Information service of the Pontifical Mission Societies since 1927
Vatican City (Agenzia Fides) - On the feast of the Immaculate Conception December 8 1965 in Saint Peter’s basilica as he solemnly closed the Second Vatican Council Pope Paul VI declared the Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of the Church. Forty years to the day and again in St Peter’s the Holy Father Pope Benedict XVI wished to commemorate that important event by presiding a Mass. “A Marian frame surrounds the Council. In actual fact it is much more than a frame: it is an orientation for its whole path- the Holy Father said in his homily -. Mary has not only a singular relationship with Christ, the Son of God who as man chose to be her son. Totally united with Christ, she is also totally ours. Yes, we can say that Mary is closer to us than any other human person… This is what the Council intended to tell us: Mary is so interwoven with the great mystery of the Church that she and the Church are inseparable just as she and Christ are inseparable. Mary mirrors the Church, she foreshadows the Church in her person and in all the troubles which afflict the Church as she suffers and struggles, Mary is always the star of salvation … In Mary, Immaculate, we encounter the essence of the Church undefiled. We must learn from Mary to be “ecclesial souls” as the Father said, so we too, according to the words of St Paul, may present ourselves to the Lord "immaculate" as he wished us to be from the beginning”.
The Holy Father then explained the meaning of “Mary Immaculate”, recalling two images proposed by the liturgical readings. The first speaks of the annunciation “it shows Mary a humble provincial woman of priestly lineage who bears within herself the great priestly heritage of Israel, she is "the holy remnant" of Israel to whom all the prophets referred in times of travail and darkness. In her is present the true and undefiled Sion, the living dwelling place of God. God lives in her and finds in her his place of repose … Mary is holy Israel; she says "yes" to the Lord putting herself completely at his disposal; and so becomes God’s living temple”. The second image from the Book of Genesis is more complex: “It is foretold that all through history the battle will continue between man and the serpent that is between man and the power of evil and death. However it is also pre-announced that the "lineage" of the woman one day will win, crushing the head of the serpent, and death; it is pre-announced that the offspring of the woman - and in the offspring the woman and the mother - will win and thus, through mankind, God will win”.
The picture presented shows that “mankind does not trust God. We suspect that in the end God takes something away from life, that God is a rival who restricts our freedom and that we can only fully be human beings if we put God aside” the Holy Father said. “God’s will for us is not a law imposed which forces us, it is the intrinsic measure of our human nature, a measure inscribed with us which makes us images of God and thus free creatures. If we live against love and against truth - against God - we destroy each other and the world … This is described with immortal images in the story of the original fall when mankind was banished from the earthly paradise.”
That story describes the whole of history the Holy Father said, “we bear within us a drop of poison of the manner of thinking illustrated in the images of the Book of Genesis. We call that drop of poison original sin. Precisely on the feast of the Immaculate Conception we are tempted to think that a person who never sins is in the end rather boring; for that person something is missing in life: the dramatic dimension of being independent; that it is part of being human to have the freedom to say no … In a word, we think that in the end evil is good, that we need at least a little evil to experience being to the full… But looking around us we see it is not so, evil always poisons, it does not raise up, it lowers and humiliates, it does not make us greater, purer, richer, it damages us makes us smaller. This is what we should realise on the feast day of Immaculate Conception: if we abandon ourselves totally into the hands of God we do not become puppets of God, boring and consenting people; we do not lose our freedom. Indeed only if we trust ourselves entirely to God can we find true freedom, the vast and creative freedom of goodness.”
“The closer we are to God, the closer we are to one another. We see this in Maria. That fact that she is totally with God is the reason why she is so close to us” the Holy Father said and concluded by urging those present to consider Mary “Mother of all consolation and help, a Mother to whom we all, in our weakness and sin, can turn in any necessity”, a light on our path “may she help us to be light and to carry this light in the nights of history”. (S.L.) (Agenzia Fides 9/12/2005, righe 55, parole 884)
