Maria is. Her Spirit is.
Her Name is and always will be
Luke’s Gospel, chap. 1, verses 41b-55
Feast of Mary’s Most Holy Name
September 12, 2019
Homily of the Pontiff Samuel
(Draft)
Alive is today the joy of celebrating this Feast that leads us to contemplate Mary, Mary, Mary, the totally beautiful, the totally pure. This Name shakes the strings of the heart. A Holy Name, “the” Holy Name, the Name chosen for the One whom the Father has chosen as Mother, Bride, that has been crowned Queen, Coredemptrix, the One who, with the Son, in union with the Son and for the Son, has the power to save.
Whoever calls Mary is saved, whoever invokes Mary wins, whoever calls Mary will never be lost. Here is the faith of Mary’s sons. Here is the awareness of those who today celebrate this Name, this Holy Name, this Most Holy Name: feast of the Most Holy Name of Mary.
Mary is. «I know you since ever, from everlasting I know you». Mary is in relationship with the Father since ever, from the beginning Mary is united with the Father’s Heart, Mary has always been known by the Father, before time was (Pr 8:23-30). This is why Mary is without blemish. This was in the thought of the Father, a single whole with the Father, who then wanted to fill that little heart with grace and with His infinite Love. By Her birth, She brought purity back to this Earth, so that from that moment onwards everyone could have been touched by that purity, generated and created by the Father, so that everyone could touch by hand Her candour and so then be grateful to the Father for having given Mary to the world. Mary, totally beautiful, totally full of grace. Love, the infinity of the Father, had found home in that Heart.
Here then, that in the moment when the Angel appeared to Mary and greeted Her (Lk 1:28), all Paradise rejoiced. In Mary, in this Holy Name, we fully rejoice today, because through this Name, through the Name of Mary, Mother of God, Woman of God, there will be our salvation, we have been given salvation. Mary, the One who generated the One who saves, our salvation (1Ts 5:9): ‘God saves’ is His Name (1Jn 5:11).
Whoever today pronounces and will pronounce the Name of Mary with sincerity, truth and deep love, is already living and will live the joy of Heaven. The Father will create the Eternal Temple of God’s Love in our hearts, so to accompany, suggest and sanctify us, so that we may arrive where the Holy of Holies rests, resides and waits for everything to be accomplished, as it is in His thought.
What would the world have been without Mary, without a Mother who held us tightly to Herself to make us feel God, the Love of God, Her maternal presence, Her motherly love? As John Paul I said, in Mary we experience that God is Mother. In Mary, God is. In Mary, the divinity is. In Mary, God’s Love is Person.
Today Mary is alive. Her Spirit lives. Mary is the highest expression of God. Without Mary, the world would have been a world defeated already from the beginning, without love, without mercy.
We have heard this today in this Gospel (Lk 1:41b-55), in the Magnificat: His faithful love will extend age after age to those who fear God (Lk 1:50). And the time in which we are living, is the time in which God’s mercy is in its highest expression. We are here, in this Shrine dedicated to the Divine Mercy, the centre of the infinite mercy of God (Heb 4:16), where the Father has sent again a part of His Heart, His Son, the Baby Jesus (Mk 14:62), to welcome everyone, to give everyone His infinite mercy. Here is that these words we’ve just heard, proclaimed by Mary in this hymn, here they find fulfilment and are lived, so that everyone may experience the infinite mercy of God (Lk 1:50), feel the Love of God, appreciate the Love of God, letting himself be pervaded and invaded by God’s Love (1Jn 4:9), asking the Father for forgiveness, mercy, in knowing and being sure that here the Father listens and will forgive all those who come and ask for mercy with a sincere heart (Lk 15:21-24).
Mary’s Love awaits us and welcomes us. Mary is alive! Here Mary is alive and Her Spirit is alive. Mary, the highest expression of God. Mary, Star of our journey, Star of those who want to live and love God, to serve God, to the fullest, in holiness. Mary is the One who transmitted totally Her purity; and by means of Her purity, She has sanctified the hearts of many, softening them with love and holiness.
Mary is full of grace (Lk 1:28), the One chosen by the Father to give this humanity the prize of salvation (Lk 1:31-32; Rev 12:5), and we all must earn it, this Fruit of Love given by means of a living, living, living love so that it could be the centre of everyone’s life.
Here Christ returns to be the centre, the primary Good, the goal of everyone’s journey (Ps 118:22; Mt 21:42; Mk 12:10). Christ will never be mixed with other religious confessions, Christ will never be placed on the same level, because Christ comes from the Father’s Heart and, while respecting everything and everyone, this Church will never sell-off the primacy of Christ (Mk 16:15-16). This is what Mary gives us, today more than ever.
Mary, the morning Star; Mary, the Maiden; Mary, the Bride; Mary, the Mother; Mary, the Queen; She who lowering Herself has been elected, raised, to be loved and contemplated.
Mary, the One who has been called from among all women at the time when “humanism” was alive and complete. Not God above everything but the “ego”, the “self” and the unbridled desire to be above God, in order to personify “the” law and keep everyone on their knees, submissive, subjugated by those who were supposed to serve God but that instead forced everyone to prostrate at their feet (Mt 23:1-4). Mary at that time worshiped God, Her God, that God who had entered Her Heart, to be always at Her side, so that Mary could arise and be the “Star” for everyone.
At that time, Mary experienced all this and with great humility she worked, breaking through the hearts and that closed and violent mentality that claimed everything but gave nothing to God. They claimed honours and flaunted power (Mt 23:5-7). This was the environment in which Mary lived at that time, but She kept the live and nascent grace in Her Heart. Mary took care of the Child Jesus, She suckled Him, She grew Him up, protecting Him from everything and everyone with Her scent, with Her candour, with Her living motherhood, drying His tears and giving Him Her balm.
Here is the inseparable union between Mary and the Child Jesus. The Father’s Project began, so to continue and then to be fulfilled (Lk 1:30-33; Rev 12:1-2.5). The Project of the Father is always against the mainstream thought of the world, the thought of humanity that was continually changing over time its aspects but not the depths of their hearts and thoughts. Always their “self” above the Project of God, despite the warnings of Heaven through the words of saints and prophets, which were never believed but always fought, fought for power, to safeguard and hold power.
Now, together with Mary, Mother Church, New Jerusalem (Rev 21:2), the Father begins again, sending His Fruit of Love here again, in this Land of Love, to regenerate humanity (Dn 7:13; Mk 14:62), which has fallen prey again of a new humanism, as we increasingly hear in many proclamations that nowadays many eminent personalities are scrambling to utter, saying they want to bring humanity to live a “new humanism”. But this “humanism” has rejected God. This “humanism” has again put “self” in the place of God: man and no longer the Man-God.
We, sons of Mary, are called today to imitate and to embody Her virtues, in these times, to bring once again this breath of newness, of purity, of rectitude, of coherence, of holiness. This is what we are called to do. And in order to do this, we, sons of this Mother Church, have to look at the example of She who is the example for us, the One who is our Mother, spiritual Mother, She who has totally embodied in perfection the virtues of Mary Most Holy: Maria Giuseppina Norcia.
Here is the holy bridge between Mary Most Holy and this Mary: She who embodied Her virtues; She who is a total example for us in these times; She who helped us to love Christ and Mary even more perfectly; She who, embodying the Love descended from Heaven on that June 13, 1947, and making Him dwell in Her Heart, has then given Him to us, has brought Him to us, so that each of us could know Him. Here is the Immanuel (Mt 1:23), ‘God-is-with-us’, as promised by the Father to His sons. Here He is, the Fruit of Love descended from Heaven (Mt 26:64) that lives here in this Jerusalem. His Spirit is alive. And we, by contemplating Mary, can live all this.
This is why I say: Mary is alive, Her Spirit is alive and accompanies us, guides us. We perceive Her scent, we truly feel it alive and we want to live it, we want to feel elated by this fragrance; and we want to bring it to everyone, with humility but with deep awareness, with great strength. And we promise it, every time we recite that prayer, revealed to Her and that we have made ours: «I will console You and for as much as I can, I will make You known and loved by all those who do not love You, consoling thus Your Immaculate Heart. In You I trust, in You I hope, and only You I want to love». This is our living prayer to honour the Heart of this Mother.
Here is the vigour of Mary: Her holy Heart which emanates purity and holiness. Those who want to win against their self, are to look at Mary. Those who want to live in the full brotherhood, are to imitate Mary in hospitality and availability of heart, to be ready to welcome their brothers and thus live in harmony and peace. Those who want to find themselves, are to find Mary in their lives, so to recognize the Word of God who is Life (Jn 1:1-4). Those who want to remain anchored to the right Way and to the living and holy faith in Christ the Lord, are to live Mary and to quench their thirst by Her holy Fruit, and to be fed by Her nourishment which is milk and honey, sweetness for the heart, essential for the spirit, so to grow and to be able to recognise in this Land of Love the Project of the Father that is being fulfilled (Rev 7:17), that is alive, that already is.
And so be it.
