October 11, 2010
Dear brothers and sisters,
On October 11 1962, 48 years ago, Pope John XXIII inaugurated Vatican Council
II. At the time, on October 11, the feast day of the Divine Motherhood of Mary
was celebrated and, with this gesture, with this date, Pope John wished to
entrust the whole Council into the motherly hands and maternal heart of the
Madonna. We too begin on October 11th, we too wish to entrust this Synod, with
all its problems, with all its challenges, with all its hopes, to the maternal
heart of the Madonna, the Mother of God.< br />
Pius XI, in 1930, introduced this feast day, 1600 years after the Council of
Ephesus, which had legitimated, for Mary, the title of Theotokos, Dei Genitrix.
With this great word Dei Genitrix, Theotokos, the Council of Ephesus had
summarized the entire doctrine of Christ, of Mary, the whole of the doctrine of
redemption. So it would be worthwhile to reflect briefly, for a moment, on what
was said during the Council of Ephesus, on what this day means.
In reality, Theotokos is a courageous title. A woman is the Mother of God. One
could say: how is this possible? God is eternal, he is the Creator. We are
creatures, we are in time: how could a human being be the Mother of God, of the
Eternal, since we are all in time, we are all creatures? Therefore one can
understand that there was some strong opposition, in part, to this term. The
Nestorians used to say: one can speak about Christotokos, yes, but Theotokos
no: Theos, God, is beyond, beyond the events of histor y. But the Council
decided this, and thus it enlightened the adventure of God, the greatness of
what he has done for us. God did not remain in Himself: he went out, He united
in such a way, so radically to this man, Jesus, that this man Jesus is God, and
if we speak about Him, we can also speak about God. Not only was a man born that
had something to do with God, but in Him was born God on earth. God came from
himself. But we could also say the opposite: God drew us to Himself, so that we
are not outside of God, but we are within the intimate, the intimacy of God
Himself.
Aristotelian philosophy, as we well know, tells us that between God and man
there is only an unreciprocated relationship. Man refers to God, but God, the
Eternal, is in Himself, He does not change: He cannot have this relation today
and another relationship tomorrow. He is within Himself, He does not have ad
extra relations. It is a very logical term, but it is also a word that makes us
despair: so God h as no relationship with me. With the incarnation, with the
event of the Theotokos, this has been radically changed, because God drew us
into Himself and God in Himself is the relationship and allows us to
participate in His interior relationship. Thus we are in His being Father, Son
and Holy Spirit, we are within His being in relationship, we are in
relationship with Him and He truly created the relationship with us. At that
moment, God wished to be born from woman and remain Himself: this is the great
event. And thus we can understand the depth of the act by Pope John, who
entrusted the Council, Synodal Assembly to the central mystery, to the Mother
of God who is drawn by the Lord into Himself, and thus all of us with Her.
The Council began with the icon of the Theotokos. At the end, Pope Paul VI
recognized the same title of Mater Ecclesiae to the Madonna. And these two
icons, which begin and end the Council, are intrinsically linked, and are, in
the end, one single ico n. Because Christ was not born like any other
individual. He was born to create a body for Himself: He was born – as John
says in Chapter 12 of his Gospel – to attract all to Him and in Him. He was
born – as it says in the Letters to the Colossians and to the Ephesians – to
summarize the whole world, He was born as the firstborn of many brothers, He
was born to unite the cosmos in Him, so that He is the Head of a great Body.
Where Christ is born, the movement of summation begins, the moment of the
calling begins, of construction of his Body, of the Holy Church. The Mother of
Theos, the Mother of God, is the Mother of the Church, because she is the
Mother of He who came to unite all in His resurrected Body.
Saint Luke leads us to understand this in the parallel between the first
chapter of his book and the first chapter of the Acts of the Apostles, which
repeat the same mystery on two different levels. In the first chapter of the
Gospel the Holy Spirit comes upon Mary and thus she gives birth to and gives us
the Son of God. In the first chapter of the Acts of the Apostles, Mary is at
the center of Jesus’ disciples who are praying all together, pleading with the
cloud of the Holy Spirit. And thus from the believing Church, with Mary at its
heart, is born the Church, the Body of Christ. This dual birth is the only
birth of the Christus totus, of the Christ who embraces the world and all of
us.
Birth in Bethlehem, birth at the Last Supper. Birth of the Infant Jesus, birth
of the Body of Christ, of the Church. These are two events or just one event.
But between the two lie truly the Cross and the Resurrection. And only through
the Cross comes the path towards the totality of Christ, towards His
resurrected Body, towards the universalization of His being in the unity of the
Church. And thus, bearing in mind that only from the wheat fallen to earth can
a great harvest be reaped, from the Lord pierced on the Cross comes the
universality of His disciples reunited in this His Body, dead and risen.
Keeping this connection between Theotokos and Mater ecclesiae in mind, we turn
our attention to the last book of the Holy Scripture, Revelation, where, in
chapter 12, we can find this synthesis. The woman clothed with thesun, with
twelve stars over her head and the moon at her feet, gives birth. And gives
birth with a cry of pain, gives birth with great suffering. Here the Marian
mystery is the mystery of Bethlehem extended to the cosmic mystery. Christ is
always reborn in all generations and thus takes on, gathers humanity within
Himself. And this cosmic birth is achieved in the cry of the Cross, in the
suffering of the Passion. And the blood of martyrs belongs to this cry of the
Cross.
So, at this moment, we can look at the second psalm of this Hour, Psalm 81,
where we can see part of this process. God is among gods – they are still
considered as gods in Israel. In this Psalm, in a great concentratio n, in a
prophetic vision, we can see the power taken from the gods. Those who seemed to
be gods are not gods and lose their divine characteristics, and fall to earth.
Dii estis et moriemini sicut nomine (cf. Psa 81:6-7): the wresting of power,
the fall of the divinities.
This process that is achieved along the path of faith of Israel, and which here
is summarized in one vision, is the true process of the history of religion:
the fall of the gods. And thus the transformation of the world, the knowledge
of the true God, the loss of power by the forces that dominate the world, is a
process of suffering. In the history of Israel we can see how this liberation
from polytheism, this recognition – “Only He is God” – is achieved
with great pain, beginning with the path of Abraham, the exile, the Maccabeans,
up to Christ. And this process of loss of power continues throughout history,
spoken of in Revelation chapter 12; it mentions the fall of the angels, which
are not tr uly angels, they are not divinities on earth. And is achieved truly,
right at the time of the rising Church, where we can see how the blood of the
martyrs takes the power away from the divinities, starting with the divine
emperor, from all these divinities. It is the blood of the martyrs, the
suffering, the cry of the Mother Church that makes them fall and thus
transforms the world.
This fall is not only the knowledge that they are not God; it is the process of
transformation of the world, which costs blood, costs the suffering of the
witnesses of Christ. And, if we look closely, we can see that this process
never ends. It is achieved in various periods of history in ever new ways; even
today, at this moment, in which Christ, the only Son of God, must be born for
the world with the fall of the gods, with pain, the martyrdom of witnesses. Let
us remember all the great powers of today’s history, let us remember the
anonymous capital that enslaves man, which is no longer in man’s possession,
but is an anonymous power served by men, by which men are tormented and even
killed. It is a destructive power, that threatens the world. And then the power
of the terroristic ideologies. Violent acts are apparently made in the name of
God, but this is not God: they are false divinities that must be unmasked; they
are not God. And then drugs, this power that, like a voracious beast, extends
its claws to all parts of the world and destroys it: it is a divinity, but it
is a false divinity that must fall. Or even the way of living proclaimed by
public opinion: today we must do things like this, marriage no longer counts,
chastity is no longer a virtue, and so on.
These ideologies that dominate, that impose themselves forcefully, are
divinities. And in the pain of the Saints, in the suffering of believers, of
the Mother Church which we are a part of, these divinities must fall, what is
said in the Letters to the Colossians and to the Ephesians must be done: the
dominations, the powers fall and become subjects of the one Lord Jesus Christ.
On this battle we find ourselves in, of this taking power away from God, of
this fall of false gods, that fall because they are not deities, but powers
that can destroy the world, chapter 12 of Revelations mentions these, even if
with a mysterious image, for which, I believe, there are many different and
beautiful interpretations. It has been said that the dragon places a large
river of water before the fleeing woman to overcome her. And it would seem
inevitable that the woman will drown in this river. But the good earth absorbs
this river and it cannot be harmful. I think that the river is easily
interpreted: these are the currents that dominate all and wish to make faith in
the Church disappear, the Church that does not have a place anymore in front of
the force of these currents that impose themselves as the only rationality, as
the only way to live. And the earth that absorbs these currents is the faith of
the simple at heart, that does not allow itself to be overcome by these rivers
and saves the Mother and saves the Son. This is why the Psalm says – the first
psalm of the Hour – the faith of the simple at heart is the true wisdom (cf
Psa. 118:130). This true wisdom of simple faith, that does not allow itself to
be swamped by the waters, is the force of the Church. And we have returned to
the Marian mystery.
And there is also a final word in Psalm 81, “movebuntur omnia fundamenta
terrae” (Psa 81:5), the foundations of earth are shaken. We see this
today, with the climatic problems, how the foundations of the earth are shaken,
how they are threatened by our behavior. The external foundations are shaken
because the internal foundations are shaken, the moral and religious
foundations, the faith that follows the right way of living. And we know that
faith is the foundation, and, undoubtedly, the foundations of the earth cannot
be shaken if they remain close to the faith, to true wisdom.
And then the Psalm says: “Arise, God, judge the world” (Psa 81:8).
Thus we also say to the Lord: “Arise at this moment, take the world in
your hands, protect your Church, protect humanity, protect the earth”. And
we once again entrust ourselves to the Mother of God, to Mary, and pray:
“You, the great believer, you who have opened the earth to the heavens,
help us, open the doors today as well, that truth might win, the will of God,
which is the true good, the true salvation of the world”. Amen
© Copyright 2010 — Libreria Editrice Vaticana