"The Shadow" which covers the Virgin is the silence in which her relationship with God grows. This guarantees fruitfulness and hope, even in the darkest moments . The silence of Mary at the foot of the Cross.

Vatican City ( AsiaNews) - The mystery of our relationship with God must be guarded with silence, far from being publicized. For this we need to follow the example of Mary "icon of silence." These are the two fundamental themes that Pope Francis addressed this morning in his homily during Mass at Casa Santa Marta , commenting on today's Gospel of the Annunciation (Luke 1: 26-38 ) .

In the passage, the angel assures the Virgin that " the Most High will cover you with His shadow" and the Pope - as reported by Vatican Radio - recalls that the shadow of cloud is the same substance with which God had protected the Hebrews in the desert.

"The Lord - said the pope - The Lord always took care of the mystery and hid the mystery. He did not publicize the mystery. A mystery that publicizes itself is not Christian; it is not the mystery of God: it is a fake mystery! And this is what happened to Our Lady, when she received her Son: the mystery of her virginal motherhood is hidden. It is hidden her whole life! And she knew it. This shadow of God in our lives helps us to discover our own mystery: the mystery of our encounter with the Lord, our mystery of our life's journey with the Lord".

He continued: "This cloud in us, in our lives is called silence: the silence is exactly the cloud that covers the mystery of our relationship with the Lord, of our holiness and of our sins. This mystery that we cannot explain. But when there is no silence in our lives, the mystery is lost, it goes away. Guarding the mystery with silence! That is the cloud, that is the power of God for us, that is the strength of the Holy Spirit"

Mary, he said, is " the perfect icon of silence ... how many times she remained quiet and how many times she did not say that which she felt in order to guard the mystery of her relationship with her Son," up until the most raw silence "at the foot of the cross"

"The Gospel does not tell us anything: if she spoke a word or not... She was silent, but in her heart, how many things told the Lord! 'You, that day, this and the other that we read, you had told me that he would be great, you had told me that you would have given him the throne of David, his forefather, that he would have reigned forever and now I see him there!' Our Lady was human! And perhaps she even had the desire to say: 'Lies! I was deceived!' John Paul II would say this, speaking about Our Lady in that moment. But she, with her silence, hid the mystery that she did not understand and with this silence allowed for this mystery to grow and blossom in hope".

He concluded, "Silence is that which guards the mystery," for which the mystery "of our relationship with God, of our journey, of our salvation cannot be... publicized". "May the Lord give all of us the grace to love silence, to seek it and to have a heart that is guarded by the cloud of silence".

 

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