Book of Numbers 6,22-27. The LORD said to Moses : "Speak to Aaron and his sons and tell them: This is how you shall bless the Israelites. Say to them: The LORD bless you and keep you! The LORD let his face shine upon you, and be gracious to you! The LORD look upon you kindly and give you peace! So shall they invoke my name upon the Israelites, and I will bless them."
Psalms 67(66) 2-3.5.6.8. May God have pity on us and bless us; may he let his face shine upon us. So may your way be known upon earth; among all nations, your salvation.
May the nations be glad and exult because you rule the peoples in equity; the nations on the earth you guide.
May the peoples praise you, O God; may all the peoples praise you! May God bless us, and may all the ends of the earth fear him!
Letter to the Galatians 4,4-7. Brothers and sisters: When the fullness of time had come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to ransom those under the law, so that we might receive adoption. As proof that you are children, God sent the spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying out, "Abba, Father!" So you are no longer a slave but a child, and if a child then also an heir, through God.
Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Saint Luke 2,16-21. The shepherds went in haste to Bethlehem and found Mary and Joseph, and the infant lying in the manger. When they saw this, they made known the message that had been told them about this child. All who heard it were amazed by what had been told them by the shepherds. And Mary kept all these things, reflecting on them in her heart. Then the shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen, just as it had been told to them. When eight days were completed for his circumcision, he was named Jesus, the name given him by the angel before he was conceived in the womb.
SOLEMNITY OF MARY, THE HOLY MOTHER OF GOD WORLD DAY OF PEACE
POPE FRANCIS ANGELUS 1st January 2023 LV GIORNATA MONDIALE DELLA PACE
Dear brothers and sisters, good day and Happy New Year!
The beginning of the new year is entrusted to Mary Most Holy whom we celebrate today as Mother of God. At this time, let us invoke her intercession especially for Pope emeritus Benedict XVI who left this world yesterday morning. Let us all join together, with one heart and one soul, in thanking God for the gift of this faithful servant of the Gospel and of the Church. We saw recently on TV, the “Sua Immagine” program, all that he did and the life of Pope Benedict.
As we contemplate Mary in the stable where Jesus was born, we can ask ourselves: What languages does the Holy Virgin use to speak to us? How does Mary speak? What can we learn from her for this year that is dawning? We can say, “Our Lady, teach us what we need to do this year”.
In reality, if we observe the scene that today’s Liturgy presents to us, we note that Mary does not speak. She welcomes the mystery she is experiencing with awe, she cherishes everything in her heart and, above all, she is concerned about the Child whom, as the Gospel says, was “laid in a manger” (cf. Lk 2:16). This verb “to lay” means to carefully place, and this tells us that the language proper to Mary is maternal: she tenderly takes care of the Child. This is Mary’s greatness. As the angels celebrate, the shepherds come running and everyone praises God with a loud voice for what has happened, Mary does not speak, she does not entertain her guests explaining everything that had happened to her, she does not steal the show – to us who like to steal the show! – she does not steal the show. On the contrary, she puts the Child in the centre, she lovingly takes care of him. A poet once wrote that Mary “even knew how to be solemnly mute, […] because she did not want to lose sight of her God” (A. Merini, Corpo d’amore. Un incontro con Gesù, Milano 2001, 114).
This is typically maternal language: the tenderness of taking care of. In fact, after having borne the gift of a mysterious prodigy in their wombs for nine months, mothers constantly put their babies at the centre of their attention: they feed them, they hold them in their arms, they tenderly lay them down in the crib. To take care of – this is the language of the Mother of God, a language of mothers: to take care of.
Brothers and sisters, like all mothers, Mary bore life in her womb and thus, she talks to us about our future. But at the same time, she reminds us that, if we truly want the New Year to be good, if we want to reconstruct hope, we need to abandon the language, those actions and those choices inspired by egoism and learn the language of love, which is to take care of. To take care of is a new language that counters these languages of egoism. This is the commitment: to take care of our lives – each one of us needs to take care of our own life – to take care of our time, of our souls; to take care of creation and the environment we live in; and even more, to take care of our neighbour, of those whom the Lord has placed alongside us, as well as our brothers and sisters who are in need and who call for our attention and our compassion. Looking at Our Lady with the Child, there taking care of her Child, let us learn to take care of others, even of ourselves, caring for our interior health, our spiritual life, charity.
Celebrating today the World Day of Peace, let us regain awareness of the responsibility that has been entrusted to us to construct the future – in the face of the personal and social crises we are living, in the face of the tragedy of the war, “we are called to confront the challenges of our world in a spirit of responsibility and compassion” (Message for the 56th World Day of Peace, 5). And we can do this if we take care of each other and if, all of us together, take care of our common home.
-->Let us implore Mary Most Holy, the Mother of God, so that in this epoch, polluted by diffidence and indifference, she might make us capable of being compassionate and providing care – capable of being compassionate and providing care – capable of “looking more closely and sympathetically at others whenever necessary” (Apos. Exhortation Evangelii Gaudium, 169).
FAUSTS - The center of these first chapters is the "tactile" knowledge of God that Mary has in generating, wrapping and placing her son in the manger. The scene that is given to us to contemplate is the historical fact, unique, that happened two thousand years ago, first narrated, then announced as a sign that gives meaning to the whole story, and finally lived by the shepherds... Through the story that Mary first told to Luke, the pastor who became the announcer, who transmitted it to us, we too are called to contemplate and touch with her the very Word of Life. Like the first shepherds, we too become heralds of the Word: "A Saviour who is Christ the Lord was born for you today". The same proclamation, from mouth to mouth, through the shepherds who have become evangelists, transmits to us the fulfillment of God's promise. The today of the birth of the Saviour is realized everywhere it is announced and believed, as with the shepherds who set out on their way to see Him. After the words of the Angel, Heaven is opened and men can attend the heavenly liturgy that takes place over this Child. To this celestial liturgy, opened by the announcement that gives the interpretation, corresponds a earthly liturgy, of poor people, obedient to the Word, that runs to see a poor child, of whom it believes "what the Lord has notified". They, after having experienced what has been said to them, in turn announce it. In these pastors, the first listeners who in turn are proclaimers, the Church appears. The Church is born from the proclamation, verifies its salvation today and transmits it again to others with the announcement. It is a Church of the poor and the last ones , like the Announced oneself. By virtue of her faith, she recognizes, proclaims, glorifies and praises God who has revealed Himself in the powerlessness of Jesus. Her condition of limit is surpassed in the transmission by the proclamation, which expands the space of the Community to the ends of the earth and opens the time to eternity.
TONINO BELLO - Mary, woman of the first glance Yes, she was the first to lay eyes on the naked body of God. And she immediately enveloped him with her gaze. Even before wrapping him in swaddling clothes. On the contrary, she immediately covered him in her clothes, almost as if to compress the light of that body and not be blinded by it. not be blinded by it. There he was, the long awaited of the nations, lapped by the eyes of Mary, like a trembling lamb touched by his mother's tongue. The patriarchs had spied its arrival since the remote centuries. But, while arching eyebrows, they did not have the joy of seeing him. The prophets, with vaticinies full of mystery, had drawn his face. But their eyes But their eyes were closed without being able to gaze at him closely. The poor had felt a thousand jolts at every flutter of news. But they had to But they had to be content each time to chase him in their dreams. In the winter nights the shepherds, in the crackling of the bivouac, spoke of the one who would come. And their eyes, as they trained to hold the flame of the pruning sheaves, glittered with fever. In the spring evenings, full of omens, the fathers pointed out to their children the stars of the firmament and lulled them with the cadences of ancient elegies: "Oh, if thou wouldst rend the skies and descend..." Then they too would close their eyelids, tired of peering. The maidens scented with geraniums and desires, confided to each other naive presentiments of arcane maternity. of arcane maternity. But in the flashing of the pupils flashed at once the sweetest melancholy sweet melancholy of those who will never be fulfilled. Eyes of old people and children. Eyes of exiles and the oppressed. Eyes of the suffering and dreamers. How many eyes reached out to him! Yearning for the sight of his face. Disappointed by delays unforeseen delays. Tired from long vigils. Flaming with sudden hopes. Closed underground forever, after the last poignant invocation: "Ostende faciem tuam!". And here he is at last, 1'Emmanuel, wet with the tears of the mother-in-law, that sparkle like gems at the glow of the lantern.
--->Mary's eyes tremble with love over the body of Jesus. In their depths a long chain of a long chain of unheard glances from the past. In her pupils is concentrated the trepidation of secular expectations. And in her iris there are suddenly awakened fires that have been dormant under the ashes of time. Mary thus becomes the woman of the first glance. Only a creature like her, on the other hand, could worthily welcome the Son of God on earth. to the Son of God, caressing him with transparent eyes of holiness. After her, many others would have the privilege of seeing him. Joseph will see him. The shepherds will see him. shepherds. Later, Simeon will see him, who will die in peace because his eyes have been able to contemplate the salvation of God. contemplate God's salvation... But the first to bind him with the tepid texture of her gaze, in the night scented of and stable, so that the hay would not sting him and the cold would not freeze him, was she. Woman of the first glance: chosen, that is, by the eternal centuries to be, after a forest of of waiting, a limpid riviera bathed by the river of grace. Holy Mary, woman of the first glance, grant us the grace of amazement. The world has The world has stolen from us the ability to wince. There is no rapture in our eyes. We are tired of sharpening We are tired of sharpening our eyesight, because there are no more arrivals in the program. Our souls are as parched as the banks of a stream without water. The deep layers of wonder have dried up. Victims of boredom Victims of boredom, we lead a life barren of ecstasy. Only things we have already seen pass before our eyes, like sequences of a film repeated over and over again. We miss the hour when the first grape blushes through the vines. We live seasons without the first fruits of the harvest. In fact, we already know what flavor each fruit holds under the bark. You who have experienced the surprises of God, give us back, we pray, the taste of experiences and do not spare us the joy of decisive encounters that have the flavor of the "first time. "first time. (D. TONINO BELLO)
->Saint Mary, woman of the first glance, give us the grace of tenderness. Your eyelids, that night, grazed the Lamb laid at your feet with a tepid shiver of a wing. Ours, on the other hand, rest on things as heavy as stones. They pass on the skin, rough as store rags. They wound faces, like razor blades. Your eyes clothed the Son of God with charity. Ours instead, with greed, strip the children of man. children of man. At the first contact of your pupils with the source of light, the gazes of past generations were illuminated. of past generations. When, on the other hand, we open our sockets wide, we defile even the holiest things and extinguish the gaze of future generations. You who have always carried in your pristine eyes the reverberations of God's transparency, help us to experience all the truth of Jesus' words: "The lamp of the body is the eye. If, therefore, your eye is clear, your whole body will be in the light". Holy Mary, woman of the first glance, thank you because, bent over that child, you represent us all. you represent us all. You are the first creature to have contemplated the flesh of God made man: and we want to And we want to look out of the window of your eyes to enjoy with you this firstfruits. But you are also the first creature on earth that God has seen with his eyes of flesh: and we want to cling to your clothes to share this privilege with you. Thank you, incomparable friend of our Christmases. Hope of our loneliness. Comfort of our cold cribs without choirs of angels and without hosts of shepherds. Forgive us if our gazes stray elsewhere. If we chase other faces. If we run After other appearances. But you know that in the depths of our soul we are left with the nostalgia of that look. Indeed, of those looks: yours and his. And then, a 'look, give us too, mother of mercy. Especially when we experience that, to love us, you are the only one left.
Book of Numbers 6,22-27.
RispondiEliminaThe LORD said to Moses :
"Speak to Aaron and his sons and tell them: This is how you shall bless the Israelites. Say to them:
The LORD bless you and keep you!
The LORD let his face shine upon you, and be gracious to you!
The LORD look upon you kindly and give you peace!
So shall they invoke my name upon the Israelites, and I will bless them."
Psalms 67(66)
2-3.5.6.8.
May God have pity on us and bless us;
may he let his face shine upon us.
So may your way be known upon earth;
among all nations, your salvation.
May the nations be glad and exult
because you rule the peoples in equity;
the nations on the earth you guide.
May the peoples praise you, O God;
may all the peoples praise you!
May God bless us,
and may all the ends of the earth fear him!
Letter to the Galatians
4,4-7.
Brothers and sisters: When the fullness of time had come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law,
to ransom those under the law, so that we might receive adoption.
As proof that you are children, God sent the spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying out, "Abba, Father!"
So you are no longer a slave but a child, and if a child then also an heir, through God.
Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ
according to Saint Luke
2,16-21.
The shepherds went in haste to Bethlehem and found Mary and Joseph, and the infant lying in the manger.
When they saw this, they made known the message that had been told them about this child.
All who heard it were amazed by what had been told them by the shepherds.
And Mary kept all these things, reflecting on them in her heart.
Then the shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen, just as it had been told to them.
When eight days were completed for his circumcision, he was named Jesus, the name given him by the angel before he was conceived in the womb.
SOLEMNITY OF MARY, THE HOLY MOTHER OF GOD
RispondiEliminaWORLD DAY OF PEACE
POPE FRANCIS ANGELUS 1st January 2023
LV GIORNATA MONDIALE DELLA PACE
Dear brothers and sisters, good day and Happy New Year!
The beginning of the new year is entrusted to Mary Most Holy whom we celebrate today as Mother of God. At this time, let us invoke her intercession especially for
Pope emeritus Benedict XVI
who left this world yesterday morning.
Let us all join together, with one heart and one soul,
in thanking God for the gift of this faithful servant
of the Gospel and of the Church.
We saw recently on TV, the “Sua Immagine” program,
all that he did and the life of Pope Benedict.
As we contemplate Mary in the stable where Jesus was born, we can ask ourselves: What languages does the Holy Virgin use to speak to us? How does Mary speak? What can we learn from her for this year that is dawning? We can say, “Our Lady, teach us what we need to do this year”.
In reality, if we observe the scene that today’s Liturgy presents to us, we note that Mary does not speak. She welcomes the mystery she is experiencing with awe, she cherishes everything in her heart and, above all, she is concerned about the Child whom, as the Gospel says, was “laid in a manger” (cf. Lk 2:16). This verb “to lay” means to carefully place, and this tells us that the language proper to Mary is maternal: she tenderly takes care of the Child. This is Mary’s greatness. As the angels celebrate, the shepherds come running and everyone praises God with a loud voice for what has happened, Mary does not speak, she does not entertain her guests explaining everything that had happened to her, she does not steal the show – to us who like to steal the show! – she does not steal the show. On the contrary, she puts the Child in the centre, she lovingly takes care of him. A poet once wrote that Mary “even knew how to be solemnly mute, […] because she did not want to lose sight of her God” (A. Merini, Corpo d’amore. Un incontro con Gesù, Milano 2001, 114).
This is typically maternal language: the tenderness of taking care of. In fact, after having borne the gift of a mysterious prodigy in their wombs for nine months, mothers constantly put their babies at the centre of their attention: they feed them, they hold them in their arms, they tenderly lay them down in the crib. To take care of – this is the language of the Mother of God, a language of mothers: to take care of.
Brothers and sisters, like all mothers, Mary bore life in her womb and thus, she talks to us about our future. But at the same time, she reminds us that, if we truly want the New Year to be good, if we want to reconstruct hope, we need to abandon the language, those actions and those choices inspired by egoism and learn the language of love, which is to take care of. To take care of is a new language that counters these languages of egoism. This is the commitment: to take care of our lives – each one of us needs to take care of our own life – to take care of our time, of our souls; to take care of creation and the environment we live in; and even more, to take care of our neighbour, of those whom the Lord has placed alongside us, as well as our brothers and sisters who are in need and who call for our attention and our compassion. Looking at Our Lady with the Child, there taking care of her Child, let us learn to take care of others, even of ourselves, caring for our interior health, our spiritual life, charity.
Celebrating today the World Day of Peace, let us regain awareness of the responsibility that has been entrusted to us to construct the future – in the face of the personal and social crises we are living, in the face of the tragedy of the war, “we are called to confront the challenges of our world in a spirit of responsibility and compassion” (Message for the 56th World Day of Peace, 5). And we can do this if we take care of each other and if, all of us together, take care of our common home.
-->Let us implore Mary Most Holy, the Mother of God, so that in this epoch, polluted by diffidence and indifference, she might make us capable of being compassionate and providing care – capable of being compassionate and providing care – capable of “looking more closely and sympathetically at others whenever necessary” (Apos. Exhortation Evangelii Gaudium, 169).
EliminaFAUSTS - The center of these first chapters is the "tactile" knowledge of God that Mary has in generating, wrapping and placing her son in the manger. The scene that is given to us to contemplate is the historical fact, unique, that happened two thousand years ago, first narrated, then announced as a sign that gives meaning to the whole story, and finally lived by the shepherds...
RispondiEliminaThrough the story that Mary first told to Luke, the pastor who became the announcer, who transmitted it to us, we too are called to contemplate and touch with her the very Word of Life. Like the first shepherds, we too become heralds of the Word: "A Saviour who is Christ the Lord was born for you today". The same proclamation, from mouth to mouth, through the shepherds who have become evangelists, transmits to us the fulfillment of God's promise.
The today of the birth of the Saviour is realized everywhere it is announced and believed, as with the shepherds who set out on their way to see Him. After the words of the Angel, Heaven is opened and men can attend the heavenly liturgy that takes place over this Child.
To this celestial liturgy, opened by the announcement that gives the interpretation, corresponds a earthly liturgy, of poor people, obedient to the Word, that runs to see a poor child, of whom it believes "what the Lord has notified".
They, after having experienced what has been said to them, in turn announce it.
In these pastors, the first listeners who in turn are proclaimers, the Church appears.
The Church is born from the proclamation, verifies its salvation today and transmits it again to others with the announcement. It is a Church of the poor and the last ones , like the Announced oneself.
By virtue of her faith, she recognizes, proclaims, glorifies and praises God who has revealed Himself in the powerlessness of Jesus. Her condition of limit is surpassed in the transmission by the proclamation, which expands the space of the Community to the ends of the earth and opens the time to eternity.
TONINO BELLO - Mary, woman of the first glance
RispondiEliminaYes, she was the first to lay eyes on the naked body of God.
And she immediately enveloped him with her gaze.
Even before wrapping him in swaddling clothes.
On the contrary, she immediately covered him in her clothes, almost as if to compress the light of that body and not be blinded by it.
not be blinded by it.
There he was, the long awaited of the nations, lapped by the eyes of Mary, like a trembling lamb
touched by his mother's tongue.
The patriarchs had spied its arrival since the remote centuries. But, while arching
eyebrows, they did not have the joy of seeing him.
The prophets, with vaticinies full of mystery, had drawn his face. But their eyes
But their eyes were closed without being able to gaze at him closely.
The poor had felt a thousand jolts at every flutter of news. But they had to
But they had to be content each time to chase him in their dreams.
In the winter nights the shepherds, in the crackling of the bivouac, spoke of the one who would
come. And their eyes, as they trained to hold the flame of the pruning sheaves,
glittered with fever.
In the spring evenings, full of omens, the fathers pointed out to their children the stars of the
firmament and lulled them with the cadences of ancient elegies: "Oh, if thou wouldst rend the skies
and descend..." Then they too would close their eyelids, tired of peering. The maidens
scented with geraniums and desires, confided to each other naive presentiments of arcane maternity.
of arcane maternity. But in the flashing of the pupils flashed at once the sweetest melancholy
sweet melancholy of those who will never be fulfilled.
Eyes of old people and children. Eyes of exiles and the oppressed. Eyes of the suffering and
dreamers.
How many eyes reached out to him! Yearning for the sight of his face. Disappointed by delays
unforeseen delays. Tired from long vigils. Flaming with sudden hopes. Closed
underground forever, after the last poignant invocation: "Ostende faciem tuam!".
And here he is at last, 1'Emmanuel, wet with the tears of the mother-in-law, that
sparkle like gems at the glow of the lantern.
--->Mary's eyes tremble with love over the body of Jesus. In their depths a long chain of
Eliminaa long chain of unheard glances from the past. In her pupils is concentrated the
trepidation of secular expectations. And in her iris there are suddenly awakened fires that have been dormant under
the ashes of time.
Mary thus becomes the woman of the first glance.
Only a creature like her, on the other hand, could worthily welcome the Son of God on earth.
to the Son of God, caressing him with transparent eyes of holiness.
After her, many others would have the privilege of seeing him. Joseph will see him. The shepherds will see him.
shepherds. Later, Simeon will see him, who will die in peace because his eyes have been able to contemplate the salvation of God.
contemplate God's salvation...
But the first to bind him with the tepid texture of her gaze, in the night scented of
and stable, so that the hay would not sting him and the cold would not freeze him, was she.
Woman of the first glance: chosen, that is, by the eternal centuries to be, after a forest of
of waiting, a limpid riviera bathed by the river of grace.
Holy Mary, woman of the first glance, grant us the grace of amazement. The world has
The world has stolen from us the ability to wince. There is no rapture in our eyes. We are tired of sharpening
We are tired of sharpening our eyesight, because there are no more arrivals in the program. Our souls are as parched as the banks of a
stream without water. The deep layers of wonder have dried up. Victims of boredom
Victims of boredom, we lead a life barren of ecstasy. Only things we have already seen pass before our eyes,
like sequences of a film repeated over and over again.
We miss the hour when the first grape blushes through the vines. We live seasons
without the first fruits of the harvest. In fact, we already know what flavor each fruit holds
under the bark.
You who have experienced the surprises of God, give us back, we pray, the taste of experiences
and do not spare us the joy of decisive encounters that have the flavor of the "first time.
"first time. (D. TONINO BELLO)
->Saint Mary, woman of the first glance, give us the grace of tenderness.
EliminaYour eyelids, that night, grazed the Lamb laid at your feet with a tepid
shiver of a wing. Ours, on the other hand, rest on things as heavy as stones. They pass
on the skin, rough as store rags. They wound faces, like razor blades.
Your eyes clothed the Son of God with charity. Ours instead, with greed, strip the children of man.
children of man.
At the first contact of your pupils with the source of light, the gazes of past generations were illuminated.
of past generations. When, on the other hand, we open our sockets wide,
we defile even the holiest things and extinguish the gaze of future generations.
You who have always carried in your pristine eyes the reverberations of God's transparency,
help us to experience all the truth of Jesus' words: "The lamp of the body is the eye.
If, therefore, your eye is clear, your whole body will be in the light".
Holy Mary, woman of the first glance, thank you because, bent over that child, you represent us all.
you represent us all.
You are the first creature to have contemplated the flesh of God made man: and we want to
And we want to look out of the window of your eyes to enjoy with you this firstfruits.
But you are also the first creature on earth that God has seen with his eyes of flesh: and
we want to cling to your clothes to share this privilege with you.
Thank you, incomparable friend of our Christmases. Hope of our loneliness. Comfort
of our cold cribs without choirs of angels and without hosts of shepherds.
Forgive us if our gazes stray elsewhere. If we chase other faces. If we run
After other appearances. But you know that in the depths of our soul we are left with the nostalgia of
that look. Indeed, of those looks: yours and his.
And then, a 'look, give us too, mother of mercy. Especially when
we experience that, to love us, you are the only one left.