Vatican City, 7 January 2015 (VIS) –
“The first day of the year is the feast day of the Mother of God,
followed by the Epiphany, which recalls the visit of the Magi. The
evangelist Matthew writes, 'And when they were come into the house,
they saw the young child with Mary his mother, and fell down, and
worshipped him'. It was the Mother who, after having generated Him,
who presents the Son to the world. She gives us Jesus, she shows
Jesus to us”. With these words Pope Francis began the first
catechesis of the Wednesday morning general audiences of 2015, which
he dedicated to the figure of the mother, both in the family and in
the Christian community.
“Every human being owes his or her
life to a mother, and almost always owes much of his or her
subsequent existence, human and spiritual formation, to her”,
affirmed the Pope. “However, although the mother is highly exalted
from a symbolic point of view, she is listened to and helped very
little in daily life, and her central role in society is not given
much consideration. On the contrary, often the willingness of mothers
to sacrifice themselves for their children is exploited in order to
save on social expenditure”.
Even in the Christian community, the
mother is not always given due consideration. “Yet at the centre of
the life of the Church there is the Mother of Jesus. … It is
necessary to better understand their daily struggle to be efficient
at work and attentive and affectionate at home; we must better
understand what they aspire to in order to express the best and most
authentic results of their emancipation”.
Mothers are “the strongest antidote
to individualism. … They are those who most hate war, which kills
their children. They bear witness to the beauty of life. Archbishop
Oscar Arnulfo Romero said that mothers live a 'maternal martyrdom'.
In his homily at the funeral of a priest killed by death squads, he
said, echoing Vatican Council II, 'We must all be willing to die for
our faith, even if the Lord does not grant us this honour... Giving
life does not only mean being killed; giving life, having the spirit
of martyrdom, is giving in duty, in silence, in prayer, in the honest
fulfilment of one's duty; in that silence of everyday life, giving
life a little at a time. Yes, as it is given by a mother, who without
fear, with the simplicity of maternal martyrdom, conceives a child in
her womb, gives him life, nurses him, nurtures him and cares for him
with affection. It is giving life. It is martyrdom'. Yes, being a
mother does not mean merely bringing a child into the world, but it
is also a choice of life, the decision to give life”.
“A society without mothers would be
an inhuman society, as mothers always know how to show tenderness,
devotion and moral strength, even in the moments of greatest
difficulty. Mothers often also transmit the deepest sense of
religious practice. … It is a message that mothers who believe know
how to transmit without much explanation; this arrives later, but the
seed of faith is planted in those first precious moments. Without
mothers … faith would lose a good part of its simple, profound
warmth”.
“And the Church is a mother”,
exclaimed the Pope. “We are not orphans; we are children, we have a
mother – the Virgin, the mother Church and our mother. We are not
orphans, we are children of the Church, we are the children of Mary
and of our mother. Thank you, dear mothers, for what you are in the
family and for what you give to the Church and to the world. And to
you, our beloved Church, thank you for being a mother. And to you,
Mary, mother of God, thank you for presenting us to Jesus”.
Following the catechesis, the Holy
Father greeted, among others, a delegation of French imams engaged in
dialogue between Islam and Christianity, and a group of Polish
survivors of the Auschwitz concentration camp, freed seventy years
ago.
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