Is the Virgin Mary Palestinian?Does the Virgin Mary appear?"She": The Virgin Mary in contemporary art.The Church celebrates the saints because in them she discovers the power of God's grace and the cooperation of the creature. This is particularly true of the Virgin Mary, called to be the Mother of God. To be a mother is not only to beget, but to raise, to nourish bodily and spiritually, to educate, to correct, to exhort, to be a model and example for the child. The holiness that God wanted for Mary is thus explained by her maternity. This extends to us, since she was found faithful. At the foot of the Cross she is also declared our mother. And she exercises her "office" in such a way that, being our mother, she also becomes, after the Lord, a model of holiness. I propose this theme on the basis of the Exhortation Gaudete et Exsultate of Pope Francis, may he be glorified, which was given to us in 2018.
The Pope reminded us first of all of the hymn from Ephesians 1:3-4: God chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world to be holy and spotless in his presence through love. This verse is the foundation of the universal call to holiness, but above all it affirms that we exist in order to be saints, for this we have been eternally chosen.
Holiness is not one task among others, but the fundamental mission, the one that defines our being and the absolute success or failure of our existence. The good life, the holy life, does not consist in being well, feeling at ease, being happy, being consoled, being successful. The good life is life virtuousthe life of sanctity.
Gaudete et Exsultate affirms that holiness is a grace already given, because it is the fruit of the Baptism we have received. Holiness is not the result of all our works, it is the fruit of a first grace that makes us temples of God. It happened on the day of our baptism. Lived holiness is the fruit and development of this first holiness, it consists in its growth, in opening ourselves, in the good use of our freedom, more and more to the power of grace and the strength of love that transforms the heart and changes life.
"Holiness is measured by the stature that Christ attains in us," the Pope continues. St. Paul exhorted his faithful to live in such a way that Christ would grow in them until he reached the measure of fullness. Holiness is always in relationship with the Lord: it is not a matter of measuring ourselves against him as if from the outside, but of entering into communion with him in such a way that he lives in us.
This is where we find the Virgin Mary as a model of holiness. She believed and obeyed the word of the angel Gabriel. In response, God the Father sent upon her the Holy Spirit, and she was filled with God, conceiving the Son of God.
St. Elizabeth of the Trinity asks, in her Elevation to the Most Holy Trinity, that the Holy Spirit work in her a "diminutive incarnation": by faith Christ has been begotten in your hearts. Here is expressed in another way what St. Elizabeth was asking for: Christ begotten in the heart, intimately present in us, really and personally present, living in us his own mystery.
This was undoubtedly the center of the Virgin Mary's interior life, both during her pregnancy and after Pentecost... This loving attention that makes ordinary acts extraordinary because they are of Jesus himself in and with us, or ours in him. The life we have is and must be, first and foremost, the life of Christ in us, the continuation of the life of Jesus.
This was realized in the life of the Virgin Mary. Fruit of the grace that she received with perfection from the first moment of her existence and that she renewed with fidelity in every subsequent moment. What to do when the activity is much? Or when the forces are few? To desire those moments of silence to find the Lord not only in the community and in the sisters, but in the silence of our heart, as truly present as in the Tabernacle... And if we no longer have the strength, the memory... to seek the Lord in ourselves we have to awaken our faith, believe that it is really so, even if we do not feel it, and love and pray... love the Father and pray for all men and their needs.
And this is the essence of devotion to the Virgin Mary. To deal with Our Lady about this, to really put ourselves in her hands and to learn from her to "keep and preserve" things in our hearts, discovering in them the very presence of God. It is in this way that the Lord will grow in us and for this it is never too late: to dispose our heart, pulling out the weeds, abandoning ourselves to worries, emptying ourselves of our own will, of our honor and fame... only in silence, when by God's grace we silence the desire for all that is not the Lord can our heart rest in him and seek a prayer of being present to the Lord.
This is, like her and with her: "To give ourselves to Jesus Christ with complete self-giving, to be his faithful instrument, to give him free place in us... to live only for the sake of Christ and in his name": not that Christ lives our life, but that he lives his life in us. As in Mary. When we approach her, she transmits to us her faith, her hope and her charity.
Professor at the San Dámaso Ecclesiastical University.
