On Monday, 22 December, in the Clementine Hall of the
Apostolic Palace, the Dean of the College of Cardinals, Cardinal
Angelo Rossi, conveyed the Christmas greetings of the assembled
cardinals and officials of the Roman Curia to the Holy Father,
who delivered the following address in reply.
Your Eminences,
Revered Brothers in the Episcopate and Priesthood,
My dearest Laity,
I sincerely thank the Cardinal Dean for his greeting; he has
interpreted your personal desires in this traditional and always
pleasant gathering before Christmas. His message has focused our
common attention on the particular significance which current
circumstances contribute to our annual meeting. We meet near the
Eve of Christmas in the Marian Year.
Every year on this occasion we are moved by the expectation of
him who is born in Bethlehem of the Immaculate Virgin Mary, and
it is our mutual desire to experience as deeply as possible this
central event of history by extending a welcome to the Incarnate
Word. In this Marian Year our meeting has a special significance
and brings a new emphasis to our Christmas reflection. The
Marian Year, in fact, prepares us to approach Christ in this
Advent of the third millennium in order to relieve the mystery
of his Incarnation, following Mary who precedes us in this
journey of faith. She was the first “minister” of the Word.
As members of the Roman Curia we are conscious of serving the
Mystery of the Incarnation from which the Church as a “Body”
originated. In Mary, as St. Augustine noted: “the only-begotten
Son of God was pleased to unite to himself human nature, so
that to the immaculate head he associated the immaculate Church,
(Serm 191.3; PL 38, 1010). From Mary is born Christ the Head who
is indissolubly united to the Church, his Body. The “whole
Christ” is born. As servants and ministers of this Mystical
Body, daily nourished with the Eucharistic Body of Christ, we
manifest this year the particular presence of the Mother of God
in the Mystery of Christ and of the Church in which we are aware
of participating in a particular manner.
2. We well understand that Vatican II effected a great synthesis
between Mariology and ecclesiology. The Marian Year adheres to
such a synthesis and conciliar inspiration so that the Church
may be everywhere renewed through the presence of the Mother of
God who, as the Fathers taught, is a model of the Church.
The Council offers an enlightening interpretation of the
presence of the Virgin in the divine plan of salvation. Because
she is the instrument and privileged channel of the Incarnation
of the Word in human nature and of his presence among us, Mary
is “intimately united with the Church: the Mother of God is a
figure of the Church, as Saint Ambrose had earlier taught, in
the order of faith, of charity and of the perfect union with
Christ” (Lumen Gentium, 63). Developing this teaching, I wrote
in the Encyclical Redemptoris Mater: “ the reality of the
Incarnation finds a sort of extension in the mystery of the
Church – The Body of Christ. And one cannot think of the reality
of the Incarnation without referring to Mary, the Mother of the
Incarnate Word” (no. 5).
Mary united to Christ, Mary united to the Church. And the Church
united to Mary finds in her the most refined and perfect image
of its own specific mission which is simultaneously virginal and
maternal. The Fathers and the Teachers of the early Church have
underlined this double aspect: for example, St. Augustine
brilliantly comments, Hic est speciosus forma prae filiis
hominum, sanctae filius Mariae, sanctiae sponsus Ecclesiae, quam
suae genitriit similem redditit: nam et nobis eam matrem fecit,
et virginem sibi custodit” (Serm 195.2; PL 38:1018). The Virgin
Mary is the archetype of the Church because of the divine
maternity; just like Mary, the Church must be, and wishes to be,
mother and virgin. The Church lives in this authentic “Marian
profile”, this “Marian dimension”; thus the Council, gathering
together the patristic and theological voices, both eastern and
western has noted this phenomenom: “The Church, moreover,
contemplating Mary’s mysterious sanctity, imitating her charity,
and faithfully fulfilling the Father’s will, becomes herself a
mother by accepting God’s word in faith. For by her preaching
and by baptism she brings forth to a new and immortal life,
children who are conceived of the Holy Spirit and born of God.
The Church herself is a virgin, who keeps whole and pure the
fidelity she has pledged to her Spouse. Imitating the Mother of
her Lord, and by the power of the Holy Spirit, she preserves
with virginal purity and integral faith , a firm hope and
sincere charity” (Lumen Gentium, 64).
Sphere of divine grace
3. This Marian profile is also- even perhaps more so-
fundamental and characteristic for the Church as is the
apostolic and Petrine profile to which it is profoundly united.
In this vision of the Church Mary precedes the People of God who
are still pilgrims.
Mary is she who, predestined to be the Mother of the Word, lived
continuously and totally in the sphere of divine grace subject
to its vivifying influence; she is the mirror and transparency
of the life of God himself. Immaculate, “full of grace”, she was
prepared by God for the Incarnation of the Word and was always
under the Continuous action of the Holy Spirit: hers was the
“yes” and the fiat par excellence to him who had chosen her
“before the beginning of the world” (Eph 1:4). Such response was
evident in the docility, the humility, the conformity to the
least movement of grace which rendered her, we can say, mother
in a twofold sense through conformity to God’s will: “who does
the will of God is my mother” (cf. Mk 3:35). The divine
maternity, that unique and sublime privilege of the ever-Virgin,
must be seen in this perspective as the supreme glory of the
fidelity of Mary in corresponding with grace.
The Marian dimension of the Church is evident from the
similarity of tasks in relation to the whole Christ. To this
dimension, in fact, can be applied the word of Jesus: “whoever
does the will of my Father is my brother, sister, and mother”,
(Mk, ibid.). The Church, like Mary, lives by grace in submission
to the Holy Spirit; according to his light the signs and
necessities of the times are interpreted, and progress is
accomplished in complete docility to the voice of the Spirit.
In this sense the Marian dimension of the Church is antecedent
to that of the Petrine, without being in any way divided from it
or being less complementary. The Immaculate Mary precedes all
others, including obviously Peter himself and the Apostles. This
is so, not only because Peter and the Apostles, being born of
the human race under the burden of sin, form part of the Church
which is “holy with sinners:, but also because their triple
function has no other purpose except to from the Church in line
with the ideal of sanctity already programmed and prefigured in
Mary. A contemporary theologian has well commented: “Mary is
‘Queen of the Apostles’ without any pretensions to apostolic
powers: she has other and greater powers” (von Balthasar, Nette
Klarstellungen, Ital. transl., Milan 1980, p. 181). In this
context it is especially significant to note the presence of
Mary in the Upper Room, where she assists Peter and the other
Apostles, praying for and with them as all await the coming of
the Spirit.
This link between the two profiles of the Church, the Marian and
the Petrine, is profound and complementary. This is so even
though the Marian profile is anterior not only in design of God
but also in time, as well being supreme and pre-eminent, richer
in personal and communitarian implications for individual
ecclesial vocations.
In this light the Roman Curia lives and ought to live – all of
us ought so to live. It is certain that the Curia is directly
united to the Petrine office to whose service it is dedicated by
office, constitution and mission. The Curia serves the Church as
a Body; situated, one may say, at the apex, it offers its
collaboration to the Successor of Peter in his service to the
local Churches. In this activity, it is more necessary and
indispensable to preserve and strengthen the Marian dimension in
the service to Peter. Mary precedes those of us who are in the
Curia where we serve the Mystery of the Word Incarnate, just as
she precedes the whole Church for which we live. May she assist
us to discover ever more fully and to live more authentically
this richness, which for us, I would say, is vital and decisive.
May Mary help us to participate more consciously in the
symbiosis of the Marian and Petrine apostolic dimensions from
which the Church daily draws orientation and sustenance. May
attention to Mary and to her example bring us to a greater love,
tenderness and docility to the voice of the Spirit, so that each
one is more enriched interiorly with that dedication to the
ministry of Peter.
4. In the light of the Marian Year as the central theme of our
meeting, which continues the teaching Vatican II in presenting
Mary as the guide of the People of God in their pilgrimage of
faith, I would now like to underline some of the salient events
of the year that is about to conclude: the Synod of bishops, the
numerous beatifications and canonizations, and the visit of the
Ecumenical Patriarch, Dimitrios I of Constantinople.
In the first place the sessions of the Synod: two months have
passed since the conclusion of its discussions and it is more
and more evident that the interventions and labours of the
Synodal Fathers have resulted in a global image of the Church –
how she lives, works, prays, suffers, struggles, and adheres to
Christ. The Synod has effectively offered the image of this
People on pilgrimage on earth, and especially of that portion of
the People of God, the laity, according to their specific
characteristics. In their pilgrimage it is still the Mother who
precedes her children as they seek “the kingdom of God in
dealing with temporal affairs as they organize them according to
God’s will in the ‘spirit of the Beatitudes’” (Lumen Gentium,
31). This Marian presence in the mission of the laity, in their
journey of faith, is the line which clearly defines that great
event.
As time passes since the Synod of last October, the positive
results become more evident, not alone in the reaffirmation of
the teaching of the magnificent documents of Vatican Ii but more
so because of the emphasis on the ecclesiology of communion as a
necessary contest for situating the role of the laity in the
Church for the salvation of the world. The laity themselves have
co-operated in formulating this conclusion, in so far as the
Synod Fathers represented the voice of the laity; furthermore,
the laity themselves of both sexes entered actively by their
conspicuous and qualified presence at the Synod where they spoke
in the plenary sessions and collaborated effectively in the
circuli minores. The result has been a truly universal overall
view of the diverse realities that constitute the true image of
the Church today. As with the preceding Synods, it shall be my
duty to follow those unforgettable days.
Meanwhile I am happy to underline in our present meeting how
this richness and plurality of results is the evidence that the
Church is truly open to the voice of the Spirit in her
pilgrimage of faith and love, and is always conscious of her
responsibility to God and before the world. Mary is present in
this journey of the laity, to guide them a she guides us all
towards the coming of Christ.
Final destiny
5. Vatican II has demonstrated that in her who is the Mother of
God the Church has reached her final destiny: “In the bodily and
spiritual glory which she possesses in heaven, the Mother of
Jesus continues in this present world as the image and first
flowering of the Church as she is to be perfected in the life to
come” (Lumen Gentium, 68). This affirmation reiterates what the
dogmatic Constitution the Church had already expounded in
chapter7: “the eschatological character of the pilgrim Church
and its union with the heavenly church”, and chapter 5: “the
universal vocation to holiness in the Church”. In the fullness
of time Mary, in virtue of her immaculate conception, reunited
in herself the salvific design of God that had been destroyed by
sin. Assumed into heaven with her most holy body, which is the
Ark of the new Covenant, she already reigns with Christ in the
psycho-physical unity of her person.
She is, therefore, after Christ, “the first-begotten of the dead
(Rev. 1:5; Col 1:18). She is the one who precedes the Church in
the journey towards the fulfillment of sanctity and awaits the
completion that shall be total. However, with her there are also
those who, awaiting the final resurrection, are already in
heaven according to the judgement of the church. They have
verified in themselves the plan of God and have reached that
desired success of every human existence: “the complete,
intimate union with Christ” (cf. Lumen Gentium, 49).
Recalling the Queen of all Saints in this Marian Year I now wish
to mention the two canonizations and eleven beatifications of
this year. These numerous liturgical events of 1987 have
demonstrated, perhaps more forcibly than usual, how real, true
and actual is the Church’s universal call to holiness, and have
given testimony to the ethnic-vocational plurality of such a
call.
The new saints and beati, in fact, belong to diverse vocations
among the people of God. Among such we discover: Cardinals, as
Marcello Spinola y Maestre (29 March) and Andrea Carlo Ferrari
(10 May): bishops, as Michal Kozal (14 June) and Jurgis
Matulaitis (28 June); priests and brothers, as Manuel Domingo y
Sol (29 March), Rupert Mayer (3 May) and Jules Arnould Reche (1
Nov.); women religious, as Teresa de los Andes (3April),
Benedetta Cambiagio Frassinelli (10 May), Ulrika Nisch and
BlandinaMerten (1 Nov.); laity of both sexes, as Lorenzo Ruiz
(18 Oct.), Giuseppe Moscati (25 Oct. ), and many others all
professions and occupations, even the most humble. It is a
witness given in the most diverse circumstances, i.e. as pastors
and ministers of the Church, as medical doctors, as educators
and evangelizers.
Often such witness was rendered in the most arduous
circumstances, such as by martyrdom antonomastically so called
as in the case of three Carmelite Sisters of Guadalajara (29
March), Edith Stein (1 May) and Karolina Kozka (10 June), Marcel
Callo, Pierina Morosini and Antonia Mesina (4 Oct.), the 16
martyrs of Japan (18 Oct.), and the eighty-five English martyrs
(22 Nov.).
Again, many of the new saints and beati lived in our century:
they are contemporaries. In reality, the saints are in our midst
and they demonstrate that even today the Church is called to
sanctity and responds generously under the inspiration and
guidance of Mary.
Furthermore, the saints and beati belong to diverse nations of
different continents: thus the canonizations and beatifications
attest to the universal significance even when viewed
geographically.
From this point of view I regard it as a special grace of the
Lord to have been able to propose for the veneration of the
church, as desired by repeated requests of the local bishops,
come champions of the faith in the locality where they lived. I
did this during some of the apostolic journeys of this year:
Sister Teresa de los Andes at Santiago, Chile (3 April); Sister
Benedicta of the Cross, at Cologne (1 May); Father Mayer at
Munich (3 May); Karolina Kozka, at Tarnow (10 June); and Mons.
Kozal at Warsaw (14 June).
The ever-increasing possibility of publicly proclaiming the
heroic sanctity of the sons and daughters of the Church in the
course of my visits to various countries of the world confirms
me in the belief that such journeys constitute a particular
service to the People of God on its pilgrimage, precisely that
pilgrimage towards the definitive Kingdom of God, in which Mary
“precedes” the Church in various places on earth. Since the
journeys are, with God’s help, the contemporary application of
the mandate of Christ – “go therefore into the whole world” (Mk
16:15) – and also and explicit consequence of the Petrine
ministry, “confirm your brothers” (Lk 22:32), they afford a
greater spiritual and intellectual irradiation of the office
that is so sublime and solemn, by proposing for the imitation of
the Church the authentic exemplars of sanctity proper to it.
Such saintly individuals are proof before the world that
holiness is possible for all people, in every civilization and
in all climates.
6. Following the path of the Council, the encyclical Redemptoris
Mater underlined the “pilgrimage” aspect of the Church, in which
the Mother of God “precedes”, and as such has ecumenical
overtones.
or separated brethren of the Churches and ecclesial communities
of the West, that document emphasizes the manner in which they
can, even desire to, advance together in the journey of faith of
which Mary is the exemplar. The encyclical sees as a glad omen
the fact that those Churches are united “with us in fundamental
points of the Christian faith, even in what concerns the Virgin
Mary”. (Redemptoris Mater, 31). Furthermore, the encyclical
stresses the identity of the historical, theological, liturgical
and artistic witness that the Orthodox Church as well as the
ancient Oriental churches offer concerning their theologically
profound and humanly tender veneration of the Mother of God
(ibid., 31-33).
In the light of all this the visit to Rome of His Holiness,
Dimitrios I, the Ecumenical Patriarch, 3-7 December, is vested
with a particular significance. I had the great joy of receiving
him in the Vatican with the fraternal charity and honour due to
him. It was a visit of ecclesial communion in exchange for that
which I had made to the ecumenical Patriarch for the feast St.
Andrew in 1979 – a visit that was intentionally undertaken as
contribution to the re-establishment of full communion between
Catholics and Orthodox.
Maturation of interests
The event took full account of the maturation of interests that
had developed between Catholics and Orthodox from the time of
the Council, and also of the results of the positive theological
dialogue current at the time. We were thus able to pray together
during the Eucharistic celebration in St. Peter’s Basilica. In
the spirit of the Marian Year we also prayed together in the
Basilica of Saint Mary Major. In his Mariological homily
Patriarch Dimitrios I wished to emphasize, “how our two sister
Churches and maintained through the centuries the unquenchable
flame of devotion to the All-Holy mother of God”.
This fact constitutes a firm link uniting us in a common
tradition. And if, in the course of time, distinctions have
appeared which are certainly being discussed and understood in
dialogue, “the common dogmatic and theological patrimony that
has developed concerning the venerable person of the All-Holy
Mother of God constitutes a bond of unity and reunion of
separated parties”. In confirmation of the positive importance
of this perspective, Patriarch Dimitrios wished to propose that
“the theme of Mariology should occupy a central position in the
theological dialogue between our Churches, and should be
examined not only from a theological standpoint but also from
that of anthropology and in particular in an ecclesiological
context, in the effort towards finding the complete
re-establishment of our ecclesial communion for which we pray
and labour, and towards which we look forward with great
expectation”.
This statement reflects directly the orientation of the
Encyclical Redemptoris Mater. Profoundly grateful, I am
convinced that from this point of view the visit of the
Patriarch has made positive contribution in depth to the
relations between Catholics and Orthodox.
The interest, rather the enthusiasm, which this visit had
aroused makes me repeat the desire that the Church “begin again
to breathe fully with her two lungs: the East and the West…This
is more than ever necessary today… It would also be the way for
the pilgrim church tossing and live more perfectly her
Magnificat” (Redemptoris Mater, 34).
7. As we conclude our meeting I take the opportunity of
announcing officially the proximate publication of an encyclical
letter in commemoration of the 20th anniversary of “Populorun
Progressio” of Paul VI. That document marked a fundamental phase
in the contemporary life of the Church. At the same time it
occasioned profound reactions in public opinion, giving thereby
testimony and new proof of the living presence of the Church
herself in the dramatic situations of the development and peace
of the world. In recalling the continuing relevance of that
excellent document, the forthcoming encyclical intends to
highlight that current themes and to respond to the problems
which, concerning the same themes, confront the conscience of
modern man: in a word, the encyclical desires to remain on the
same track as Populorum Progressio, as its ideal continuation
and development.
The projected work underlines how much the Church desires to
accompany the people of our time. For that reason I dedicate
this encyclical here and now to the Holy Virgin. I have it very
much at heart as I wish to find answers for society and to urge
renewal as well proposing concrete suggestions for international
co-operation in the context of fraternal understanding among
nations, and promoting authentic development according to the
plan of God.
8. In this perspective, which we must keep alive in our hearts,
I want to renew today my gratitude and my wishes for a happy
Christmas. I offer them to all of you who, in every rank and
grade, contribute your important and appreciated collaboration
to the Holy See in the roman Curia, to the Diocese of Rome in
the Vicariate and to Vatican City. I offer these greetings to
the Pontifical Representatives and the diplomatic personnel who
help them in their mission: I extend them to your dear ones,
especially to those families where physical or spiritual
suffering exists. May Jesus bring his grace and peace to all.
The child Jesus, whom we find as the Shepherds and the Magi
found him in the arms of Mary his Mother, is the light of the
world, and he is the light of our lives: “He is a light to our
minds”, as St. Augustine wrote (Quaest, Evangeliorum 1:1; PL 35,
1323). May his light guide the service which we bring to the
Mystery of the Incarnation, where she who is his Mother and ours
is particularly to be found, she who is the Mother of the
Church. It is she who will take us by the hand and help us to be
faithful in our ecclesial service, in which she will always be
our “predecessor”.
With that wish, which the imminent feast makes more intimate and
profound, I bless you all.
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