Mother of GodSolemnity of Mary, Mother of God - January 1The Motherhood of Mary From the homily during Mass in Saint Peters Basilica, 1 January, 1979, by Pope John Paul II. We see Mary then - as in so many pictures and sculptures - with the Child in her arms, with the Child at her breast. The Mother, who gave birth and fed the Son of God. The Mother of Christ. There is no image that is better known and that speaks in a more simple way of the mystery of the Lords birth than that of the Mother with Jesus in her arms. Is not this image, perhaps, the source of our extraordinary confidence? Is it not just this image that allows us to live in the circle of all the mysteries of our faith, and, while contemplating them asdivineto consider them at the same time sohuman? Therefore I say: Mother, you know what it means to clasp in your arms the dead body of your Son, of him to whom you gave birth, spare all Mothers on this earth the death of their children, the torments, the slavery, the destruction of war, the persecutions, the concentration camps, the prisons! Keep for them the joy of birth, of sustenance, of the development of man and of his life. In the name of this life, in the name of the birth of the Lord, implore with us peace and justice in the world! Mother of Peace, in all the beauty and majesty of your motherhood, which the Church exalts and the world admires, we pray to you: be with us at every moment. Let this New Year be a year of peace, in virtue of the birth and the death of your Son! Amen |
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But there is yet another image of the Mother with her Son in her arms. It is in this basilica: it is La Pieta: Mary with Jesus taken from the Cross: with Jesus who died before her eyes on Mount Golgotha, and who after death returns to those arms on which he was offered as Saviour of the world at Bethlehem.
