In Mary, the Star that manifests Christ,
there is the Way, the Truth and the Life
Matthew’s Gospel, chap. 2, verses 1-12
January 6th, 2020
Solemn Feast of the Epiphany of the Lord
Homily of the Pontiff Samuel
(Draft)
Here we are, also in this new liturgical year just begun, to meditate and live this solemn Feast of the Epiphany, just as we did in the previous years when we initially meditated on the Sign given by Heaven to live and contemplate the Child Jesus; and then, last year, we meditated on that phrase: “Where’s the King?” (Mt 2:2a), which resounded and accompanied us throughout the previous liturgical year, in the awareness of having found Him, the King of kings, in this Little Cradle. And so, this year, we continue the meditation of this solemn day, focusing on the Star: Mary, our Star.
“We saw his star as it rose – it is written – and have come to do him homage” (Mt 2:2b). Mary is the Star, that has arisen again. Mary lives; Her Spirit lives. Her Spirit is alive and dwells here. Mary, She who is Mother; the Immaculate; the ever Virgin Mary; the Universal Coredemptrix, just as this Church has wanted to decree as a dogma of faith. Mary, the Queen of Heaven and Earth, She who leads the heavenly armies headed by the Archangel Michael and guides Her sons on this Earth, who want to fulfill the Father’s will, so that everyone may come and worship the only King, the King of kings (Rev 19:16), Christ the King of the universe.
Here then that by following the Star everything will be found.
«Let yourselves be guided by Mary’s love. Let yourselves be guided by God’s love, by that only love that generated Christ, that only love that is in Mary. Christ and Mary, Mary and Christ, in a single interweaving of Love, generated in the Father’s Heart for the salvation of His sons. Christ the Redeemer, saves. Mary, the Coredemptrix, in Christ, with Christ and for Christ, saves».
Here is the star that will never fall and that will never let anyone fall. Here is Mary and Her twelve stars, crowning Her head (Rev 12:1), who shine and will shine to lead everyone to adore Christ, the Redeemer, who in turn will help everyone to love Mary, the Coredemptrix. Here is this intertwining of Love in which we are totally involved in living and contemplating Christ and in living and contemplating Mary.
“When the king heard this he was perturbed, and so was the whole of Jerusalem” (Mt 2:3). The truth of Christ perturbs; perturbs the powerful of the world, perturbs those who live the world wielding the power. Here, as if by magic, in the union against that “One”, the Powerful join forces. Those who previously were opposed, now come together to oppose that “One” (Mk 15:1), the “innocent”, the Lamb (Jn 1:29.36). Civil power and religious power come together. The foolish, ungrateful, treacherous Pharisees, instead of announcing to their children, they make their knowledge available for Herod; they joined Herod to plot against the Child, to plot against the Mystery of the Child God (Mt 2:4-6).
Here is the fusion of powers to go against God and his manifestation in history. The world is afraid. It doesn’t want other kings, it doesn’t want other rulers: others who can change their world order of things. And so the world reacts with hypocrisy and murderous fury.
Here is that, in the homicidal fury of Herod (Mt 2:16) is represented the unseemly reaction of the world that furiously reacts to kill the Baby God in the bud. The Pharisees are jointly responsible for the massacre of the innocents: of the Innocent and of the innocents.
History teaches that the Mystery of the Child God is always attacked by the powerful of this world, who try to kill Him in the bud. Here is the battle described in the Book of Revelation. The Woman robed with the sun, Mary, the Mother Church, crowned with the stars, suffering in the pangs of childbirth and gives birth to the divine Child (Rev 12:1-2.5). And here is the red dragon who tries to devour and kill the Child (Rev 12:3-4), by making use of two beasts, to whom he hands over his own power (Rev 13:1-3.11-12). Once again, Good attacked by evil, that however cannot prevail over Christ and His Church.
In these times we live all this. The Mystery of the Child God attacked by the dragon, who vomits mud to sweep away the Mystery of the Child God (Rev 12:15). The mud represents the slanders, the empty, false and unfounded allegations; the false testimonies vomited by the dragon and his children against the Mystery of the Child God. The fight is alive between Mary, Mother Church, and Her descendants on one side and, the dragon, the two beasts and their children on the other (Rev 12:17; 13.5-8), just as it’s also written in the first book of the Sacred Scriptures, the book of Genesis (Gn 3:15).
The Evangelist says: “The star preceded them” (Mt 2:9b). Mary always precedes; Mary’s love always precedes and will precede the Love made Person, the incarnate God. Mary always precedes the manifestations of God, of Christ on Earth (Jn 2:3-5). Mary! By following Mary, it will be easy, easier, to find the Mystery of the Child God who manifests Himself in history. By following Mary, you’ll reach God’s grotto, this Cradle, the last, second and last grotto of the manifestation of Christ in history.
“The sight of the Star filled them with delight” (Mt 2:10), it is written. To love Mary, to see Mary with the eyes of faith, is endless joy. In these last times in which we are now living, everything is being fulfilled in Mary, with Mary, for Mary. In Mary there is the Way, in Mary there is the Truth, in Mary there is the Life (Jn 14:6). Mary is the Star, the Way that leads to Christ Way. In Mary there is the Truth which leads to understand the complete Truth, that is not relative (as they now say) but is absolute, complete. In Mary there is Life: Mary, She who generates the One who is Life, Eternal Life for God’s sons.
“The star halted over the place where the Child was” (Mt 2:9b) added the Evangelist. Here is the eternal home of the Child God.
Here is the New Jerusalem (Rev 21:2), announced, waited, which now is. Here is the New Jerusalem, the metaphysical Home of God among men. The Spirit of Mary dwells Here. Mary Pilgrim, has appeared in many places to lead all peoples to the dwelling place of God, Who made Himself Child again to draw everyone to Himself. All the people will converge here. As the Magi came from the east of God, all those who are and will be animated by goodwill, will converge here, will come here to contemplate the divine Child (Is 52:10; Is 43:5; Jer 23:3; Ez 11:17; 34:12-13; 36:24; 37:21-28; Mic 4:6-8; Zep 3:19-20).
The New Jerusalem, Corner of Heaven on Earth. Mary New Jerusalem, Gate of Heaven. Mary who becomes a living Cradle, the eternal Tabernacle which contains God’s infinite Love (Lk 1:35). She who, although being a finite creature, has widen Her Heart, by God’s grace (Lk 1:28-30), becoming able, through love, for love, with love, to contain the infinite love of God. Great is the mystery of Mary. Here there is the holy ladder that Jacob, called Israel, saw; he saw the angels and the saints going up and down on it (Gn 28:12). Here is that the angels and saints of Heaven, by that ladder, come down to join all those who want to become saints on this earth and unite to one another in this Corner of Heaven to already live celestiality, the Paradise that the Father has given us here in the New Jerusalem. Here, Heaven and Earth come together in one only dimension.
Through Mary Coredemptrix, humanity is raised up to the glory of God. Here is Mary, the Star, the only Star who leads to Salvation. Other stars that were in the Firmament of God, no longer are.
It is written that a third of the stars would have fallen (Rev 12:4a) and, I say to you: «That third has already fallen». That modernist and relativist third who have sold off Christ, the absolute Truth, has already fallen. The other third, having taken refuge and strongly being bound to tradition, risks to fall if they don’t allow themselves to be renewed, by welcoming, now as then, the Sign sent by the Father to help humanity. Here is Christ, the Sign (Lk 2:12). Here is Mary, the Sign that precedes, to lead everyone to the Sign sent by the Father to help this arid and lost humanity.
Christ and Mary, the Sign to be followed in order to make all converge here, where there is that last third in which the great city has been split, which was torn apart, dividing itself into three parts (Rev 16:19a).
“Going into the house they saw the Child with His Mother Mary, and falling to their knees they did Him homage” (Mt 2:11a). «Come you too, all of you animated like the Magi by good will. Leave what is past: your religious beliefs, the ancient rites, the empty habits. Let yourselves be renewed and clothed by God’s love. Enter this House to contemplate the Child and Mary His Mother. God awaits you. He’s descended again, Here, to love you, to welcome you, to soothe all suffering. Those who are thirsty are to come and draw the water directly from the source of Life (Rev 22:17). The Spirit is Life. The Spirit gives Life, eternal Life (Jn 6:63). Come, bow down with a sincere heart and God will raise you to His glory, in Christ and Mary».
“Then, opening their treasures, they offered him gifts of gold and frankincense and myrrh” (Mt 2:11b). Here is the heart, our casket. Open your hearts to the Lord. Offer Him your gold, your frankincense and your myrrh. Offer Him your wealth to inherit the eternal wealth. Offer Him your prayer, your holy daily life, which rises before Him as incense. Offer Him every pain, every suffering and every bitterness, to join to the Mystery of Redemption and Salvation, which has fulfilment in Christ and Mary. Say to the Father: «To You, my Lord, I Offer my life, my everyday life. Make me partake in Your Love so to win in Your Name».
God is invincible (Jdt 16:13). Herod could nothing. And nothing could the Pharisees who plotted with him against God and who now suffer the eternal punishment. Because whoever fights and despises God perishes. So happened in Bethlehem, where the inhabitants of that city, instead of praising God for having chosen that Land and hence rising up against Herod for his brutality and against the Pharisees for having sold off the Treasure entrusted to them by the Father, instead of doing this, they inveighed, abandoned and denied God. Ungrateful people, said many. Also St. Gerard confessor, pilgrim towards the Holy Land, who stopped here, said about this city and its inhabitants: “Ungrateful people”. But with God’s help we will overturn this world. With God’s help we will restore the fate of this city, of every country and of every nation that will want to rely on Christ and Mary, to show everyone the living presence of God in this world, who has not forgotten His sons but has come down again, here, to help them and to hold them even more tightly to Himself.
The Psalm says: «All the nations you have made shall come and worship before you, O Lord, and shall glorify your name» (Ps 85:9). And again: «The whole wide world will remember and return to Yahweh, all the families of nations bow down before him» (Ps 21,28). And so it is written in the Book of Revelation: «The smoke from the glory and the power of God filled the temple» (Rev 15:9). Here is the evocation of the glory in the temple which is a sign of the presence of God in the midst of the people in the messianic times that are described in chapter 21 of Revelation, where is sung the New Jerusalem: «Then I heard a loud voice call from the throne, ‘Look, here God lives among human beings. He will make his home among them; they will be his people, and he will be their God, God‑with‑them» (Rev 21:3).
On the example of God’s Maiden, She who, by surrendering Her will to God, let herself be clothed by the Father’s Love, we too today want to pray, together with Her, in union with Her: «I love You, Jesus, I love You so much. I rely on You, do not leave me alone. Make me be as You please. Your Will be done». Already from now, we are preparing for the feast of Her nativity which we will solemnly celebrate on January 21, in this holy bridge that leads us from the Feast of the Epiphany of the Lord to the Mystery of His new manifestation on this Earth, which began intimately with the birth of Maria Giuseppina Norcia on January 21, 1940, hidden to the world’s eyes; to then manifesting Himself to Her heart on June 13, 1947, the day of the beginning of the itinerary of the Lord’s return and, thus, of the new manifestation of God One and Triune in the midst of this humanity.
In Mary, with Mary and for Mary.
And so be it.
