VATICAN - AVE MARIA : “Mary in the Heart of every Christian” Rev Luciano Alimandi -

Wednesday, 17 January 2007

Vatican City (Agenzia Fides) - The presence of the Mother of God in our lives is closely connected with the plan for sanctification and transformation which the Father, in Christ, has for each of us. Christ’s words “Behold your mother” (Jn 19, 27) are also the words of the Father consigned with the Holy Spirit to every disciple.
The Blessed Virgin Mother has at heart our conversion which naturally depends on a life of prayer which opens us to charity. As at Cana, Mary intercedes for us as an Advocate of grace. In the light of this episode like the servants we must be willing to serve: we must bring our water to Jesus that He may change it into wine. It is our nothingness, our poor humanity which becomes “other”, richness of God multiplied to superabundance by his almighty hand.
To change water into wine is not human it is divine. As at Cana, for this “transforming miracle” to occur in our life the presence of the Mother of Jesus is necessary. Mary was given to us to welcome her into our heart like the beloved disciple who took her into his home (cfr. Jn 19, 27b). Without this, conscious, personal and growing presence of the Mother of the Redeemer in our lives there can be no “miracle of Cana”, total conversion to the Lord. The new wine, the best wine, which gives a radically different taste to life, will only come if we accept her intercession and do as Jesus tells us, doing it with Mary who teaches us to have, as she did, full confidence in his Word. Only then can we hear the whisper which illuminates our heart with Mary’s legacy: “do whatever He tells you to do”.
Discreet and hidden, yet “powerful” is Mary’s presence on the Heart of God in the “home” of every believer. This was experienced by the Church from the beginning: Peter and the others at Cana experienced the concern and love of that gaze and those mysterious words (cfr. Jn 2, 3-5), between Christ and his Mother; the apostles were aware of that perfect understanding, that space of maternal mediation and never forgot its power. They were both witnesses and guardians of an Event which the Church continues to experience through the centuries: Mary’s “powerful intercession”, her maternal mediation, which becomes unceasing prayer for all our needs and everything obtains for us, and more than anything, our authentic conversion, the greatest miracle of our life, the most pleasing to God!
Mary’s maternity for every human person is an essential part of Christianity which comes from the Heart of the Son who confirmed it at the apex of the Redemption when, nailed to the Cross with his last energy he cried out from his soul: “Behold your mother”, and we, represented by John, are called to reply “here I am Mother, I am yours”! In his historic comment on the Gospel according to John Origin writes an unforgettable page on the filial relationship with Jesus and Mary of the beloved disciple and of every authentic Christian:
«The first of all the Scriptures are the Gospels, but the first of the Gospels is that of John. It can be understood only by one who has rested on the breast of Jesus and received from Jesus, Mary to be his mother. So must we become if we wish to be another John whom - as with John - Jesus can declare to be Jesus. If in fact… only Jesus is the son of Mary, and Jesus says to his Mother: “Behold your son”, it is as if he were saying: “Behold Jesus whom you generated”. Since the perfect Christian lives no longer, Christ lives in him; and if Christ lives in him, of every perfect Christian we can say: “Behold Christ your son”».
Referring to Mary’s singular maternity in his homily during Mass for the Solemnity of the Feast of Mary, Mother of God, Pope Benedict XVI: “As Mother of Christ, Mary is also Mother of the Church, which my venerable Predecessor, the Servant of God Paul VI chose to proclaim on 21 November 1964 at the Second Vatican Council. Lastly, Mary is the Spiritual Mother of all humanity, because Jesus on the Cross shed his blood for all of us and from the Cross he entrusted us all to her maternal care.” (1st January 2007). (Agenzia Fides 17/1/2007, righe 50, parole 754)


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