AUDIENCE: GOD IS THE JOY AND HOPE OF THE LOWLY

VATICAN CITY, MAR 20, 2002 (VIS) - In this Wednesday's general audience, celebrated in St. Peter's Square, John Paul II spoke about the first book of Samuel, in which a sterile woman, Anna, gives birth to Samuel by the grace of God and sings a canticle of thanksgiving to the Lord after offering Him her son.

Mary, who "while remaining a virgin, begets a child by the work of the Holy Spirit", will make Anna's canticle of thanksgiving her own. This is why it is called the "Magnificat of the Old Testament," he said.

The Pope explained that in the hymn, there are two themes which are worth highlighting. "The first theme will be dominant in Mary's Magnificat and this is the change of destiny affected by God. The strong are humiliated, the weak 'invested with strength'; the satiated go in desperate search of food'. ... It is a profession of faith made by the two mothers in relation to the Lord of history, Who comes to the defense of the least, of the miserable and unhappy, and of the offended and humiliated."

"The other theme which we wish to emphasize," he concluded, "is also related to the figure of Anna; 'The sterile woman gives birth seven times, while the mother of many children withers away'. The Lord, Who changes destinies, is the same Lord Who is at the root of life and death. ... A horizon, almost 'paschal', of resurrection is opened up. Isaias will sing: 'Your dead will live again, your bodies will come back to life, those who dwell in dust will awake and give cries of joy; because the luminous dew is your dew, and the earth will cast shadows from its bosom.'"

After the audience, as he greeted the Italian-speaking pilgrims who were present, the Holy Father recalled professor and economist Marco Biagi, "cruelly murdered yesterday in Bologna outside his house, upon returning to work. While I express my spiritual closeness to the family in this moment of tragic sorrow, I elevate my prayer for the repose of the soul of the deceased. In firmly deploring this new manifestation of senseless violence, I hope that a climate of understanding is created among the social parties in the dear nation of Italy, for a peaceful solution to the present problems."

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