By Justin McLellan, Catholic News Service
VATICAN CITY (CNS) — Christians are called to follow Mary’s example by responding to God’s love with action, reaching out to others instead of withdrawing from the world, Pope Francis said.
Reflecting on Mary’s visit to her pregnant cousin Elizabeth after learning that she will bring the Messiah into the world, he said that “this young daughter of Israel does not choose to protect herself from the world, does not fear the dangers and judgments of others, but goes out to meet others.”
The pope began his general audience in the Paul VI Audience Hall Feb. 5 by apologizing for being unable to read his catechesis due to a lingering cold, and explained that an aide, Msgr. Pierluigi Giroli, would read his prepared text.
“It is difficult for me to speak,” Pope Francis said before ceding to the floor to his aide. However, he did read the summary of his catechesis in Spanish and spoke without clear signs of difficulty.
In his prepared text, the pope said that moved by love, Mary goes out to meet Elizabeth, who is “an elderly woman who welcomes, after a long wait, an unexpected pregnancy, tiring to confront at her age.”
“But the Virgin also goes to Elizabeth to share faith in the God of the impossible and hope in the fulfillment of his promises,” he said.
Even after Elizabeth recognizes the significance of Mary’s pregnancy, saying, “Most blessed are you among women and blessed is the fruit of your womb,” Mary responds by speaking “not of herself but of God and raises a praise full of faith, hope and joy,” Pope Francis said.
Mary’s response to Elizabeth, recited today as the Magnificat prayer, “resounds daily in the church during the prayer of vespers,” the pope noted.
The Magnificat, filled with references from the Old Testament and recalling Israel’s liberation from Egypt, is “imbued with a memory of love that ignites the present with faith and illuminates the future with hope,” he said.
“Mary sings the grace of the past but is the woman of the present who carries the future,” Pope Francis wrote in his message.
Christians, he said, should “ask the Lord for the grace to know how to wait for the fulfillment of all his promises; and to help us welcome Mary’s presence in our lives.”
At the end of the audience, the pope took the microphone to ask that people remember the many countries suffering from the effects of war: “martyred Ukraine, Israel, Jordan — so many countries that are suffering there — let us remember the displaced people of Palestine, and let us pray for them.”
A transcript of the pope’s remarks published by the Vatican listed Palestine in the place of Jordan among the countries he referenced.
Pope Francis met Feb. 3 with Jordan’s Queen Rania as part of a Vatican summit on the rights of children.
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