Marian piety is a means through which the Holy Spirit brings about sanctification in the Church. Mary is seen as a guide to Jesus, never emphasizing herself but always her Son. For this reason the Pope recalls the saying: “To Jesus through Mary”. The Madonna is like “a tablet, today we would say a blank page” on which the living God writes with words accessible to all, even the simplest.
Mary’s yes, explains the Pope, is the pinnacle of religious behavior before God because it expresses readiness with her “Here I am” and availability with her “Fiat”. For this reason, says Francis, «the Mother of God is an instrument of the Holy Spirit in his work of sanctification. In the midst of the endless flood of words spoken and written about God, the Church and holiness (which very few, if any, are able to read and understand in full) you suggest just two words that everyone, even the simplest, can utter on every occasion.” Mary is the one who said “yes” to God and with her example and her intercession pushes us to say our “yes” to Him too, every time we find ourselves faced with an obedience to be implemented or a test to be performed. overcome.
In every era of its history, but particularly at this moment, the Church finds itself in the situation in which the Christian community was in the aftermath of Jesus’ Ascension into heaven. He must preach the Gospel to all people, but he is waiting for the “power from above” to be able to do so. And let’s not forget that at that moment, as we read in the Acts of the Apostles, the disciples were gathered around “Mary, the mother of Jesus”. Mary is «”bride of the Holy Spirit”» even if this image should not be made absolute, «but taken for that much truth it contains, and it is a very beautiful truth. She is the bride, but she is, even before that, the disciple of the Holy Spirit. We learn from her to be docile to the inspirations of the Spirit, especially when He suggests that we “get up quickly” and go help someone who needs us, as she did immediately after the angel left her.”
Finally, at the end of the audience, the Pope returns to pray for peace, for the “MARTERIZED Ukraine, for Palestine, for Israel, for Myanmar” and remembers in a special way “that group of innocent Palestinians who were machine-gunned”.
