"Yes" to God's Love

On 8 December 2013, the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception, His Holiness Pope Francis appeared at the window of his study to pray the Angelus with the thousands of people gathered in Saint Peter's Square, and asked all to join him in invoking Mary, repeating “Full of grace”, as God saw her in His loving plan: “beautiful and full of grace”.

“Our mother is beautiful!” he continued. “Mary guides us as we journey towards the Nativity, because she teaches us how to experience the time of Advent, awaiting the Lord … Who will come to us all together in the feast, but also to each one of us, in our hearts”.

He went on to comment on the reading from the Gospel of St. Luke, which presents Mary, a girl from Galilee, a small village at the outskirts of the Roman Empire and remote even within Israel. However, although she was “a young girl from a faraway village”, “the gaze of the Lord” rested upon her, “and He chose her as the mother of His Son. In the light of her maternity, Mary was preserved from original sin, from that fracture in the communion with God, with others and with creation, which deeply wounds every human being. But this fracture was healed in advance in the mother of Him Who came to free us from the slavery of sin. The Immaculate Conception is inscribed in God's design; it is the fruit of God's love, which saves the world”.

“And the Virgin never strayed from that love; all her life, all her being is a 'yes' to that love, and a 'yes' to God. But it certainly was not easy for her! When the Angel describes her as the 'favoured one', she is 'greatly troubled' since, in her humility, she considers herself as nothing before God”, but she “listens, obeys within herself, and answers, 'I am the servant of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word'”.

“On this feast day”, concluded Pope Francis, “contemplating our Immaculate and beautiful Mother, we also recognise our truest destiny, our deepest vocation: to be loved, to be transformed by love, to be transformed by the beauty of God”.

For more information, please visit:

http://www.news.va/en/news/angelus-the-mystery-of-the-immaculate-conception-i

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Virgin most holy and immaculate,

to you, the honour of our people,
and the loving protector of our city,
do we turn with loving trust.

You are all-beautiful, O Mary!

In you there is no sin.
Awaken in all of us a renewed desire for holiness:
May the splendour of truth shine forth in our words,
the song of charity resound in our works,
purity and chastity abide in our hearts and bodies,
and the full beauty of the Gospel be evident in our lives.

You are all-beautiful, O Mary!

In you the Word of God became flesh.
Help us always to heed the Lord’s voice:
May we never be indifferent to the cry of the poor,
or untouched by the sufferings of the sick and those in need;
may we be sensitive to the loneliness of the elderly and the vulnerability of children,
and always love and cherish the life of every human being.

You are all-beautiful, O Mary!

In you is the fullness of joy born of life with God.
Help us never to forget the meaning of our earthly journey:
May the kindly light of faith illumine our days,
the comforting power of hope direct our steps,
the contagious warmth of love stir our hearts;
and may our gaze be fixed on God, in whom true joy is found.

You are all-beautiful, O Mary!
Hear our prayer, graciously hear our plea:
May the beauty of God’s merciful love in Jesus abide in our hearts,
and may this divine beauty save us, our city and the entire world.
 
Amen.

His Holiness Pope Francis

Piazza di Spagna, Rome
8 December 2013

 

For more information, please visit:

http://www.news.va/en/news/pope-venerates-immaculate-conception-statue
http://www.news.va/en/news/homage-to-mary-immaculate-let-us-not-be-deaf-to-th
 

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O Mary, conceived without sin, pray for us who have recourse to thee.

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