only tell us: she “was.” She was there, in the most awful moment, in the cruellest moment, and she suffered with her Son. “Was,” Mary “was,” she was simply there. Behold her again, the young woman of Nazareth, now with greying hair with the passing of the years, still struggling with a God who must only be embraced, and with a life that has reached the threshold of the densest darkness. Mary “was” in the densest darkness, but she “was.” She did not go away. Mary is there, faithfully present, every time that a lighted candle must be held in a place of mist and fog. She does not even know the destiny of resurrection that her Son at the moment was opening for all of us men: she is there out of fidelity to God’s plan, of whom she proclaimed herself handmaid on the first day of her vocation, but also because of her mother’s instinct, who simply suffers, every time there is a son who goes through a passion. The sufferings of mothers: we have all known strong women, who have faced so many sufferings of their children!"
"We will find her again on the first day of the Church, she, Mother of hope, in the midst of that community of such frail disciples: one had denied, many fled, all were afraid (Cf. Acts 1:14). But she was simply there, in the most normal of ways, as if it were an altogether natural thing: in the first Church enveloped by the light of the Resurrection, but also by the tremors of the first steps that it must take in the world. For this, we all love her as Mother. We are not orphans: we have a Mother in Heaven, who is the Holy Mother of God. Because she teaches us the virtue of waiting, even when everything appears nonsensical: she is always confident in the mystery of God, even when He seems to eclipse Himself because of the evil in the world. In moments of difficulty may Mary, the Mother that Jesus gave all of us, always be able to support our steps, always be able to say to our heart: ”Rise! Look ahead, look at the horizon,” because she is Mother of hope."
Among the greetings addressed to the present, one also in Russian, to the delegation of the young priests of the Patriarchate of Moscow, guests of the Pontifical Council for the Promotion of the Christian Unity. "Almighty God - said the Pope - by intercession of the Mother of God, bless your country and the commitment of the Russian Orthodox Church for dialogue between religions and the common good!"
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