Mary as the Mother of God - pope Francis

Taken from: https://www.popefrancis2024.sg/mary-the-mother-of-god-and-our-mother/#:~:text=Mother%20of%20us%20all&text=Who%20can%20fill%20our%20emptiness,our%20eyes%20to%20their%20fullness. Mary, the Mother of God, and our Mother Michelle Tan for The Catholic News Singapore “If we want to be Christians, we must be ‘Marians’, that is, ‘children of Mary’,” declared Pope Francis at the Mass for the Solemnity of Mary, the Holy Mother of God, on Jan 1, 2024, in Saint Peter’s Basilica. “The motherhood of Mary is the path leading us to the paternal tenderness of God, the closest, most direct and easiest of paths: this is God’s ‘style’ – closeness, compassion, and tenderness,” he said. “Indeed, the Mother leads us to the beginning and heart of faith, which is not a theory or a task, but a boundless gift that makes us beloved sons and daughters, tabernacles of the Father’s love. It follows that welcoming the Mother into our lives is not a matter of devotion but a requirement of faith.” Mother of God Pope Francis began his homily by explaining the meaning of Saint Paul’s words in the Second Reading: When the fullness of time had come, God sent his Son, born of a woman (Galatians 4:4). “In ancient times, time was measured using vases of water; the passage of time was marked by how long it took for an empty vase to be filled,” shared the Pope. “The phrase ‘fullness of time’ means that, once the vase of history is filled, divine grace spills over. God becomes man and He does so through a woman, Mary: she is the means chosen by God, the culmination of that long line of individuals and generations that ‘drop by drop’ prepared for the Lord’s coming into the world. It pleased God to turn history around through her, the ‘woman’.” The words ‘Mother of God’ are therefore a “dogma of hope” that express “the joyful certainty that the Lord, a tiny Child in His Mamma’s arms, has united Himself forever to our humanity, to the point that it is no longer only ours, but His as well” – a confession of God’s eternal covenant with humanity, he added. The Pope then called on the Church and every society to respect, defend, and esteem women “in the knowledge that whosoever harms a single woman profanes God, who was ‘born of a woman’”. Mother of us all “Just as Mary, the woman, played a decisive role in the fullness of time, she is also decisive in the lives of each of us, for no one knows better than a Mother the stages of growth and the urgent needs of her children,” observed the Holy Father. Referring to the Mary’s intercession for the wedding couple at Cana who had run out of wine (John 2:1-12), he said, “Mary knows our needs; she intercedes to make grace overflow in our lives and to guide them to authentic fulfilment. Brothers and sisters, all of us have our shortcomings, our times of loneliness, our inner emptiness that cries out to be filled. Who can fill our emptiness if not Mary, the Mother of fullness?” Pope Francis concluded his homily with the exhortation, “Let us entrust this coming year to the Mother of God. Let us consecrate our lives to her. With tender love, she will open our eyes to their fullness. For she will lead us to Jesus, who is Himself ‘the fullness of time, of every time, of our own time, of each one of us.”