Mary Teaches us to Treasure the Word of God: Pope

Vatican City, 08 June 2013. Like Mary, we must learn to receive and keep the Word of God, asking ourselves what it is saying to us "right now" in our lives, said Pope Francis in his homily during the Mass he celebrated on Saturday morning marking the feast of the Immaculate Heart of the Blessed Virgin Mary at Santa Marta’s Residence in the Vatican. The Pope pointed out that Mary assimilated the Word of God into her life by meditating and pondering over it. A group of employees of Caritas Internationalis, accompanied by its secretary general, Michel Roy, took part in the Mass.

Pope Francis focused on the themes ‘Astonishment and safekeeping’ in his homily, basing on the day’s Gospel, which recounts the astonishment of the teachers in the Temple listening to Jesus and Mary’s keeping the Word of God safe in her heart. Astonishment, the Pope observed, "is more than joy: it is a moment in which the Word of God comes, is sown in our hearts." But, he warned, "we cannot always live in wonder", this should be “kept in our hearts” throughout our lives. And this is precisely what Mary does, when she is "astonished" and keeps the "Word of God" in her heart:

"Keeping the Word of God: what does this mean? I receive the Word, and then I take a bottle, I put the word in the bottle and I keep it? No. Keeping the Word of God means that our heart opens, it is open to that Word just like the earth opens to receive the seed. The Word of God is a seed and is sown. And Jesus told us what happens with the seeds: some fall along the path, and the birds come and eat them; this word is not kept, these hearts do not know how to receive it”.

Others, he said, fall into a stony soil and the seed dies. Jesus says that they "do not know how to keep the Word of God because they are not constant: When a tribulation comes they forget." The Pope repeated that the Word of God falls into a soil that is unprepared, not kept, full of thorns. And what are the thorns? Jesus pointed them out, when He speaks of '"attachment to riches, vices”. Pope Francis said “keeping the Word of God means constantly meditating on what this Word says to us and what happens in our life." And this “is what Mary did”, she “pondered and questioned” it. This, said Pope Francis, "is a truly great spiritual work":

“John Paul II said that, because of this work, Mary had a particular heaviness in her heart, she had a fatigued heart. But this is not the same as tired, it is fatigue, this comes from effort. This is the effort of keeping the Word of God: the work of trying to find what this means at this moment, what the Lord wants to say to me at this time, this situation of questioning the (meaning of) the Word of God is how we understand. This is reading our life with the Word of God and this it means to keep".
Pope Francis added that memory also safeguards God's Word. “It helps us to preserve it, to remember everything the Lord has done in my life". He continued : “it reminds us of all the wonders of salvation in His people and in my heart. Memory safeguards the Word of God." The Pope concluded his homily urging everyone to think "about how to keep the Word of God in our hearts, how to safeguard this astonishment, so that it is not eaten by the birds, suffocated by vices".Source: VR Sedoc