“To celebrate Mary as Mother of God and our mother at the beginning of the new year means recalling a certainty that will accompany our days: we are a people with a Mother; we are not orphans.” (Pope Francis, New Year 2017 homily)
On Jan. 1, Pope Francis reminded us that Mary, the Mother of God, is a vital guide for all times. Our Holy Father focused on our mother Mary’s qualities as vital resources for our mission as church.
“Mary gave us a mother’s warmth, the warmth that shelters us amid troubles, the maternal warmth that keeps anything or anyone from extinguishing in the heart of the church the revolution of tenderness inaugurated by her Son. Where there is a mother, there is tenderness. By her motherhood, Mary shows us that humility and tenderness are not virtues of the weak but of the strong. She teaches us that we do not have to mistreat others in order to feel important (cf. Evangelii Gaudium, 288).
Pope Francis points out that our mother Mary can be especially helpful during difficult times and for all mercy ministries at the local or global level.
“Mothers are the strongest antidote to our individualistic and egotistic tendencies, to our lack of openness and our indifference. A society without mothers would not only be a cold society, but a society that has lost its heart, lost the ‘feel of home’ … Mothers, even at the worst times, are capable of testifying to tenderness, unconditional self-sacrifice and the strength of hope. I have learned much from those mothers whose children are in prison, or lying in hospital beds, or in bondage to drugs, yet, come cold or heat, rain or draught, never stop fighting for what is best for them. Or those mothers who in refugee camps, or even the midst of war, unfailingly embrace and support their children’s sufferings — mothers who literally give their lives so that none of their children will perish. Where there is a mother, there is belonging, belonging as children.”
These reflections of our Holy Father on Mary, Mother of God, are a hopeful message not only at the beginning, but throughout this year and all years to come. As Pope Francis’s New Year’s sermon said,
“Celebrating the feast of the Holy Mother of God makes us smile once more as we realize that we are a people, that we belong, that only within a community, within a family, can we as persons find the ‘climate,’ the ‘warmth’ that enables us to grow in humanity and not merely as objects meant to consume and be consumed. … Celebrating the Holy Mother of God leads us to create and care for common places that can give us a sense of belonging, of being rooted, of feeling at home in our cities, in communities that unite and support us (cf. Laudato Si’, 151).”
Let us ask Mary, the Mother of God, to help us live our faith through the way we “walk our talk” this year by following her example of “tenderness, self sacrifice and strength of hope.” Mahalo.
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