(Vatican Radio) A Marian prayer vigil was held on Saturday evening in St. Peter's
Square, with a special catechesis by Pope Francis. The statue of Our Lady of Fatima
from the Portuguese shrine was flown to Rome for the event. The Pope was scheduled
to consecrate the world to Our Lady during a Mass on Sunday.
His prepared
catechesis is re-produced below.
Catechesis of the Holy
Father “The Faith of Mary” Marian Vigil (Saturday, 12
October 2013)
Dear Brothers and Sisters,
We are all gathered
for this event of the Year of Faith devoted to Mary, Mother of Christ and of the Church,
our Mother. The statue of Our Lady, which has come from Fatima, helps us to feel
her presence in our midst. Mary always brings us to Jesus. She is a woman of faith,
a true believer. What was Mary’s faith like?
1. The first aspect of her faith
is this: Mary’s faith unties the knot of sin (cf. Lumen Gentium, 56). What does that
mean? The Fathers of the Second Vatican Council took up a phrase of Saint Irenaeus,
who states that “the knot of Eve’s disobedience was untied by the obedience of Mary;
what the virgin Eve bound by her unbelief, the Virgin Mary loosened by her faith”
(Adversus Haereses, III, 22, 4).
The “knot” of disobedience, the “knot” of
unbelief. When children disobey their parents, we can say that a little “knot” is
created. This happens if the child acts with an awareness of what he or she is doing,
especially if there is a lie involved. At that moment, they break trust with their
parents. How often does this happen! Then the relationship with their parents needs
to be purified of this fault; the child has to ask forgiveness so that harmony and
trust can be restored. Something of the same sort happens in our relationship with
God. When we do not listen to him, when we do not follow his will, we do concrete
things that demonstrate our lack of trust in him – for that is what sin is – and a
kind of knot is created deep within us. These knots take away our peace and serenity.
They are dangerous, since many knots can form a tangle which gets more and more painful
and difficult to undo.
But nothing is impossible for God’s mercy! Even the
most tangled knots are loosened by his grace. And Mary, whose “yes” opened the door
for God to undo the knot of the ancient disobedience, is the Mother who patiently
and lovingly brings us to God, so that he can untangle the knots of our soul by his
fatherly mercy. We might ask ourselves: What knots do I have in my life? Do I ask
Mary to help me trust in God’s mercy, in order to change?
2. A second aspect
is that Mary’s faith gave human flesh to Jesus. As the Council says: “Through her
faith and obedience, she gave birth on earth to the very Son of the Father, without
knowing man but by the overshadowing of the Holy Spirit” (Lumen Gentium, 63). This
was a point on which the Fathers of the Church greatly insisted: Mary first conceived
Jesus in faith and then in the flesh, when she said “yes” to the message God gave
her through the angel. What does this mean? It means that God did not want to become
man by ignoring our freedom; he wanted to pass through Mary’s free assent, her “yes”.
But
what took place most singularly in the Virgin Mary also takes place within us, spiritually,
when we receive the word of God with a good and sincere heart and put it into practice.
It is as if God takes flesh within us; he comes to dwell in us, for he dwells in all
who love him and keep his word.
Let us ask ourselves: Do we think about this?
Or do we think that Jesus’ incarnation is simply a past event which has nothing to
do with us personally? Believing in Jesus means giving him our flesh with the humility
and courage of Mary, so that he can continue to dwell in our midst. It means giving
him our hands, to caress the little ones and the poor; our feet, to go forth and meet
our brothers and sisters; our arms, to hold up the weak and to work in the Lord’s
vineyard, our minds, to think and act in the light of the Gospel; and especially our
hearts, to love and to make choices in accordance with God’s will. All this happens
thanks to the working of the Holy Spirit. Let us be led by him!
3. The third
aspect is Mary’s faith as a journey. The Council says that Mary “advanced in her
pilgrimage of faith” (Lumen Gentium, 58). In this way she precedes us on this pilgrimage,
she accompanies and sustains us.
How was Mary’s faith a journey? In the sense
that her entire life was to follow her Son: he is the way, he is the path! To press
forward in faith, to advance in the spiritual pilgrimage which is faith, is nothing
other than to follow Jesus; to listen to him and be guided by his words; to see how
he acts and to follow in his footsteps; to have his same sentiments of humility, mercy,
closeness to others, but also his firm rejection of hypocrisy, duplicity and idolatry.
The way of Jesus is the way of a love which is faithful to the end, even unto sacrificing
one’s life; it is the way of the cross. The journey of faith thus passes through
the cross. Mary understood this from the beginning, when Herod sought to kill the
newborn Jesus. But then this experience of the cross became deeper when Jesus was
rejected and Mary’s faith encountered misunderstanding and contempt, and when Jesus’
“hour” came, the hour of his passion, when Mary’s faith was a little flame burning
in the night. Through the night of Holy Saturday, Mary kept watch. Her flame, small
but bright, remained burning until the dawn of the resurrection. And when she received
word that the tomb was empty, her heart was filled with the joy of faith: Christian
faith in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. This was the culmination of
Mary’s journey of faith, and that of the whole Church. What is our faith like? Like
Mary, do we keep it burning even at times of difficulty and darkness? Do I have
the joy of faith?
This evening, O Mary, we thank you for our faith, and we
renew our entrustment to you, Mother of our faith.