Homily of H.E. Mons. Claudio Gatti of January 1, 2008

MARY, HOLY MOTHER OF GOD

1st reading: Num 6:22-27; Psalm 66; 2nd reading: Gal 4:4-7; Gospel: Lk 2:16-21

You were all present, no-one has been forgotten because, in important moments like this, it is good to feel the harmony, the union, the understanding, the accord. So rest assured because God has blessed you and you know that for God, his presence is enough, because his presence is a blessing. There is no need for God to say: "I bless you in the name of the Father, of the Son and of the Holy Spirit", these are human ways to which even Our Lady resorts but neither Jesus, nor God the Father, nor God the Holy Spirit, need to recite formulas to bless their children. So there was the blessing and there was certainly God's gaze that rested on each one of you because, if Our Lady, who is a creature, said: "I am here but, at the same time, I am flying over all the nations of the world, stopping in particular on the poor, deprived ones, where there are wars and destruction", all the more so God could do it, he is Almighty and, therefore, certainly, saw you in your homes, with your relatives, with your friends, while you were toasting and, probably, some of you at that moment raised their thoughts to God and you did very well, so you combined business with pleasure, as they say. It is good to be with the family in these moments, it is right to feel the family warmth and God blesses the families that truly have a spirit of unity and love within them. This is the same blessing that is expressed in the first reading we heard, but let's go forward with order. They are three readings, three jewels from which a sequence of wonderful and proper reflections can be drawn which we can clearly apply to our lives.

“So they (the shepherds) hurried off and found Mary and Joseph, and the baby, who was lying in the manger. When they had seen him, they spread the word concerning what had been told them about this child, and all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds said to them. But Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart. The shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all the things they had heard and seen, which were just as they had been told. On the eighth day, when it was time to circumcise the child, he was named Jesus, the name the angel had given him before he was conceived” (Lk 2:16-21).

Let's start with the Gospel and see how we can become the characters of the Gospel story, just like Our Lady and Saint Joseph. At that time, the members of our community went without delay and found Mary, Joseph and the child lying in the tabernacle. Our Lady is here even if you don't see her and she said that when she is present, quite often, and today it is certainly the case, Saint Joseph is also present and, more important, Jesus the Eucharist as well. Meeting Jesus the Eucharist must inflame in all of us the same reactions that the shepherds had, therefore: "You refer what was said to you about the child", it means how you refer, with your testimony, what is said here, about Jesus the Eucharist, through the Letters of God, catechesis and homilies, so you are the same as the shepherds. In their community, all those who heard the shepherds, were amazed at the things they told them. You have not always had easy encounters, but remember what Our Lady and also Jesus said several times on the occasion of the well-known mission for the benefit of the priests of Rome: "Do know that even those who, apparently, do not accept and even turn you away, afterwards, for many of them there is a rethinking and wonder "what if they were right and those who told us certain things were wrong?" So let's never stop at appearances, but go further. Paul also speaks of this child, Jesus the Eucharist, and the presence of Our Lady in the passage from the Letter to the Galatians.

“But when the fullness of time had come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those under the law, that we might receive adoption to sonship. Because you are his sons, God sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, the Spirit who calls out, “Abba! Father!” So you are no longer a slave, but God’s child; and since you are his child, God has made you also an heir" (Gal 4:4-7). What does the fullness of time mean? This is the celebrated moment decided and willed by God, for which we too can say: "when the fullness of our time will come...", but, as I said to someone, it seems that this fullness of time, that is the precise moment when God will begin his interventions in a clear and visible way, no one knows, he only knows. I said it seems, because Our Lady says: “my children, I know just as much as you know about the moment established by God”. Sometimes, even recently, I allowed myself, certainly not to indicate or propose, but to manifest to God a date when Marisa could leave for Heaven, because everything will begin after her departure and Our Lady told me that both she and the saints and the angels too in Heaven were praying for the date I offered but, unfortunately for her, poor little thing, it has already passed. Yesterday she tried in every way to get an answer: "I'm tired, when are you going to take me away?" But there was no answer. It seems that it is one of the mysteries of our faith, and I am not exaggerating, we must continue to believe, to have faith. As God the Father said yesterday: "Don't doubt me" and Marisa answered: "I do, sometimes", and He would reply amiably, sometimes pretending, like a good dad, to resent it, but we know very well that he wasn’t disturbed at all, not even offended because, reading in our hearts, he knows that we are continually imploring and, together with us, the queen, the princes and little princes of Heaven but, for now, there is no answer, only a song but I prefer to remember the words I've heard: “When the fullness of time had came”, referring to the Incarnation, and this expression is beautiful; we would have said: "At the fullness of time the word of God became incarnate in Mary's womb", look at Paul instead, he is different from us, he said: "He sent His Son", this is the expression, that is, God Father who asks the Second Person of the Most Holy Trinity, to go, and He is therefore, an envoy of the Father, a mandate from the Father. The action in which God manifests His participation in the mystery of the Incarnation is highlighted, it is therefore not a simple Incarnation, even if it took place through the work of the Holy Spirit, but it is a mission that the Father entrusts to the Son and, if this were not enough, in my opinion, the expression that follows: “born of a woman” is extremely enlightening. In these words I see the virgin birth of Jesus. Why does he say: "born of a woman"? He could have used a common expression and instead he highlights this exclusively feminine and womanly presence, therefore of a woman, which means that St. Paul wanted to indicate the virginal birth of the Son of God by the work of the Holy Spirit and with the sole human participation of the woman. “Born under the law” and, it seems a pun: “to redeem those who were under the law,” but what does this mean? Paul has already explained it in the Letter to the Philippians that Jesus, the Son of God, is identical to us in everything, therefore true Man except in sin and being the Son of God, he was able to redeem us and, therefore, the image of the slave or servant is used. With sin, before God we are slaves of sin, therefore we must be freed, paid for, redeemed and the coin for the ransom could only be offered by someone who, in terms of dignity, was equal to the offended person: therefore God was offended by sin and the one who could repair this enormous, massive, infinite offense to God could only be God. This explains the mystery of the Incarnation, this is reason why animal sacrifices and also human sacrifice, any sacrifice that could be accomplished, as in the case of Abraham and the immolation and killing of his son Isaac, would not have been adequate to redeem those under the sin. Here, therefore, is the great love of God: he sends his Son and asks the Son for the Incarnation and immolation, so that the other children could pass from a condition of slavery to the condition that Paul clearly expresses: "In order for us to receive the adoption to children". In order for us to become children of God it was absolutely necessary for the Son of God to mend the sins we committed. This, you see, is the great announcement being made today, lifting and elevating us up to a dignity to which we could never have reached, nor attained, if God himself had not taken each of us and all together with His hand and brought us from a situation of extreme lowness to a situation of extreme height. We were able to make this journey, an immense journey, only because God took us by the hand. If God hadn't taken us by the hand, we could never have reached this great height. When we are faced with the word of God, we cannot remain indifferent, we must live it with passion, with participation. So let's continue with this reflection which must now reach a conclusion: how is this greatness expressed, how is this filiation expressed, how is this grit expressed? You have recently rediscovered it. I asked God to be able to call him Dad and the reality that you are his children is proved by the fact that God sent into our hearts the Spirit of his Son shouting Abba. We wonder why it took twenty centuries to rediscover the fatherly and affectionate face of God, and why, I add, you men have shown us a distant and detached God, sometimes harsh and grumpy and why you have disconnected us from what is already written in the Scriptures. You see, although everything I have told and narrated to you is true, I believe that there is a reason why we find it difficult to conceive God as a Dad, we find it difficult to address God, because he is so great compared to us, infinitely superior to us that we are unable to understand him and need Him to encourage us by saying: "Come to Me, I am your Dad, I love you, I loved you before you loved me, I loved you since eternity, I have kept you present in Me, in my mind since eternity and I have loved you since eternity”. Just stop at this expression: each of us, each man is loved by God since eternity. Do you think about it? Don't you feel anything? Don't you experience anything? We must thank God, with humility, gratitude and appreciation, for these experiences and for these manifestations of him. Don't we need apparitions? Everything is in the Gospel, but what have you done with the Gospel? How have you preserved the Gospel? Of course there is a need for apparitions, even more so if, after twenty centuries, you are still thinking, for example, that Our Father indicates the worldly bread, but it took all these centuries to understand that it was not the worldly bread but the Eucharistic bread? I am still puzzled, still amazed and, therefore, I must say that we, as a community, are lucky, you are lucky, because you have really discovered the truth, you have entered the truth and you have journeyed its path, going much further than the great theologians who stopped too far behind. With a playful spirit I tell you that he smiled, he liked the painting and talked about that painting. Are you curious to know what I am talking about? Everything in its own time, I am using his same tactic, there is the Bishop who wants things cooked and eaten. Let's finish with this serene and joyful spirit and hope, Daddy God, that we can keep it during the year and, when the exhaustion, suffering and trials get stronger, dear Dad, please, show yourself as you did yesterday because, by lifting my spirit, I can lift it to you all. Best wishes, and may this year, as God the Father quoted and the Bishop repeated, be truly the year of certainty, the year when, finally, we will be able to begin to rejoice, because I can say that we all deserve it, not just the Bishop, not just the Seer, the two of us much more so and there are no doubts about it, but you too deserve it because, despite everything, you have remained faithful, and despite attempts of separation and dissociation, you have kept the course and remained faithful. To each of you the wish that, as it happened for old Simeon, to whom it was promised he would see the messiah before he died; you too may see the beginning, at least, of God's interventions. I ask God the Father, officially, that no one from the community may leave if they have not first seen, rejoiced and enjoyed something of your interventions and, the more it goes on, the more they will enjoy and your children will enjoy more than you do, but you must remind them that, if they enjoy, if they have an easy life, the credit is mostly ours. God the Father will be laughing at this. May, in your ears thunder God's blessing as it was spoken here, the same as he spoke to Moses: "May the Lord bless you and guard you, may the face of the Lord shine upon you and give you the grace, may the Lord turn His face to you and grant you peace". This is the wish I desire for you, the wish with the words of God have therefore a particular meaning.