Vatican
City, 22 November 2013 (VIS) – Yesterday afternoon the Pope visited
the Benedictine Camaldolese Monastery of Sant’Antonio Abate on the
Roman Aventine Hill, on the occasion of the World Day of
Contemplative Life and the Year of Faith, which is drawing to a
close. The Bishop of Rome was received by the abbess, Sister Michella
Porcellato, and entered the Church where the twenty-one sisters of
the community awaited him. He presided the Vespers, following the
Camaldolese rite, and following a brief eucharistic adoration, he
pronounced a homily, ample extracts of which we publish below.
“Mary
is the mother of hope, the most expressive icon of Christian hope.
Her entire life was a succession of attitudes of hope, beginning with
her 'yes' at the moment of the Annunciation. … Then, in Bethlehem,
where He Who was announced to her as the Saviour of Israel and as the
Messiah was born into poverty. Subsequently, when she presented Him
at the temple in Jerusalem, alongside the joy of Simeon and Anna
there was also the promise of the sword that would pierce her heart,
and the prophecy of a sign of contradiction”.
“Mary
is aware that the mission and the very identity of her Son overshadow
the fact of her being His mother. … Yet, before all the
difficulties and surprises of God's plan, the Virgin's hope never
falters! She is a woman of hope. This shows us that hope is nurtured
by listening, contemplation, and patience, for the Lord's time to
come. … With the beginning of His public life, Jesus becomes the
Master and the Messiah: the Virgin looks upon her Son's mission with
elation but also with apprehension, as Jesus increasingly becomes
that sign of contradiction that the elderly Simeon had prophesied. At
the foot of the Cross, she experiences suffering but at the same time
watchfully awaits a mysterious event, greater than pain, that is
about to take place. Everything truly appears to have finished; every
hope could be said to have been extinguished. She, too, in that
moment, recollecting the promises of the Annunciation, could have
said: they did not come true, I was deceived. But she did not say
this. Blessed because she believed, from this faith of hers she sees
a new future unfold, and with awaits God's new day”.
“At
times I think: do we know how to await God's new day? Or do we want
it all today? God's tomorrow is for her the dawn of Easter morning. …
The only light burning at Jesus' tomb is the hope of His mother,
which in that moment is the hope of all humanity. I ask myself, and
you: in the monasteries, is that light still burning? In monasteries,
do you await God's tomorrow?”
“In
Mary, present in every moment of the history of salvation, we see a
solid testimony of hope. She, the mother of hope, supports us in our
moments of darkness, of difficulty, of discomfort, of apparent defeat
or real human defeats”.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment