The preacher of the Pontifical Household led the third and last meditation of this Advent season given to the Roman Curia in the presence of the Holy Father.
Newsroom – Vatican City (December 22, 2021, 5:30 PM, Gaudium Press) On Friday morning, December 17, the preacher of the Pontifical Household, the Capuchin friar Cardinal Raniero Cantalamessa, led the third and last meditation of this Advent season given to the Roman Curia in the presence of the Holy Father. The sermon, which took place in the Paul VI Hall in the Vatican, focused on the following words of the Gospel: “Born of a woman.”
According to Cantalamessa, the expression “born of a woman” found in the Bible “indicates belonging to the human condition made of weakness and mortality. It is enough to try to take these words out of the text to realize their importance. What would Christ be without them? A heavenly apparition, disembodied.”
The symbolic woman that is the Church and the real woman that is Our Lady
The Franciscan religious also explains that the term “woman” is used by Jesus when addressing his mother at Cana and under the cross. It is impossible not to see a link, in John’s thought, between the two women: the symbolic woman who is the Church and the real woman who is Mary. This link is made explicit in Vatican II’s ‘Lumen Gentium’ which deals with Mary within the constitution on the Church.
Next, the preacher recalled an icon that is very widespread among Orthodox Christians, called ‘Panhagia‘, that is, the All Holy One. In it, it is possible to see Our Lady standing, and on her breast, as if bursting forth from within, the child Jesus stands out. The devotee’s gaze is drawn to the child, even before to the mother. She, in turn, has her arms raised, inviting us to look at Him.
Whoever looks at the Church should see Jesus
“So should the Church be! Whoever looks at it should not dwell on it, but see Jesus. It is the struggle against the self-referentiality of the Church, on which the last two Pontiffs, Benedict XVI and Pope Francis, have often insisted,” stressed the preacher of the Pontifical Household.
Concluding his meditation, the Capuchin friar turned his thoughts to Our Lady, making an important exhortation to bring back the essence of Christmas.” Let us imitate her by setting aside for ourselves some moments of true recollection to bring Jesus to birth in our hearts. The best response to the secularized culture’s attempt to eliminate Christmas from society is to internalize it and bring it back to its essence,” the religious said. (EPC)
Compiled by Zephania Gangl
