Meditation

The shepherds found “Mary and Joseph, with the baby lying in the manger” (Lk 2:16). The manger was a joyful sign for the shepherds: it confirmed what they had learned from the angel (cf. v. 12), it was the place where they found the Savior. And it was also proof that God was with them: he was born in a manger, an object they knew well. He thus showed that he was close and familiar. But the manger was a joyful sign for us too: Jesus touched our hearts by being born small and poor; he instilled in us love rather than fear. The manger announced to us in advance that he would become food for us. And his poverty was good news for everyone, especially for those on the margins, for the rejected, for those who didn't count in the eyes of the world. God came there: no privileged path, not even a cradle! That is the beauty of seeing him lying in a manger.

But for Mary, the Holy Mother of God, it was not so. She had to endure "the scandal of the manger." She too, long before the shepherds, had received the announcement from an angel who spoke solemn words to her, evoking the throne of David: "You will conceive and give birth to a son, and you will name him Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David" (Luke 1:31-32). And now she had to lay him in an animal manger. How could she reconcile the throne of the king with the humble manger? How could she reconcile the glory of the Most High with the misery of a stable? Let us consider the distress of the Mother of God. What could be harder for a mother than to see her child suffer in poverty? It is enough to make anyone feel discouraged. One could not blame Mary for lamenting all this unexpected desolation. But she does not get discouraged. She does not pour out her feelings but remains silent. She chooses an attitude other than complaining: "Mary, however," the Gospel tells us, "treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart" (Lk 2:19).

This is a different way of doing things from that of the shepherds and the people. They tell everyone what they saw: the angel who appeared in the middle of the night, his words about the Child. And the people, hearing these things, are filled with wonder (cf. v. 18): words and wonder. Mary, on the other hand, seems thoughtful. She keeps it to herself and meditates on it. These are two different attitudes that we can also find within ourselves. The shepherds' story and wonder recall the condition of beginnings in faith. There, everything is easy and straightforward; one rejoices in the newness of God who enters life, bringing with him, in all its dimensions, an air of wonder. On the contrary, Mary's meditative attitude is the expression of a mature, adult faith, not that of beginnings. A faith that is not newly born, a faith that has become generative. Because spiritual fruitfulness comes through trial. From the tranquility of Nazareth and the triumphant promises received from the angel—in the beginning—Mary now finds herself in the dark stable of Bethlehem. But it is there that she gives God to the world. And while others, faced with the scandal of the manger, would have been overcome with discouragement, she was not: she perseveres through meditation.

Let us learn this attitude from the Mother of God: to preserve through meditation. Because we too sometimes have to experience certain "scandals at the manger." We expect everything to go well, and then, like a bolt from the blue, a problem suddenly arises. And a painful clash occurs between expectations and reality. This also happens in faith, when the joy of the Gospel is tested by a difficult situation we are going through. But today, the Mother of God teaches us to benefit from this shock. She shows us that it is necessary, that it is the narrow path to reach the goal, the cross without which we cannot rise again. It is like a painful birth that gives life to a more mature faith.

I ask myself, brothers and sisters, how to make this transition, how to overcome the clash between the ideal and reality? By doing, precisely, as Mary did: by preserving and meditating. Above all, Mary preserves, that is to say, she does not scatter. She does not reject what happens. She keeps everything in her heart, everything she has seen and heard. The beautiful things, like what the angel had told her and what the shepherds had recounted. But also the things difficult to accept: the danger of having become pregnant before marriage, now the heartbreaking anguish of the stable where she gave birth. This is what Mary does: she does not select, but she preserves. She welcomes reality as it comes; she does not seek to conceal or falsify life; she preserves it in her heart.

And then there is the second attitude: How does Mary preserve? She preserves by meditating. The verb used in the Gospel evokes the intertwining of things: Mary confronts different experiences, finding the hidden threads that bind them. In her heart, in her prayer, she accomplishes this extraordinary operation: she binds things beautiful and bad; she does not separate them, but unites them. And this is why Mary is the Mother of Catholicism. We can, perhaps stretching the language, say that this is why Mary is Catholic, because she unites, she does not separate. And thus she grasps its full meaning, God's perspective. In her mother's heart, she understands that the glory of the Most High comes through humility; she accepts the plan of salvation, according to which God was to be laid in a manger. She sees the fragile and trembling divine Child, and welcomes the marvelous divine intertwining of grandeur and smallness. This is how Mary preserves, by meditating.

This inclusive gaze, which transcends tensions by holding onto them and meditating in the heart, is the gaze of mothers who do not separate themselves in times of tension; they hold onto them, and thus life grows. It is the gaze with which so many mothers embrace their children's situations. It is a concrete gaze, one that does not succumb to discouragement, that is not paralyzed by problems, but that places them within a broader horizon. And Mary moves forward in this way, even to Calvary, meditating and holding onto them; she holds onto them and meditates. The faces of mothers caring for a sick or struggling child come to mind. How much love there is in their eyes, which, even in their tears, know how to instill reasons for hope! Their gaze is conscious, without illusions, but beyond the pain and the problems, it offers a broader perspective: that of care, of love that regenerates hope. This is what mothers do: they know how to overcome obstacles and conflicts, they know how to instill peace. They succeed in transforming adversity into opportunities for rebirth, into opportunities for growth. They do this because they know how to preserve. Mothers know how to preserve; they know how to hold together all the threads of life. We need people capable of weaving threads of communion to counter the many barbed wires of division. And this, mothers know how to do.

The new year begins under the sign of the Holy Mother of God, under the sign of the mother. The maternal gaze is the path to rebirth and growth. Mothers, women, look at the world not to exploit it, but so that it may have life: by looking with their hearts, they manage to hold together dreams and reality, avoiding the pitfalls of sterile pragmatism and abstraction. And the Church is a mother, she is a mother in this way; the Church is a woman, she is a woman in this way. This is why we cannot find the place of women in the Church without considering her in her heart as a woman-mother. This is the place of women in the Church, the great place from which the other, more concrete, secondary places derive. But the Church is a mother, the Church is a woman. And while mothers give life and women preserve the world, let us all strive to promote mothers and protect women. How much violence there is against women! Enough! To harm a woman is to outrage God, who took humanity from a woman, not an angel, not directly, but from a woman. Just as the Church, being a woman, takes the humanity of children from a woman.

At the beginning of the new year, let us place ourselves under the protection of this woman, the Holy Mother of God, who is our mother. May she help us to cherish and meditate on all things, without fearing trials, in the joyful certainty that the Lord is faithful and that He knows how to transform crosses into resurrections. Today, let us again invoke her as the People of God did at Ephesus. Let us all stand, look upon the Virgin, and, as the People of God did at Ephesus, repeat three times her title of Mother of God. All together: “Holy Mother of God, Holy Mother of God, Holy Mother of God!” Amen.

MASS ON THE SOLEMNITY OF MARY MOTHER OF GOD

55th WORLD DAY OF PEACE

HOMILY OF POPE FRANCIS

Saint Peter's Basilica

Saturday, January 1, 2022

_________________________