“Let us not forget the countries at war”. Pope Francis concluded Wednesday’s general audience in St Peter’s Square with a renewed appeal for peace, as he addressed the Italian-speaking faithful. “The battered Ukraine is suffering, let us not forget Ukraine!” Francis exclaimed. “Let us not forget Palestine, Israel, Myanmar and so many nations at war.” “Let us not forget that group of Palestinians who were machine-gunned, innocent people.” The Pope repeated: “Let us pray for peace, there is a great need for peace!”
“In the Catholic tradition there is a motto, a saying, that is, ‘to Jesus by means of Mary’”,
the Pope said in his catechesis for the general audience, dedicated to the relationship between Mary and the Holy Spirit. “The Blessed Mother shows us Jesus. She always opens the doors for us!”, Francis said in unscripted remarks: “The Holy Virgin is the mother who takes us by the hand towards Jesus. Our Lady never refers to herself, she indicates Jesus. And that is Marian piety.” “Mary, as the first disciple and figure of the Church, “is herself a ‘letter’ written with the Spirit of the living God.” the Pope explained: “Precisely for this reason she can be ‘known and read’ by all, even by those who do not know how to read theology books, those ‘little ones’ to whom Jesus says that the mysteries of the Kingdom, hidden from the wise and learned, are revealed.” “Mary offers herself to God as a blank page upon which He can write whatever He wants”, Francis remarked: “Mary’s ‘Yes,’ to the angel – as a renowned exegete wrote – represents the pinnacle of every religious attitude before God, for she expresses, in the highest manner, passive availability united with active readiness, the deepest emptiness accompanied by the greatest fullness’. This is how the Mother of God is an instrument of the Holy Spirit in His work of sanctification.”
“Amid the endless profusion of words spoken and written about God, the Church, and holiness – which very few, if any, are able to read and understand in their entirety – the Holy Virgin suggests two words that everyone can say on any occasion: “Behold” and “let it be done”,
is the image chosen by the Pope. “Mary is the one who said Yes to the Lord, and through her example and intercession urges us to say ‘Yes’ to Him too, whenever we are faced with an act of obedience to perform or a trial to be surmounted,” continued the Pope, for whom “At this time, and indeed in every epoch of her history, the Church faces a situation analogous to that of the Christian community following the Ascension of Jesus. It is incumbent upon her to preach the Gospel to all nations, but she awaits an infusion of fortitude from on high to do so.” Referring to Pentecost, when the disciples gathered around the mother of Jesus, the Pope said that the Blessed Mother and the Holy Spirit “are united by a unique, eternal and indestructible bond: the person of Christ, conceived by the Holy Spirit in the Virgin Mary’s womb, as we recite in the Creed.” “Luke the Evangelist deliberately highlights the correlation between the coming of the Holy Spirit upon Mary in the Annunciation and His coming upon the disciples at Pentecost, using some identical expressions in both cases,” he pointed out. The Pope went on to quote from a prayer by St Francis of Assisi to the Blessed Virgin Mary: “Daughter and handmaid of the Heavenly Father, the Almighty King, Mother of our Most High Lord Jesus Christ, and Spouse of the Holy Spirit.” “Daughter of the Father, Spouse of the Holy Spirit!” the Pope exclaimed. “The unique relationship between Mary and the Trinity could not be illustrated in simpler words” Mary “is the bride, but before that, she is the disciple of the Holy Spirit”, concluded the Holy Father: “Let us learn from her to be docile to the inspirations of the Spirit, especially when He suggests to us to ‘arise in haste’ and go to help someone who needs us, as she did straight after the angel left her.”
