In the Gospel, the Pope said, there is a sentence ‘that is striking for its synthetic clarity, ‘Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away’ (Mk, 13:31). [. . .]. Not only the earth, but also heaven, understood, in fact, in the cosmic sense, not as a synonym of God. [The] Sacred Scripture knows no ambiguity: The whole of creation is marked by finiteness, including the elements divinized by ancient mythologies: There is no confusion between creation and the Creator, but rather a clear difference. With such a clear distinction, Jesus affirms that his words ‘will not pass,’ that is, they come from the part of God and because of this are eternal.”

“In a well-known parable, Christ compares himself to the sower and explains that the seed is the Word (cf Mk 4:14), ‘the ones who hear the word and accept it and bear fruit’ (cf Mk, 4:20) are part of the Kingdom of God, that is, they live under his lordship; they remain in the world , but are no longer of the world; therefore, in them [it] is a seed of eternity, a principle of transformation that already now is manifested in a good life, animated by charity, “ that “in the end will produce the resurrection of the flesh. Behold the power of the Word of Christ.”

Before the Marian prayer, Benedict XVI added, the “Virgin Mary is the living sign of this truth. Her heart was ‘good earth’ that received with full disposition the Word of God, so that all her existence, transformed according to the image of the Son, was introduced into eternity, soul and body, anticipating the eternal vocation of every human being. Now, in prayer, let us make our own her response to the Angel: ‘May it be done to me according to your word’ (Lk, 1:38), so that, following Christ on the way of the Cross, we might also be able to come to the glory of the Resurrection.”