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OMELIE / Omelie EN

01 gen 2020
01/01/2020 - Mary, the Holy Mother of God

01/01/2020 - Mary, the Holy Mother of God

Day dedicated to peace

Reading 1 NM 6,22-27 * Psalm 66 * Reading 2 GAL 4,4-7 * Gospel LK 2,16-21

 

Today’s solemnity celebrates the Virgin Mary's divine maternity, but today is also the first day of the secular year and the Day dedicated to Peace. In order to properly live these two anniversaries the first reading is of help: upon us descends God's blessing through His priests' mouth. The coming year is a gift from God, as we acknowledge every day in our prayer. We would like to begin it with this understanding, and therefore with thankfulness and the desire for it to become a time of blessing and grace not only for us, but also for all those we love and we will meet. Today’s Eucharist will be a thanksgiving for this reason too.

The blessing we receive includes peace, sublime gift, since God Himself often wants to be called the God of peace! In the Sacred Scriptures peace is enjoying true communion, having part in the same joys and the same favours. Peace comes from God, and it is His Son, His greatest joy. Men of peace are they who take from the Father light and patience, who welcome His Son and share His love for everyone. Our prayer for peace in the world is the request for having everywhere people able to open their heart to Jesus, to His way of giving and spending Himself for other people’s joy.

God's blessing and God's peace are the very person of the Son of God, the Son we are visiting today along with the shepherds from Bethlehem. We find Him before Mary, next to Joseph. They are the ones to introduce Him to us, the ones who let us recognise Him among the many babies that have been born in the world. This Baby becomes the shepherds' joy, amazed themselves to find what the angels have announced them.

Today, eight days after the birth, day of the circumcision, we focus our attention on those arms and that heart which are offering us the Baby. Mary is offering Him silently. The words are useless when the Word is present! The Baby’s presence tells everything. Mary needs to keep silent in order to love, to understand, to make a gift of her Son. She moves around in her heart the words that are spoken about Him and she treasures them. Those words help her to love Him, to give Him attention and to serve Him.

Today is the day in which the Baby is not hers anymore, He is included in the Covenant of the People. This costs blood and tears to the Child Himself, and it costs her tears, tears of a mother.

Today she begins to say the Name which until now has been left on the lips of the angel in Nazareth, Jesus! This name now goes from mouth to mouth, from the Mother’s lips to Joseph’s, to those of the entire people. Jesus! His name is Jesus: «God saves, God is visiting us, God is with us»!

This Name is not a name, it is an announcement, it is news which make the hearts rejoice. Mary is the first to spell it out loud, she is the first woman who says that God’s love is present, who declares that we are loved by the Father, and that eternal love is that fragile Baby who sweetly weights on her arms.

I too am spelling that Name: I want to learn from the Mother, so my pronunciation would not tarnish it, because it is holy and blessed; I want to hear it from her to replicate the tone of her voice, to accompany it only with the most authentic love, the one which welcomes, which is available to serve, which lets itself to be conquered, the one which is ready to testify that He is necessary to everyone.

The mother of that Child is God’s Mother: it is God the fragile and silent being she is taking care of and who she leans over. It is God: the Father’s gift, His joy, His love, His light, His life. And the mother is God’s Mother! This is how we greet her, while she maintains her silence, by which we still are blessed and greeted.

 

The new year begins with this feast, a feast for the Mother of God. The whole year will be rich in her gaze resting upon us. The whole year will be serene because our eyes will meet hers. Under her eyes, today we shake each other's hand and we wish each other blessing and peace!