The LORD said to Moses: “Speak to Aaron and his sons and tell them: This is how you shall bless the Israelites. Say to them: The LORD bless you and keep you! The LORD let his face shine upon you, and be gracious to you! The LORD look upon you kindly and give you peace! So shall they invoke my name upon the Israelites, and I will bless them.”
Second reading from the Letter of Saint Paul to the Galatians GAL 4:4-7
Brothers and sisters: When the fullness of time had come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to ransom those under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons. As proof that you are sons, God sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying out, “Abba, Father!” So you are no longer a slave but a son, and if a son then also an heir, through God.
GOSPEL OF THE DAY From the Gospel according to Luke LK 2:16-21
The shepherds went in haste to Bethlehem and found Mary and Joseph, and the infant lying in the manger. When they saw this, they made known the message that had been told them about this child. All who heard it were amazed by what had been told them by the shepherds. And Mary kept all these things, reflecting on them in her heart. Then the shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen, just as it had been told to them.
When eight days were completed for his circumcision, he was named Jesus, the name given him by the angel before he was conceived in the womb.
WORDS OF THE HOLY FATHER Silence tells us that, if we would “keep” ourselves, we need silence. We need to remain silent as we gaze upon the crib. Pondering the crib, we discover anew that we are loved; we savour the real meaning of life. As we look on in silence, we let Jesus speak to our heart. His lowliness lays low our pride; His poverty challenges our outward display; His tender love touches our hardened hearts. To set aside a moment of silence each day to be with God is to “keep” our soul; it is to “keep” our freedom from being corroded by the banality of consumerism, the blare of commercials, the stream of empty words and the overpowering waves of empty chatter and loud shouting. (Homily, Solemnity of Mary, Mother of God, 1 January 2018)
TONINO BELLO - Mary, Woman of Silence Among the many Marian names in which you don't know whether to admire the imagination of poets or the tenderness of popular piety, I found one of extraordinary charm: Mary, Cathedral of Silence. Certainly, today it is difficult to experience silence in the cathedrals of the metropolises. However, those who enter them driven by the desire to pray will always find the right corner. If you sit down and look around, just lift your gaze above the floor, and you will find silence hidden up there, in the shadows of the arches and between the intersections of the ribs. In fact, even higher. Because, if he lets himself be seduced by the height of the vault, he too will pretend in his thoughts, like the poet of the Infinite, "endless spaces beyond, and superhuman silences, and profoundest quiet...". Mary is precisely like a gothic cathedral that guards silence. Jealously. She does not break it even when She speaks. Just as the silence of the temple that, up there, plays with the colored lights of the mullioned windows and with the inlays of the capitals and with the curves of the apse, is not broken but exalted by the groaning of the organ or by the mysterious cadences of the Gregorian chant that rise from below. But why is Mary a cathedral of silence? First of all, because she is a woman of few words. In the Gospel she speaks just four times. At the announcement of the angel. When she sings the Magnificat. When she finds Jesus in the temple. And at Cana of Galilee. Then, after advising the wedding servants to listen to the only word that counts, She falls silent forever. But her silence is not just the absence of voices. It is not the emptiness of sounds. Nor is it the result of a particular asceticism of sobriety. It is, instead, the theological envelope of a presence. The shell of a fullness. The womb that holds the Word. One of the last verses of the Letter to the Romans offers us the interpretive code of Mary's silence. It speaks of Jesus Christ as the "revelation of the mystery kept silent for ever and ever". Christ, mystery kept silent. Hidden, that is. Secret. Literally: shrouded in silence. In other words: the Word of God in the womb of eternity was wrapped in silence. Entering the womb of history, He couldn't have any other bandages. And Mary offered them to Him with Her person. She thus became the earthly extension of that arcane silence of heaven. She became a symbol for those who want to keep secrets of love. And for all of us, devastated by the uproar, she remained a silent casket of the Word: "She kept all these things in Her Heart".
--> Holy Mary, woman of silence, bring us back to the sources of peace. Free us from the siege of words. Our own, first of all. But also from those of others. Children of noise, we think we can mask the insecurity that torments us by relying on the vaniloquy of our interminable saying: make us understand that only when we have kept silent will God be free to speak. Co-tenants of noise, we have persuaded ourselves that we can exorcise fear by turning up the volume of our transistors: make us understand that God communicates Himself to man only on the sands of the desert, and that His voice has nothing to do with the decibels of our din. Explain to us the profound meaning of that passage from Wisdom, which we used to read at Christmas, making us wince with wonder: "While a profound silence enveloped all things, and the night was halfway through its course, your almighty Word from heaven, from your royal throne, descended to earth...". Please bring us back to the dreamy wonder of the first crib, and awaken in our hearts the nostalgia of that "silent night". Holy Mary, Woman of Silence, tell us about your appointments with God. In what countryside did you go on spring evenings, far from the noise of Nazareth, to hear His voice? In what cracks in the rock did you hide as an adolescent, so that your encounter with Him would not be profaned by the violence of human noise? On what terraces of Galilee, flooded by the full moon, did you nourish your vigils with nocturnal psalmody, while the croaking of frogs, down there in the plain of olive trees, was the only soundtrack to your thoughts of chastity? What conversations did you have with your youthful companions at the village fountain? What did you convey to Joseph when at dusk, taking you by the hand, he went out with you to the slopes of Esdrelon, or led you to the Lake of Tiberias on sunny days? Did you confide to him the mystery hidden in your womb with words or with tears of happiness? Besides the Shemah Israel and the monotony of the rain in the gutters, what other voices resounded in the carpenter's store on winter evenings? Beyond the treasure chest of the heart, did you also have a secret ledger to which you delivered the Words of Jesus? What did you say to each other, for thirty years, around that table of poor people? Holy Mary, Woman of Silence, admit us to your school. Keep us away from the fair of noises in which we are in danger of becoming dizzy, bordering on dissociation. Preserve us from the morbid pleasure of news that makes us deaf to the "good news". Help us to work towards an acoustic ecology that restores to us the taste for contemplation even in the whirlwind of the metropolis. Persuade us that only in silence do the great things of life mature: conversion, love, sacrifice, death. We would like to ask one last thing of you, most sweet Mother. You who have experienced, like Christ on the cross, the silence of God, do not withdraw from our side in the hour of trial. When the sun is eclipsed even for us, and the sky does not respond to our cry, and the earth rumbles empty under our steps, and the fear of abandonment threatens to make us despair, stay by our side. In that moment, break the silence: to say words of love! And we will feel on our skin the chills of Easter. Even before our agony is consumed
RispondiEliminaFirsr reading from the Book of Numbers
NM 6:22-27
The LORD said to Moses:
“Speak to Aaron and his sons and tell them:
This is how you shall bless the Israelites.
Say to them:
The LORD bless you and keep you!
The LORD let his face shine upon
you, and be gracious to you!
The LORD look upon you kindly and
give you peace!
So shall they invoke my name upon the Israelites,
and I will bless them.”
Second reading from the Letter of Saint Paul to the Galatians
GAL 4:4-7
Brothers and sisters:
When the fullness of time had come, God sent his Son,
born of a woman, born under the law,
to ransom those under the law,
so that we might receive adoption as sons.
As proof that you are sons,
God sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts,
crying out, “Abba, Father!”
So you are no longer a slave but a son,
and if a son then also an heir, through God.
GOSPEL OF THE DAY
From the Gospel according to Luke
LK 2:16-21
The shepherds went in haste to Bethlehem and found Mary and Joseph,
and the infant lying in the manger.
When they saw this,
they made known the message
that had been told them about this child.
All who heard it were amazed
by what had been told them by the shepherds.
And Mary kept all these things,
reflecting on them in her heart.
Then the shepherds returned,
glorifying and praising God
for all they had heard and seen,
just as it had been told to them.
When eight days were completed for his circumcision,
he was named Jesus, the name given him by the angel
before he was conceived in the womb.
WORDS OF THE HOLY FATHER
Silence tells us that, if we would “keep” ourselves, we need silence. We need to remain silent as we gaze upon the crib. Pondering the crib, we discover anew that we are loved; we savour the real meaning of life. As we look on in silence, we let Jesus speak to our heart. His lowliness lays low our pride; His poverty challenges our outward display; His tender love touches our hardened hearts. To set aside a moment of silence each day to be with God is to “keep” our soul; it is to “keep” our freedom from being corroded by the banality of consumerism, the blare of commercials, the stream of empty words and the overpowering waves of empty chatter and loud shouting. (Homily, Solemnity of Mary, Mother of God, 1 January 2018)
TONINO BELLO - Mary, Woman of Silence Among the many Marian names in which you don't know whether to admire the imagination of poets or the tenderness of popular piety, I found one of extraordinary charm: Mary, Cathedral of Silence. Certainly, today it is difficult to experience silence in the cathedrals of the metropolises. However, those who enter them driven by the desire to pray will always find the right corner. If you sit down and look around, just lift your gaze above the floor, and you will find silence hidden up there, in the shadows of the arches and between the intersections of the ribs. In fact, even higher. Because, if he lets himself be seduced by the height of the vault, he too will pretend in his thoughts, like the poet of the Infinite, "endless spaces beyond, and superhuman silences, and profoundest quiet...". Mary is precisely like a gothic cathedral that guards silence. Jealously. She does not break it even when She speaks. Just as the silence of the temple that, up there, plays with the colored lights of the mullioned windows and with the inlays of the capitals and with the curves of the apse, is not broken but exalted by the groaning of the organ or by the mysterious cadences of the Gregorian chant that rise from below. But why is Mary a cathedral of silence? First of all, because she is a woman of few words. In the Gospel she speaks just four times. At the announcement of the angel. When she sings the Magnificat. When she finds Jesus in the temple. And at Cana of Galilee. Then, after advising the wedding servants to listen to the only word that counts, She falls silent forever. But her silence is not just the absence of voices. It is not the emptiness of sounds. Nor is it the result of a particular asceticism of sobriety. It is, instead, the theological envelope of a presence. The shell of a fullness. The womb that holds the Word. One of the last verses of the Letter to the Romans offers us the interpretive code of Mary's silence. It speaks of Jesus Christ as the "revelation of the mystery kept silent for ever and ever". Christ, mystery kept silent. Hidden, that is. Secret. Literally: shrouded in silence. In other words: the Word of God in the womb of eternity was wrapped in silence. Entering the womb of history, He couldn't have any other bandages. And Mary offered them to Him with Her person. She thus became the earthly extension of that arcane silence of heaven. She became a symbol for those who want to keep secrets of love. And for all of us, devastated by the uproar, she remained a silent casket of the Word: "She kept all these things in Her Heart".
RispondiElimina--> Holy Mary, woman of silence, bring us back to the sources of peace. Free us from the siege of words. Our own, first of all. But also from those of others. Children of noise, we think we can mask the insecurity that torments us by relying on the vaniloquy of our interminable saying: make us understand that only when we have kept silent will God be free to speak. Co-tenants of noise, we have persuaded ourselves that we can exorcise fear by turning up the volume of our transistors: make us understand that God communicates Himself to man only on the sands of the desert, and that His voice has nothing to do with the decibels of our din. Explain to us the profound meaning of that passage from Wisdom, which we used to read at Christmas, making us wince with wonder: "While a profound silence enveloped all things, and the night was halfway through its course, your almighty Word from heaven, from your royal throne, descended to earth...". Please bring us back to the dreamy wonder of the first crib, and awaken in our hearts the nostalgia of that "silent night". Holy Mary, Woman of Silence, tell us about your appointments with God. In what countryside did you go on spring evenings, far from the noise of Nazareth, to hear His voice? In what cracks in the rock did you hide as an adolescent, so that your encounter with Him would not be profaned by the violence of human noise? On what terraces of Galilee, flooded by the full moon, did you nourish your vigils with nocturnal psalmody, while the croaking of frogs, down there in the plain of olive trees, was the only soundtrack to your thoughts of chastity? What conversations did you have with your youthful companions at the village fountain? What did you convey to Joseph when at dusk, taking you by the hand, he went out with you to the slopes of Esdrelon, or led you to the Lake of Tiberias on sunny days? Did you confide to him the mystery hidden in your womb with words or with tears of happiness? Besides the Shemah Israel and the monotony of the rain in the gutters, what other voices resounded in the carpenter's store on winter evenings? Beyond the treasure chest of the heart, did you also have a secret ledger to which you delivered the Words of Jesus? What did you say to each other, for thirty years, around that table of poor people? Holy Mary, Woman of Silence, admit us to your school. Keep us away from the fair of noises in which we are in danger of becoming dizzy, bordering on dissociation. Preserve us from the morbid pleasure of news
RispondiEliminathat makes us deaf to the "good news". Help us to work towards an acoustic ecology that restores to us the taste for contemplation even in the whirlwind of the metropolis. Persuade us that only in silence do the great things of life mature: conversion, love, sacrifice, death. We would like to ask one last thing of you, most sweet Mother. You who have experienced, like Christ on the cross, the silence of God, do not withdraw from our side in the hour of trial. When the sun is eclipsed even for us, and the sky does not respond to our cry, and the earth rumbles empty under our steps, and the fear of abandonment threatens to make us despair, stay by our side. In that moment, break the silence: to say words of love! And we will feel on our skin the chills of Easter. Even before our agony is consumed