Pope: Like Mary we are all called to say ‘yes’ to God

(August 17, 2009) The Blessed Virgin agreed to "give" Jesus flesh so he could "descend" from heaven and at the end of her earthly life, she in turn was "taken" to the place from which He descended. In a certain sense, it is the destiny of all humanity; God asks us to place our existence at his disposal so He can be in the world. He gives mankind the Eucharist, with which death is conquered. This was the gist of the reflection of Pope Benedict XVI at Sunday’s midday ‘Angelus’ prayer as he addressed some 4000 pilgrims and visitors gathered at the papal summer residence at Castel Gandolfo south-east of Rome. Speaking a day after the August 15^th feast of the Assumption of Mary, the Holy Father combined it with Sunday’s Gospel reading on Jesus proclaiming Himself as the bread of life. Just as God used Mary to take on human flesh so too does He ask each one of us to make ourselves available to Him our hearts, our bodies, our entire existence, so that He can dwell in the world. And if we say yes, like Mary, by the very measure of our 'yes', we are assumed in the divinity of He who assumed our humanity. The Pope said, the Eucharist is the means, the instrument of this reciprocal transformation.