VATICAN - Pope Benedict XVI in Bavaria - “Together with the great communion of Saints and at their centre, Mary is still before God to intercede for us, asking her Son to send again His Spirit into the Church and into the world to renew the face of the earth”

Altötting (Agenzia Fides) - Germany’s most popular Marian Shrine Altötting was visited by Pope Benedict XVI on Monday 11 September. After a few moments of prayer in the Chapel of Graces, the Gnadenkapelle (Cappella delle Grazie) the Pope presided an outdoor Mass in front of the church. “In today’s first reading, the psalm and the Gospel we encounter Mary three times in different roles, Mary, the Mother of God, as a person who prays” the Pope said in his homily. The reading from the Acts of the Apostles presented Mary with the Apostles in the Upper Room (“Maria guides the prayer of the fledging Church; she is almost the praying Church in person”), then the Magnificat as the responsorial psalm (“a prayer of thanksgiving, of rejoicing in God, blessing God for his great works”) and thirdly the Wedding Feast at Cana.
Dwelling on the Gospel the Pope highlighted two aspects in the simple words of the Mother of Jesus: “on the one hand her loving concern for people, the maternal love with which she sees the difficult situation of others; we see her warmth and her willingness to help… But in addition to this aspect most familiar to us there is another, which may easily escape us: Mary leaves every decision to the Lord ... This is always her attitude. In this way she teaches us to pray: not to force on God our will and our desires however important and reasonable they may appear but to put them before Him and let him decide what to do.”
In the conversation between Mary and Jesus at Cana, Jesus calls Mary “Woman” not Mother, as we might expect. “This title expresses Mary’s position in the history of salvation -the Pope explained -. It points to the future, to the hour of the crucifixion when Jesus will say to Mary: "Woman behold your son - son, behold your mother!" (cfr Jn 19, 26-27). It anticipates therefore the moment in which He will make the woman, His Mother, mother of all his disciples. On the other hand the title recalls the creation of Eve... So in John’s Gospel Mary represents the new and definitive woman, companion of the Redeemer, our Mother: the apparently unaffectionate way of addressing Mary expresses instead the greatness of her eternal mission”.
The Pope then reflected on two dialogues relative to the Incarnation of Jesus “which go together, and are part of each other”. “First of all Mary’s conversation with the Archangel Gabriel when she says: "Be it done unto me as you have said". But there is a parallel text to this conversation, so to say, within God, to which the Letter to the Hebrews refers when it says that the words of Psalm 40 becomes a conversation between the Father and the Son - a conversation which leads to the incarnation … the Son’s "yes" : "I come to do your will", and the "yes" of Mary: "Let it be done unto me as you have said " - this twofold "yes" becomes one "yes", and so the Word is made flesh in Mary. In this twofold "yes" the obedience of the Son becomes flesh, Mary, with her "yes" gives him a body”.
This explanation helps us to understand the rest of Jesus’ reply: "My hour has not yet come". “Jesus never acts alone; or to please people. He acts from the Father and this unites him with Mary, because there in this unity of will with the Father, she too also placed her request ... Jesus would not work a miracle or use his power in an event which, after all, was private. No, he gives a sign, with which he announces his hour, the hour of the nuptial union, the hour of the union of God and mankind … the hour of the Cross, the hour from which comes the Sacrament in which he truly gives Himself to us in flesh and blood, He places his Body in our hands and in our heart and this is the hour of the wedding … His "hour" is the Cross; his definitive hour will be his coming at the end of time. Continually He anticipates this definitive hour in the Holy Eucharist, in which He is already here. And this He does always through the intercession of his Mother, the intercession of the Church who calls to him in the Eucharistic prayers”.
The Holy Father ended his homily urging the faithful to let themselves be led by Mary to the "hour" of Jesus: “Let us ask him for the gift that we may recognise him and understand him ever more fully. And let us not restrict our receiving Him only to the moment of Communion. He remains present in the Sacred Host always, waiting for us.” At the end of Mass the Pope went in procession to inaugurate a new Blessed Sacrament Chapel inside the Shrine. (S.L.) (Agenzia Fides 12/9/2006 - righe 54, parole 858)