{"id":17548,"date":"2017-01-01T11:01:00","date_gmt":"2017-01-01T11:01:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.catholicnewsagency.com\/news\/pope-on-new-years-day-marys-motherhood-teaches-us-humility-tenderness-13621\/"},"modified":"2017-01-01T11:01:00","modified_gmt":"2017-01-01T11:01:00","slug":"pope-on-new-years-day-marys-motherhood-teaches-us-humility-tenderness","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/catholicnews\/2017\/01\/pope-on-new-years-day-marys-motherhood-teaches-us-humility-tenderness\/","title":{"rendered":"Pope on New Year\u2019s Day: Mary\u2019s motherhood teaches us humility, tenderness"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

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Vatican City, Jan 1, 2017 \/ 04:01 am (CNA\/EWTN News<\/a>).- Sunday Pope Francis said that celebrating Mary, the Mother of God, highlights a beautiful aspect of our faith: that Mary is our mother too, and that by her example we can learn to practice virtue and self-sacrifice in our own lives.<\/p>\n

\u201cBy her motherhood, Mary shows us that humility and tenderness are not virtues of the weak but of the strong,\u201d Francis said Jan. 1.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo celebrate Mary as Mother of God and our mother at the beginning of the new year means recalling a certainty that will accompany our days: we are a people with a Mother; we are not orphans.\u201d<\/p>\n

Pope Francis celebrated Mass in St. Peter\u2019s Basilica for the Solemnity of the Blessed Virgin Mary, the Mother of God Jan. 1, reflecting on the line in Luke\u2019s Gospel that says \u201cMary treasured all these things and pondered them in her heart.\u201d<\/p>\n

Despite everything that was happening in the days surrounding the birth of Jesus and after, Mary did not try to \u201cunderstand\u201d or to \u201cmaster the situation,\u201d the Pope pointed out, but instead, she treasured what happened, protecting and guarding \u201cin her heart, the passage of God.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cDeep within, she had learned to listen to the heartbeat of her Son, and that in turn taught her, throughout her life, to discover God\u2019s heartbeat in history,\u201d he continued.<\/p>\n

Mary doesn\u2019t say much in the Gospels, and she doesn\u2019t make any big speeches or perform amazing deeds, but what she does have, Pope Francis said, is \u201can attentive gaze capable of guarding the life and mission of her Son, and for this reason, of everything that he loves.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhere there is a mother, there is tenderness,\u201d he said, the many shrines, images and chapels around the world dedicated to Mary remind us of this. And celebrating the Holy Mother of God reminds us that we are not orphans, that we all have a mother.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo begin the year by recalling God\u2019s goodness in the maternal face of Mary, in the maternal face of the Church, in the faces of our own mothers, protects us from the corrosive disease of being \u2018spiritual orphans,\u2019\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

We experience this sense of being spiritually orphaned when we feel motherless and without the tenderness of God, the Pope noted, or when we feel like we don\u2019t belong to God\u2019s family. When this sense grows, it makes us more narcissistic and concerned with our own interests.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt grows,\u201d he said, \u201cwhen we forget that life is a gift we have received \u2013 and owe to others \u2013 a gift we are called to share in this common home.\u201d<\/p>\n

But Mary, by comparison, \u201cgave us a mother\u2019s warmth,\u201d he said. A \u201cwarmth that shelters us amid troubles, the maternal warmth that keeps anything or anyone from extinguishing in the heart of the Church the revolution of tenderness inaugurated by her Son.\u201d<\/p>\n

In our society, mothers are \u201cthe strongest antidote to our individualistic and egotistic tendencies, to our lack of openness and our indifference,\u201d Pope Francis said. Mothers are capable of testifying to tenderness and self-sacrifice and hope in our society.<\/p>\n

\u201cCelebrating the feast of the Holy Mother of God makes us smile once more as we realize that we are a people, that we belong, that only within a community, within a family, can we as persons find the \u2018climate,\u2019 the \u2018warmth\u2019 that enables us to grow in humanity, and not merely as objects meant to \u2018consume and be consumed,\u2019\u201d the Pope said.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo celebrate the feast of the Holy Mother of God reminds us that we are not interchangeable items of merchandise or information processors. We are children, we are family, we are God\u2019s People.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n<\/a>\n<\/div>\n

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Vatican City, Jan 1, 2017 \/ 04:01 am (CNA\/EWTN News).- Sunday Pope Francis said that celebrating Mary, the Mother of God, highlights a beautiful aspect of our faith: that Mary is our mother too, and that by her example we can learn to practice virtue a…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1031,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17548","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-vatican"],"yoast_head":"\nPope on New Year\u2019s Day: Mary\u2019s motherhood teaches us humility, tenderness<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Vatican City, Jan 1, 2017 \/ 04:01 am (CNA\/EWTN News).- Sunday Pope Francis said that celebrating Mary, the Mother of God, highlights a beautiful aspect of our faith: that Mary is our mother too, and that by her example we can learn to practice virtue a...\" \/>\n<meta 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