Mary, Mother of the
New Evangelization
Day
9
Theme:
Mary,
Star of Evangelization
Scripture
Passage John 2: 1 - 5
On the third day there was a
wedding in Cana in Galilee, and the mother of Jesus was there.
Jesus and his disciples were also
invited to the wedding. When the wine ran short, the mother
of Jesus said to him, “They have no wine.”
And Jesus said to her, “Woman, how
does your concern affect me? My hour has not yet come.” His mother said to the servers, “Do whatever
he tells you.”
Marian
Reading
At the
birth of Jesus, the Magi came from the East to Bethlehem and “saw the child
with Mary his Mother” (Matthew 2:11). At the beginning of his public
life, at the marriage of Cana, when the Son of God works the first of his
signs, awakening faith in the disciples (John 2:11), it is Mary who
intervenes and directs the servants towards her Son in these words: “Do
whatever he tells you” (John 2:5). In this regard I once wrote that “the
Mother of Christ presents herself as the spokeswoman of her Son's will,
pointing out those things which must be done so that the salvific power of the
Messiah may be manifested”. For this reason Mary is the sure path to our
meeting with Christ. Devotion to the Mother of the Lord, when it is genuine, is
always an impetus to a life guided by the spirit and values of the Gospel.
How can
we fail to emphasize the role which belongs to the Virgin Mary in relation to
the pilgrim Church in America journeying towards its encounter with the Lord? Indeed,
the Most Blessed Virgin “is linked in a special way to the birth of the Church
in the history ... of the peoples of America; through Mary they came to
encounter the Lord”.
Throughout
the continent, from the time of the first evangelization, the presence of the
Mother of God has been strongly felt, thanks to the efforts of the
missionaries.
The
appearance of Mary to the native Juan Diego on the hill of Tepeyac in 1531 had
a decisive effect on evangelization. Its
influence greatly overflows the boundaries of Mexico, spreading to the whole
Continent.
With the
passage of time, pastors and faithful alike have grown increasingly conscious
of the role of the Virgin Mary in the evangelization of America. Holy Mary of Guadalupe is invoked as
“Patroness of all America and Star of the first and new evangelization”.
It is my
heartfelt hope that she, whose intercession was responsible for strengthening
the faith of the first disciples, will by her maternal intercession guide the
Church in America, obtaining the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, as she once did
for the early Church so that the new evangelization may yield a splendid
flowering of Christian life.
(Pope
John Paul II, Apostolic Exhortation Ecclesia
in America, 1999; #11)
Prayers
§
an
Our Father
§
a
Hail Mary
§
a
Glory Be
§
the
invocation “Mary, Immaculate, Help of Christians, pray for us.”
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