Reading I 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.”
Responsorial Psalm Ps 67:2-3, 5, 6, 8 R. (2a) May God bless us in his mercy. May God have pity on us and bless us; may he let his face shine upon us. So may your way be known upon earth; among all nations, your salvation. R. May God bless us in his mercy. May the nations be glad and exult because you rule the peoples in equity; the nations on the earth you guide. R. May God bless us in his mercy. May the peoples praise you, O God; may all the peoples praise you! May God bless us, and may all the ends of the earth fear him! R. May God bless us in his mercy.
Reading II 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.
Alleluia Heb 1:1-2 R. Alleluia, alleluia. In the past God spoke to our ancestors through the prophets; in these last days, he has spoken to us through the Son. R. Alleluia, alleluia.
Gospel 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.
HOLY MASS ON THE SOLEMNITY OF MARY, MOTHER OF GOD 54th WORLD DAY OF PEACE HOMILY OF HIS HOLINESS POPE FRANCIS
1° January 2022
______________________________________
The shepherds found “Mary and Joseph, and the child lying in the manger” (Lk 2:16). For the shepherds, the manger was a joyful sign: it was the confirmation of the message they had heard from the angel (cf. v. 12), the place where they found the Saviour. It is also the proof of God’s closeness to them, for he was born in a manger, an object they know well, as a sign of his closeness and familiarity. The manger is also a joyful sign for us. Jesus touches our hearts by being born in littleness and poverty; he fills us with love, not fear. The manger foretells the One who makes himself food for us. His poverty is good news for everyone, especially the marginalized, the rejected and those who do not count in the eyes of the world. For that is how God comes: not on a fast track, and lacking even a cradle! That is what is beautiful about seeing him there, laid in a manger.
Yet such was not the case with Mary, the Holy Mother of God. She had to endure “the scandal of the manger”. She too, long before the shepherds, had received the message of an angel, who spoke to her solemnly about the throne of David: “You will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you will name him Jesus. He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give to him the throne of his ancestor David” (Lk 1:31-32). And now, Mary has to lay him in a trough for animals. How can she hold together the throne of a king and the lowly manger? How can she reconcile the glory of the Most High and the bitter poverty of a stable? Let us think of the distress of the Mother of God. What can be more painful for a mother than to see her child suffering poverty? It is troubling indeed. We would not blame Mary, were she to complain of those unexpected troubles. Yet she does not lose heart. She does not complain, but keeps silent. Rather than complain, she chooses a different part: For her part, the Gospel tells us, Mary “kept all these things, pondering them in her heart” (cf. Lk 2:19).
That is not what the shepherds and the people do. The shepherds tell everyone about what they had seen: the angel that appeared in the heart of the night, and his words concerning the Child. And the people, upon hearing these things, are amazed (cf. v. 18). Words and amazement. Mary, instead, is pensive; she keeps all these things, pondering them in her heart. We ourselves can have the same two different responses. The story told by the shepherds, and their own amazement, remind us of the beginnings of faith, when everything seems easy and straightforward. We rejoice in the newness of God who enters into our lives and fills us with wonder. Mary’s pensiveness, on the other hand, is the expression of a mature, adult faith, not a faith of beginners. Not a newborn faith, it is rather a faith that now gives birth. For spiritual fruitfulness is born of trials and testing. From the quiet of Nazareth and from the triumphant promises received by the Angel – the beginnings – Mary now finds herself in the dark stable of Bethlehem. Yet that is where she gives God to the world. Others, before the scandal of the manger, might feel deeply troubled. She does not: she keeps those things, pondering them in her heart.
Let us learn from the Mother of God how to have that same attitude: to keep and to ponder. Because we may well have to endure certain “scandals of the manger”. We hope that everything will be all right and then, like a bolt from the blue, an unexpected problem arises. Our expectations clash painfully with reality. That can also happen in the life of faith, when the joy of the Gospel is put to the test in troubling situations. Today the Mother of God teaches us to draw profit from this clash. She shows us that it is necessary: it is the narrow path to achieve the goal, the cross, without which there can be no resurrection. Like the pangs of childbirth, it begets a more mature faith.
-->I ask, brothers and sisters, how do we make this passage, how do we surmount this clash between the ideal and the real? By doing exactly what Mary did: by keeping and by pondering. First, Mary “keeps”, that is she holds on to what happens; she does not forget or reject it. She keeps in her heart everything that she saw and heard. The beautiful things, like those spoken to her by the angel and the shepherds, but also the troubling things: the danger of being found pregnant before marriage and, now, the lowly stable where she has had to give birth. That is what Mary does. She does not pick and choose; she keeps. She accepts life as it comes, without trying to camouflage or embellish it; she keeps those things in her heart.
Then, Mary’s second attitude is about how she keeps: she keeps and she ponders. The Gospel speaks of Mary “bringing together”, comparing, her different experiences and finding the hidden threads that connect them. In her heart, in her prayer, she does exactly that: she binds together the beautiful things and the unpleasant things. She does not keep them apart, but brings them together. It is for this reason that Mary is said to be the Mother of Catholicity. In this regard, we can dare to say that it is because of this that Mary is said to be Catholic, for she unites, she does not divide. And in this way she discerns their greater meaning, from God’s perspective. In her mother’s heart, Mary comes to realize that the glory of the Most High appears in humility; she welcomes the plan of salvation whereby God must lie in a manger. She sees the divine Child frail and shivering, and she accepts the wondrous divine interplay between grandeur and littleness. Mary keeps and ponders.
-->This inclusive way of seeing things, which transcends tensions by “keeping” and “pondering”, is the way of mothers, who, in moments of tension, do not divide, they keep, and in this way enable life to grow. It is the way so many mothers embrace the problems of their children. Their maternal “gaze” does not yield to stress; it is not paralyzed before those problems, but sees them in a wider perspective. And this is Mary’s attitude: she keeps and ponders right up to Calvary. We can think of the faces of all those mothers who care for a child who is ill or experiencing difficulties. What great love we see in their eyes! Even amid their tears, they are able to inspire hope. Theirs is a gaze that is conscious and realistic, but at the same time offering, beyond the pain and the problems, a bigger picture, one of care and love that gives birth to new hope. That is what mothers do: they know how to overcome obstacles and disagreements, and to instill peace. In this way, they transform problems into opportunities for rebirth and growth. They can do this because they know how to “keep”, to hold together the various threads of life. We need such people, capable of weaving the threads of communion in place of the barbed wire of conflict and division. Mothers know how to do this.
The New Year begins under the sign of the Holy Mother of God, under the sign of the Mother. A mother’s gaze is the path to rebirth and growth. We need mothers, women who look at the world not to exploit it, but so that it can have life. Women who, seeing with the heart, can combine dreams and aspirations with concrete reality, without drifting into abstraction and sterile pragmatism. And the Church is a Mother, this is what makes the Church feminine. For this reason, we cannot find a place for women in the Church without allowing the heart of the Woman and Mother to shine. This is the place of women in the Church, the great place, from which other places, more concrete and less important, are derived. But the Church is Mother, the Church is woman. And since mothers bestow life, and women “keep” the world, let us all make greater efforts to promote mothers and to protect women. How much violence is directed against women! Enough! To hurt a woman is to insult God, who from a woman took on our humanity. He did not do it through an angel; nor did he come directly; he did it through a woman. Like a woman, the Mother Church, takes the humanity of her sons and daughters. At the beginning of the New Year, then, let us place ourselves under the protection of this woman, the Mother of God, who is also our mother. May she help us to keep and ponder all things, unafraid of trials and with the joyful certainty that the Lord is faithful and can transform every cross into a resurrection. Today too, let us call upon her as did the People of God at Ephesus. Let us stand and, facing Our Lady as did the people of God in Ephesus, let us together repeat three times her title of Mother of God: “Holy Mother of God, Holy Mother of God, Holy Mother of God”! Amen.
TONINO BELLO - Mary, woman of the first glance Yes, she was the first to lay eyes on the naked body of God. And she immediately enveloped him with her gaze. Even before wrapping him in swaddling clothes. On the contrary, she immediately covered him in her clothes, almost as if to compress the light of that body and not be blinded by it. not be blinded by it. There he was, the long awaited of the nations, lapped by the eyes of Mary, like a trembling lamb touched by his mother's tongue. The patriarchs had spied its arrival since the remote centuries. But, while arching eyebrows, they did not have the joy of seeing him. The prophets, with vaticinies full of mystery, had drawn his face. But their eyes But their eyes were closed without being able to gaze at him closely. The poor had felt a thousand jolts at every flutter of news. But they had to But they had to be content each time to chase him in their dreams. In the winter nights the shepherds, in the crackling of the bivouac, spoke of the one who would come. And their eyes, as they trained to hold the flame of the pruning sheaves, glittered with fever. In the spring evenings, full of omens, the fathers pointed out to their children the stars of the firmament and lulled them with the cadences of ancient elegies: "Oh, if thou wouldst rend the skies and descend..." Then they too would close their eyelids, tired of peering. The maidens scented with geraniums and desires, confided to each other naive presentiments of arcane maternity. of arcane maternity. But in the flashing of the pupils flashed at once the sweetest melancholy sweet melancholy of those who will never be fulfilled. Eyes of old people and children. Eyes of exiles and the oppressed. Eyes of the suffering and dreamers. How many eyes reached out to him! Yearning for the sight of his face. Disappointed by delays unforeseen delays. Tired from long vigils. Flaming with sudden hopes. Closed underground forever, after the last poignant invocation: "Ostende faciem tuam!". And here he is at last, 1'Emmanuel, wet with the tears of the mother-in-law, that sparkle like gems at the glow of the lantern.
-->Mary's eyes tremble with love over the body of Jesus. In their depths a long chain of a long chain of unheard glances from the past. In her pupils is concentrated the trepidation of secular expectations. And in her iris there are suddenly awakened fires that have been dormant under the ashes of time. Mary thus becomes the woman of the first glance. Only a creature like her, on the other hand, could worthily welcome the Son of God on earth. to the Son of God, caressing him with transparent eyes of holiness. After her, many others would have the privilege of seeing him. Joseph will see him. The shepherds will see him. shepherds. Later, Simeon will see him, who will die in peace because his eyes have been able to contemplate the salvation of God. contemplate God's salvation... But the first to bind him with the tepid texture of her gaze, in the night scented of and stable, so that the hay would not sting him and the cold would not freeze him, was she. Woman of the first glance: chosen, that is, by the eternal centuries to be, after a forest of of waiting, a limpid riviera bathed by the river of grace. Holy Mary, woman of the first glance, grant us the grace of amazement. The world has The world has stolen from us the ability to wince. There is no rapture in our eyes. We are tired of sharpening We are tired of sharpening our eyesight, because there are no more arrivals in the program. Our souls are as parched as the banks of a stream without water. The deep layers of wonder have dried up. Victims of boredom Victims of boredom, we lead a life barren of ecstasy. Only things we have already seen pass before our eyes, like sequences of a film repeated over and over again. We miss the hour when the first grape blushes through the vines. We live seasons without the first fruits of the harvest. In fact, we already know what flavor each fruit holds under the bark. You who have experienced the surprises of God, give us back, we pray, the taste of experiences and do not spare us the joy of decisive encounters that have the flavor of the "first time. "first time. (D. TONINO BELLO)
->Saint Mary, woman of the first glance, give us the grace of tenderness. Your eyelids, that night, grazed the Lamb laid at your feet with a tepid shiver of a wing. Ours, on the other hand, rest on things as heavy as stones. They pass on the skin, rough as store rags. They wound faces, like razor blades. Your eyes clothed the Son of God with charity. Ours instead, with greed, strip the children of man. children of man. At the first contact of your pupils with the source of light, the gazes of past generations were illuminated. of past generations. When, on the other hand, we open our sockets wide, we defile even the holiest things and extinguish the gaze of future generations. You who have always carried in your pristine eyes the reverberations of God's transparency, help us to experience all the truth of Jesus' words: "The lamp of the body is the eye. If, therefore, your eye is clear, your whole body will be in the light". Holy Mary, woman of the first glance, thank you because, bent over that child, you represent us all. you represent us all. You are the first creature to have contemplated the flesh of God made man: and we want to And we want to look out of the window of your eyes to enjoy with you this firstfruits. But you are also the first creature on earth that God has seen with his eyes of flesh: and we want to cling to your clothes to share this privilege with you. Thank you, incomparable friend of our Christmases. Hope of our loneliness. Comfort of our cold cribs without choirs of angels and without hosts of shepherds. Forgive us if our gazes stray elsewhere. If we chase other faces. If we run After other appearances. But you know that in the depths of our soul we are left with the nostalgia of that look. Indeed, of those looks: yours and his. And then, a 'look, give us too, mother of mercy. Especially when we experience that, to love us, you are the only one left.(D.T.B.)
FAUSTS - The center of these first chapters is the "tactile" knowledge of God that Mary has in generating, wrapping and placing her son in the manger. The scene that is given to us to contemplate is the historical fact, unique, that happened two thousand years ago, first narrated, then announced as a sign that gives meaning to the whole story, and finally lived by the shepherds... Through the story that Mary first told to Luke, the pastor who became the announcer, who transmitted it to us, we too are called to contemplate and touch with her the very Word of Life. Like the first shepherds, we too become heralds of the Word: "A Saviour who is Christ the Lord was born for you today". The same proclamation, from mouth to mouth, through the shepherds who have become evangelists, transmits to us the fulfillment of God's promise. The today of the birth of the Saviour is realized everywhere it is announced and believed, as with the shepherds who set out on their way to see Him. After the words of the Angel, Heaven is opened and men can attend the heavenly liturgy that takes place over this Child. To this celestial liturgy, opened by the announcement that gives the interpretation, corresponds a earthly liturgy, of poor people, obedient to the Word, that runs to see a poor child, of whom it believes "what the Lord has notified". They, after having experienced what has been said to them, in turn announce it. In these pastors, the first listeners who in turn are proclaimers, the Church appears. The Church is born from the proclamation, verifies its salvation today and transmits it again to others with the announcement. It is a Church of the poor and the last ones , like the Announced oneself. By virtue of her faith, she recognizes, proclaims, glorifies and praises God who has revealed Himself in the powerlessness of Jesus. Her condition of limit is surpassed in the transmission by the proclamation, which expands the space of the Community to the ends of the earth and opens the time to eternity.
BENEDICT XVI ...The song of the Angels, the first evangelists of the Holy Night:" Glory to God in the highest and peace on earth to men who are the objects of His Grace, to men of good will"...Peace on earth, that is the meaning of Christmas. But the Angels' song precedes something else, which comes first, and without which peace cannot last long: the Glory of God. The doctrine of the peace of Bethlehem says : the peace of men comes from the Glory of God. Anyone who really wants to care about men and their salvation must first of all care about the Glory of God. Giving glory to God is not a private affair, which everyone can dispose of as he sees fit, but a matter for everyone. It is a common good, and where God is not honored among men, neither can man long be respected in his dignity. Christmas therefore has to do with the peace of men, for in it the Glory of God is again proclaimed and restored among men. (Lob der Wethnacht)
Reading I
RispondiEliminaNm 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.”
Responsorial Psalm
Ps 67:2-3, 5, 6, 8
R. (2a) May God bless us in his mercy.
May God have pity on us and bless us;
may he let his face shine upon us.
So may your way be known upon earth;
among all nations, your salvation.
R. May God bless us in his mercy.
May the nations be glad and exult
because you rule the peoples in equity;
the nations on the earth you guide.
R. May God bless us in his mercy.
May the peoples praise you, O God;
may all the peoples praise you!
May God bless us,
and may all the ends of the earth fear him!
R. May God bless us in his mercy.
Reading II
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.
Alleluia
Heb 1:1-2
R. Alleluia, alleluia.
In the past God spoke to our ancestors through the prophets;
in these last days, he has spoken to us through the Son.
R. Alleluia, alleluia.
Gospel
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.
HOLY MASS ON THE SOLEMNITY OF MARY, MOTHER OF GOD
RispondiElimina54th WORLD DAY OF PEACE
HOMILY OF HIS HOLINESS POPE FRANCIS
1° January 2022
______________________________________
The shepherds found “Mary and Joseph, and the child lying in the manger” (Lk 2:16). For the shepherds, the manger was a joyful sign: it was the confirmation of the message they had heard from the angel (cf. v. 12), the place where they found the Saviour. It is also the proof of God’s closeness to them, for he was born in a manger, an object they know well, as a sign of his closeness and familiarity. The manger is also a joyful sign for us. Jesus touches our hearts by being born in littleness and poverty; he fills us with love, not fear. The manger foretells the One who makes himself food for us. His poverty is good news for everyone, especially the marginalized, the rejected and those who do not count in the eyes of the world. For that is how God comes: not on a fast track, and lacking even a cradle! That is what is beautiful about seeing him there, laid in a manger.
Yet such was not the case with Mary, the Holy Mother of God. She had to endure “the scandal of the manger”. She too, long before the shepherds, had received the message of an angel, who spoke to her solemnly about the throne of David: “You will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you will name him Jesus. He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give to him the throne of his ancestor David” (Lk 1:31-32). And now, Mary has to lay him in a trough for animals. How can she hold together the throne of a king and the lowly manger? How can she reconcile the glory of the Most High and the bitter poverty of a stable? Let us think of the distress of the Mother of God. What can be more painful for a mother than to see her child suffering poverty? It is troubling indeed. We would not blame Mary, were she to complain of those unexpected troubles. Yet she does not lose heart. She does not complain, but keeps silent. Rather than complain, she chooses a different part: For her part, the Gospel tells us, Mary “kept all these things, pondering them in her heart” (cf. Lk 2:19).
That is not what the shepherds and the people do. The shepherds tell everyone about what they had seen: the angel that appeared in the heart of the night, and his words concerning the Child. And the people, upon hearing these things, are amazed (cf. v. 18). Words and amazement. Mary, instead, is pensive; she keeps all these things, pondering them in her heart. We ourselves can have the same two different responses. The story told by the shepherds, and their own amazement, remind us of the beginnings of faith, when everything seems easy and straightforward. We rejoice in the newness of God who enters into our lives and fills us with wonder. Mary’s pensiveness, on the other hand, is the expression of a mature, adult faith, not a faith of beginners. Not a newborn faith, it is rather a faith that now gives birth. For spiritual fruitfulness is born of trials and testing. From the quiet of Nazareth and from the triumphant promises received by the Angel – the beginnings – Mary now finds herself in the dark stable of Bethlehem. Yet that is where she gives God to the world. Others, before the scandal of the manger, might feel deeply troubled. She does not: she keeps those things, pondering them in her heart.
Let us learn from the Mother of God how to have that same attitude: to keep and to ponder. Because we may well have to endure certain “scandals of the manger”. We hope that everything will be all right and then, like a bolt from the blue, an unexpected problem arises. Our expectations clash painfully with reality. That can also happen in the life of faith, when the joy of the Gospel is put to the test in troubling situations. Today the Mother of God teaches us to draw profit from this clash. She shows us that it is necessary: it is the narrow path to achieve the goal, the cross, without which there can be no resurrection. Like the pangs of childbirth, it begets a more mature faith.
-->I ask, brothers and sisters, how do we make this passage, how do we surmount this clash between the ideal and the real? By doing exactly what Mary did: by keeping and by pondering. First, Mary “keeps”, that is she holds on to what happens; she does not forget or reject it. She keeps in her heart everything that she saw and heard. The beautiful things, like those spoken to her by the angel and the shepherds, but also the troubling things: the danger of being found pregnant before marriage and, now, the lowly stable where she has had to give birth. That is what Mary does. She does not pick and choose; she keeps. She accepts life as it comes, without trying to camouflage or embellish it; she keeps those things in her heart.
RispondiEliminaThen, Mary’s second attitude is about how she keeps: she keeps and she ponders. The Gospel speaks of Mary “bringing together”, comparing, her different experiences and finding the hidden threads that connect them. In her heart, in her prayer, she does exactly that: she binds together the beautiful things and the unpleasant things. She does not keep them apart, but brings them together. It is for this reason that Mary is said to be the Mother of Catholicity. In this regard, we can dare to say that it is because of this that Mary is said to be Catholic, for she unites, she does not divide. And in this way she discerns their greater meaning, from God’s perspective. In her mother’s heart, Mary comes to realize that the glory of the Most High appears in humility; she welcomes the plan of salvation whereby God must lie in a manger. She sees the divine Child frail and shivering, and she accepts the wondrous divine interplay between grandeur and littleness. Mary keeps and ponders.
-->This inclusive way of seeing things, which transcends tensions by “keeping” and “pondering”, is the way of mothers, who, in moments of tension, do not divide, they keep, and in this way enable life to grow. It is the way so many mothers embrace the problems of their children. Their maternal “gaze” does not yield to stress; it is not paralyzed before those problems, but sees them in a wider perspective. And this is Mary’s attitude: she keeps and ponders right up to Calvary. We can think of the faces of all those mothers who care for a child who is ill or experiencing difficulties. What great love we see in their eyes! Even amid their tears, they are able to inspire hope. Theirs is a gaze that is conscious and realistic, but at the same time offering, beyond the pain and the problems, a bigger picture, one of care and love that gives birth to new hope. That is what mothers do: they know how to overcome obstacles and disagreements, and to instill peace. In this way, they transform problems into opportunities for rebirth and growth. They can do this because they know how to “keep”, to hold together the various threads of life. We need such people, capable of weaving the threads of communion in place of the barbed wire of conflict and division. Mothers know how to do this.
RispondiEliminaThe New Year begins under the sign of the Holy Mother of God, under the sign of the Mother. A mother’s gaze is the path to rebirth and growth. We need mothers, women who look at the world not to exploit it, but so that it can have life. Women who, seeing with the heart, can combine dreams and aspirations with concrete reality, without drifting into abstraction and sterile pragmatism. And the Church is a Mother, this is what makes the Church feminine. For this reason, we cannot find a place for women in the Church without allowing the heart of the Woman and Mother to shine. This is the place of women in the Church, the great place, from which other places, more concrete and less important, are derived. But the Church is Mother, the Church is woman. And since mothers bestow life, and women “keep” the world, let us all make greater efforts to promote mothers and to protect women. How much violence is directed against women! Enough! To hurt a woman is to insult God, who from a woman took on our humanity. He did not do it through an angel; nor did he come directly; he did it through a woman. Like a woman, the Mother Church, takes the humanity of her sons and daughters.
At the beginning of the New Year, then, let us place ourselves under the protection of this woman, the Mother of God, who is also our mother. May she help us to keep and ponder all things, unafraid of trials and with the joyful certainty that the Lord is faithful and can transform every cross into a resurrection. Today too, let us call upon her as did the People of God at Ephesus. Let us stand and, facing Our Lady as did the people of God in Ephesus, let us together repeat three times her title of Mother of God: “Holy Mother of God, Holy Mother of God, Holy Mother of God”! Amen.
TONINO BELLO - Mary, woman of the first glance
RispondiEliminaYes, she was the first to lay eyes on the naked body of God.
And she immediately enveloped him with her gaze.
Even before wrapping him in swaddling clothes.
On the contrary, she immediately covered him in her clothes, almost as if to compress the light of that body and not be blinded by it.
not be blinded by it.
There he was, the long awaited of the nations, lapped by the eyes of Mary, like a trembling lamb
touched by his mother's tongue.
The patriarchs had spied its arrival since the remote centuries. But, while arching
eyebrows, they did not have the joy of seeing him.
The prophets, with vaticinies full of mystery, had drawn his face. But their eyes
But their eyes were closed without being able to gaze at him closely.
The poor had felt a thousand jolts at every flutter of news. But they had to
But they had to be content each time to chase him in their dreams.
In the winter nights the shepherds, in the crackling of the bivouac, spoke of the one who would
come. And their eyes, as they trained to hold the flame of the pruning sheaves,
glittered with fever.
In the spring evenings, full of omens, the fathers pointed out to their children the stars of the
firmament and lulled them with the cadences of ancient elegies: "Oh, if thou wouldst rend the skies
and descend..." Then they too would close their eyelids, tired of peering. The maidens
scented with geraniums and desires, confided to each other naive presentiments of arcane maternity.
of arcane maternity. But in the flashing of the pupils flashed at once the sweetest melancholy
sweet melancholy of those who will never be fulfilled.
Eyes of old people and children. Eyes of exiles and the oppressed. Eyes of the suffering and
dreamers.
How many eyes reached out to him! Yearning for the sight of his face. Disappointed by delays
unforeseen delays. Tired from long vigils. Flaming with sudden hopes. Closed
underground forever, after the last poignant invocation: "Ostende faciem tuam!".
And here he is at last, 1'Emmanuel, wet with the tears of the mother-in-law, that
sparkle like gems at the glow of the lantern.
-->Mary's eyes tremble with love over the body of Jesus. In their depths a long chain of
RispondiEliminaa long chain of unheard glances from the past. In her pupils is concentrated the
trepidation of secular expectations. And in her iris there are suddenly awakened fires that have been dormant under
the ashes of time.
Mary thus becomes the woman of the first glance.
Only a creature like her, on the other hand, could worthily welcome the Son of God on earth.
to the Son of God, caressing him with transparent eyes of holiness.
After her, many others would have the privilege of seeing him. Joseph will see him. The shepherds will see him.
shepherds. Later, Simeon will see him, who will die in peace because his eyes have been able to contemplate the salvation of God.
contemplate God's salvation...
But the first to bind him with the tepid texture of her gaze, in the night scented of
and stable, so that the hay would not sting him and the cold would not freeze him, was she.
Woman of the first glance: chosen, that is, by the eternal centuries to be, after a forest of
of waiting, a limpid riviera bathed by the river of grace.
Holy Mary, woman of the first glance, grant us the grace of amazement. The world has
The world has stolen from us the ability to wince. There is no rapture in our eyes. We are tired of sharpening
We are tired of sharpening our eyesight, because there are no more arrivals in the program. Our souls are as parched as the banks of a
stream without water. The deep layers of wonder have dried up. Victims of boredom
Victims of boredom, we lead a life barren of ecstasy. Only things we have already seen pass before our eyes,
like sequences of a film repeated over and over again.
We miss the hour when the first grape blushes through the vines. We live seasons
without the first fruits of the harvest. In fact, we already know what flavor each fruit holds
under the bark.
You who have experienced the surprises of God, give us back, we pray, the taste of experiences
and do not spare us the joy of decisive encounters that have the flavor of the "first time.
"first time. (D. TONINO BELLO)
->Saint Mary, woman of the first glance, give us the grace of tenderness.
RispondiEliminaYour eyelids, that night, grazed the Lamb laid at your feet with a tepid
shiver of a wing. Ours, on the other hand, rest on things as heavy as stones. They pass
on the skin, rough as store rags. They wound faces, like razor blades.
Your eyes clothed the Son of God with charity. Ours instead, with greed, strip the children of man.
children of man.
At the first contact of your pupils with the source of light, the gazes of past generations were illuminated.
of past generations. When, on the other hand, we open our sockets wide,
we defile even the holiest things and extinguish the gaze of future generations.
You who have always carried in your pristine eyes the reverberations of God's transparency,
help us to experience all the truth of Jesus' words: "The lamp of the body is the eye.
If, therefore, your eye is clear, your whole body will be in the light".
Holy Mary, woman of the first glance, thank you because, bent over that child, you represent us all.
you represent us all.
You are the first creature to have contemplated the flesh of God made man: and we want to
And we want to look out of the window of your eyes to enjoy with you this firstfruits.
But you are also the first creature on earth that God has seen with his eyes of flesh: and
we want to cling to your clothes to share this privilege with you.
Thank you, incomparable friend of our Christmases. Hope of our loneliness. Comfort
of our cold cribs without choirs of angels and without hosts of shepherds.
Forgive us if our gazes stray elsewhere. If we chase other faces. If we run
After other appearances. But you know that in the depths of our soul we are left with the nostalgia of
that look. Indeed, of those looks: yours and his.
And then, a 'look, give us too, mother of mercy. Especially when
we experience that, to love us, you are the only one left.(D.T.B.)
FAUSTS - The center of these first chapters is the "tactile" knowledge of God that Mary has in generating, wrapping and placing her son in the manger. The scene that is given to us to contemplate is the historical fact, unique, that happened two thousand years ago, first narrated, then announced as a sign that gives meaning to the whole story, and finally lived by the shepherds...
RispondiEliminaThrough the story that Mary first told to Luke, the pastor who became the announcer, who transmitted it to us, we too are called to contemplate and touch with her the very Word of Life. Like the first shepherds, we too become heralds of the Word: "A Saviour who is Christ the Lord was born for you today". The same proclamation, from mouth to mouth, through the shepherds who have become evangelists, transmits to us the fulfillment of God's promise.
The today of the birth of the Saviour is realized everywhere it is announced and believed, as with the shepherds who set out on their way to see Him. After the words of the Angel, Heaven is opened and men can attend the heavenly liturgy that takes place over this Child.
To this celestial liturgy, opened by the announcement that gives the interpretation, corresponds a earthly liturgy, of poor people, obedient to the Word, that runs to see a poor child, of whom it believes "what the Lord has notified".
They, after having experienced what has been said to them, in turn announce it.
In these pastors, the first listeners who in turn are proclaimers, the Church appears.
The Church is born from the proclamation, verifies its salvation today and transmits it again to others with the announcement. It is a Church of the poor and the last ones , like the Announced oneself.
By virtue of her faith, she recognizes, proclaims, glorifies and praises God who has revealed Himself in the powerlessness of Jesus. Her condition of limit is surpassed in the transmission by the proclamation, which expands the space of the Community to the ends of the earth and opens the time to eternity.
BENEDICT XVI
RispondiElimina...The song of the Angels, the first evangelists of the Holy Night:" Glory to God in the highest and peace on earth to men who are the objects of His Grace, to men of good will"...Peace on earth, that is the meaning of Christmas.
But the Angels' song precedes something else, which comes first, and without which peace cannot last long: the Glory of God.
The doctrine of the peace of Bethlehem says : the peace of men comes from the Glory of God. Anyone who really wants to care about men and their salvation must first of all care about the Glory of God. Giving glory to God is not a private affair, which everyone can dispose of as he sees fit, but a matter for everyone.
It is a common good, and where God is not honored among men, neither can man long be respected in his dignity.
Christmas therefore has to do with the peace of men, for in it the Glory of God is again proclaimed and restored among men. (Lob der Wethnacht)