Pope: Mothers' love, path to peace
Francis' words on the first day of the year when the Church celebrates the World Day of Peace on the feast of Mary Mother of God. "He who wounds a single woman profanes God, born of woman". "Love breaks down barriers and helps to live fraternal relationships, to build more just and humane, more peaceful societies".
Vatican City (AsiaNews) - "At the beginning of the new year we look to Mary and, with a grateful heart, we also think and look at mothers, to learn that love that is cultivated above all in silence, which knows how to make room for the other, respecting dignity, leaving the freedom of self expression, rejecting every form of possession, oppression and violence".
This is the message that Pope Francis addressed today to the faithful gathered in St. Peter's Square for the Angelus on this day in which the Church celebrates the World Day of Peace, on the liturgical feast of Mary Mother of God.
The ability to love in silence is the trait of the Madonna underlined by the pontiff in this time so marked by the din of hatred and weapons. “It is not a simple absence of words, but a silence filled with amazement and adoration for the wonders that God is working,” he observed.
However, the silence of the Mother is also many times "the silence of our mothers, with their hidden care, with their concern, they are often magnificent cathedrals of silence. They bring us into the world and then continue to follow us, often unnoticed, so that we can grow."
"Freedom and peaceful coexistence - he said, quoting his message for this year's World Day of Peace - are threatened when human beings give in to the temptation of selfishness, self-interest, the desire for profit and the thirst of power. Love, on the other hand, is made of respect and kindness: in this way it breaks down barriers and helps to live fraternal relationships, to build more just and humane, more peaceful societies. Let us pray to the Mother of God and our Mother - ha concluded - because in the new year we can grow in this gentle, silent and discreet love that generates life, and open paths of peace and reconciliation in the world".
In his homily during Mass earlier this morning in St. Peter's Basilica Francis noted how beautiful it is that the year opens by joyfully proclaiming the Holy Mother of God: "The words Mother of God in fact express the joyful certainty that the Lord, tender baby in his mother's arms, he has forever joined our humanity, to the point that it is no longer just ours, but his. Mother of God: it is a dogma of faith, but it is also a 'dogma of hope': God in man and man in God, forever."
“The Church needs Mary – the pontiff said – to rediscover her own feminine face: to be more like her who, as a woman, Virgin and Mother, represents her model and perfect figure; to make space for women and be generative through a pastoral care made of care and concern, patience and maternal courage. But the world also needs to look to mothers and women to find peace, to escape from the spirals of violence and hatred, and return to having human gazes and hearts that see. And every society needs to welcome the gift of the woman, of every woman: to respect her, protect her, value her, knowing that whoever hurts a single woman profanes God, born of a woman".
“Brothers, sisters, we all have shortcomings, solitudes, gaps that ask to be filled – added the Pope -. Each of us knows our own. Who can fill them if not Mary, Mother of fullness? When we are tempted to close in on ourselves, we go to her; when we can't untangle ourselves from the knots of life, we seek refuge in her. Our times, empty of peace, need a Mother who brings the human family back together. Let us look to Mary to become builders of unity, and let us do it with her creativity as her Mother, who takes care of her children: she gathers them and consoles them, listens to their sorrows and dries their tears".
“Let us entrust the new year to the Mother of God - concluded Francis -. Let us consecrate our lives to her. She, with tenderness, will be able to reveal its fullness. Because she will lead us to Jesus and Jesus is the fullness of time, of all time, of our time, of the time of each of us."
At the end of the Angelus you finally launched an appeal for Nicaragua "where bishops and priests have been deprived of their freedom" in the harsh clash that the local government has been pursuing against the Catholic Church for months.
"I hope that we always seek the path of dialogue to overcome difficulties". He also remembered on this day the tormented Ukraine, the populations of Israel and Palestine and all countries afflicted by war. "May it be a year in which every day we work to build peace", he concluded.
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