2023-12-23 20:27:09
“The angel’s annunciation to Mary, the pilgrimage of faith of the Mother of God and the invitation to open the doors of our hearts to Jesus” were the central themes, this Friday morning, December 22, of the Second Advent preaching for the Pope and members of the Roman Curia, led by Cardinal Raniero Cantalamessa, Ofm. Cap., Preacher of the Pontifical Household.
Vatican News
“Blessed is she who has believed”, this biblical passage, taken from the Gospel according to Saint Luke (1, 45), which will be proclaimed on the Fourth Sunday of Advent, has been the guiding thread of the Second Preaching for the Pope and the members of the Roman Curia, led by Cardinal Raniero Cantalamessa, Ofm. Cap., Preacher of the Pontifical Household, this Friday morning, December 22, in the Paul VI Hall of the Vatican.
After having presented, last Friday, the figure of the precursor John the Baptist, today the Capuchin cardinal invited us to let ourselves be led by the hand of the Mother of Jesus to “enter” the mystery of Christmas. In this sense, the story of the Annunciation, the Preacher pointed out, reminds us how Mary conceived and gave birth to Christ and how we too can conceive and give birth to him: by faith!
The question about the progress of Mary’s faith
But, before explaining the mystery of Mary’s faith, Cardinal Cantalamessa said that the same thing happened with her as with the person of Jesus, that is, the question about Jesus’ progress in knowing the Father’s will and in obedience to her.
“Something similar,” he said, “was repeated, tacitly, for Mary’s faith. It was taken for granted that she had made her act of faith at the moment of the Annunciation and had remained stable in it throughout her life, like someone who, with her voice, has suddenly reached the highest note and then maintains it throughout. the rest of the song. A reassuring explanation was given for all the words that seemed to say the opposite.”
A new dimension of Mary’s faith
In this regard, the Preacher said that the gift that the Holy Spirit gave to the Church, with the renewal of Mariology, was the discovery of a new dimension of Mary’s faith. “The Mother of God – affirmed the Second Vatican Council – ‘advanced in the pilgrimage of faith’ (LG, 58). She did not believe once and for all, but she walked in the faith and progressed in it.” The statement was taken up and developed by Saint John Paul II in the encyclical Redemptoris Mater (nr.14):
“Elizabeth’s words “Blessed is she who has believed” do not apply only to that specific moment of the annunciation. Certainly the annunciation represents the culminating moment of Mary’s faith in waiting for Christ, but it is also her starting point, from where she begins her entire “path towards God”, her entire journey of faith.
Mary believed, hoping against hope
After the Annunciation and Christmas, Cardinal Cantalamessa pointed out, by faith Mary presented the Child to the temple, by faith she followed him, maintaining a low profile, in her public life, by faith she was under the cross, by faith awaited his resurrection.
“She is there, powerless before the martyrdom of her Son, but she consents with love. It is a replica of the drama of Abraham, but how much more demanding! With Abraham, God stops at the last moment, but not with her. He accepts that his Son be sacrificed, he hands him over to the Father, with a broken heart, but firm, strong in his faith. This is where Maria’s voice reaches its highest note. What the Apostle says of Abraham must be said of Mary with much greater reason: she Mary believed, hoping against all hope, and thus she became the mother of many people.
In her what I had believed was fulfilled
The renewal of Mariology brought about by Vatican II owes much to Saint Augustine. It was his authority that pushed first some theologians and then the Council Assembly to insert the discussion of Mary into the constitution of the Church, the Lumen gentium, instead of making a separate discussion about her. And the same saint of Hippo affirms about the faith of Mary, a vibrant exhortation, also valid for us:
“Mary believed, and in her what she had believed was fulfilled. Let us also believe, so that what came true in her can benefit us too!”
God “is felt with the heart and not with the reason”
And when remembering the fourth centenary of the birth of Blaise Pascal, whom the Holy Father wanted to remember to the Church with his Apostolic Letter of June 19, the Capuchin cardinal recalled his most famous phrase that has its foundation in Sacred Scripture, which tells us He says that God “is felt with the heart and not with the reason”, as Pascal affirms, for the simple reason that “God is love” and love is not perceived with the intellect, but with the heart.
“It is true that God is also truth (“God is light,” John writes in his First Letter) and truth is perceived with the intellect; But while love presupposes knowledge, knowledge does not necessarily presuppose love. You cannot love without knowing, but you can know without loving! A civilization like ours knows this well, proud of having invented artificial intelligence, but so poor in love and compassion.”
“Faith and Reason”
Given the secular and theological thought of the last three centuries, Cardinal Cantalamessa said that the world has followed Descartes more than Pascal and the consequence was that rationalism dominated and dictated the law, before reaching the current nihilism. All the speeches and debates that take place, even today, focus on “Faith and Reason”, never, as far as I know, said the Cardinal, on “Faith and heart”, nor on “Faith and will”.
“Pascal is often cited in relation to the “calculated risk” or the profitable bet. In uncertainty, he writes, he bets on the existence of God, because “if you win you have gained everything, if you lose you have lost nothing.” But the true risk of faith – he himself also knows it – is another: it is to put Jesus Christ in parentheses. A long-standing risk!”
Come back to your heart!
Let us now return to Pascal’s words about God who “feels with the heart.” No longer to make it the object of historical and theological considerations, but to make our personal and practical decision.
“Return to your heart!… Return from your wanderings that have led you astray; return to the Lord. He’s ready. Return first to your heart, you who have become strange by wandering outside: you do not know yourself and you seek the one who created you! Return, return to the heart, detach yourself from the body… Return to the heart: there examine what you perhaps perceive of God, because there is the image of God; “Christ dwells in the interiority of man.”
Greccio 1223
This year’s Christmas, Cardinal Cantalamessa indicated, marks the eighth centenary of the first creation of the nativity scene in Greccio. It is the first of three Franciscan centenaries: It will be followed, in 2024, by the centenary of the saint’s stigmata and, in 2026, by the centenary of his death. This circumstance can also help us return to the heart. His first biographer, Tommaso de Celano, recounts the words with which the Poverello explained his initiative:
“I would like,” he said, “to represent the Child born in Bethlehem, and in some way see with the eyes of my body the difficulties in which he found himself due to the lack of the things necessary for a newborn, how they placed him in a cradle and how he lay between the ox and the donkey.”
Let’s open the door of our hearts to Jesus
Unfortunately, with the passage of time, the nativity scene has moved away from what it represented for Francis. It has often become a form of art or spectacle whose external environment is admired more than its mystical meaning. Even so, however, it fulfills its function as a sign and it would be foolish to give it up.
“The nativity scene is, therefore, a useful and beautiful tradition, but we cannot be satisfied with traditional outdoor nativity scenes. We must set up a different nativity scene for Jesus, a nativity scene of the heart. Corde creditur: with the heart you believe. Christum habitare per fidem in cordibus vestris: “may Christ, through faith, come to dwell in your hearts,” writes the Apostle to the Ephesians (Eph 3:17). Mary and her Husband continue, mystically, knocking on doors, as they did that night in Bethlehem.”
This is not a beautiful poetic fiction
Finally, Cardinal Cantalamessa said that in our hearts there is room for many guests, but for one owner. Giving birth to Jesus means letting our “self” die, or at least renewing the decision to no longer live for ourselves, but for Him who was born, died and rose again for us” (cf. Rom 14, 7-9).
“Where God is born, man dies, was the slogan of a certain atheistic existentialism. It’s true! However, the one who dies is “the old man,” corrupted and destined, in any case, to end in death, and the one who is born is the new man, “created in righteousness and true holiness,” destined to live. “for eternity. It is an enterprise that will not end with Christmas, but it can begin with it.”
Before wishing you a Merry Christmas, the Preacher of the Papal Household entrusted the Mother of God, who “conceived Christ in her heart before in her body”, to help us achieve this purpose. “Happy birthday to Jesus; and to all of you: Holy – and beloved – Father Pope Francis, venerated Fathers, brothers and sisters: Merry Christmas!”
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