In our meditation for the month of May we would like to share the beautiful words that Pope Francis spoke at St Mary Majors Basilica, Rome on the 4th May 2013. The Holy Father reminds us that the Virgin Mary watches over us and helps us to mature.
Mary is the model for every mother, including those who act as Spiritual Mothers, and they can look to her in order to see how best to express their love towards a child. Pope Francis explains that this doesn’t mean that we should love them and give them everything, but to love them for who they are in view of the great project that the Lord has for them without bringing our egoistical desires into play. We should not think of our children as our property! To love our children properly is to desire their eternal happiness or, in other words, to desire that they fulfil the great plan that God has for them. “The mother takes care of her children so that they may mature, growing strong and able to take responsibility for themselves, to engage life’s challenges and great ideals.”
Pope Francis then goes on to add that to help children grow means also to enable them to face the implicit difficulties that are encountered by every human being. In this way, they will gradually learn to face life’s challenges and become responsible young men and women who are able to play a full part in society. Today, more than ever, it is necessary to allow our children make mistakes and recover from them. We must not all be perfectionists that continuously attack ourselves. The Lord is perhaps the only One that gives us the chance to make mistakes and, like His Father, helps us to grow in view of our mistakes.
The Pope exhorts us to look at Mary as a mother who will help us to make definite decisions. For example, Her Fiat, her docility to God’s Will, changed the entire story of humanity. In this regard the Holy Father encouraged us saying: “Do not be afraid of definite commitments, of commitments that concern and steer our entire lives. In this way our lives will be fruitful. This is liberty: to have to courage to take these decisions with great magnitude.”
Let us conclude with Pope Francis words, “Mary’s entire existence is a hymn of life, a hymn of the love of life” Therefore, love is the profound sense of our lives. During this Marian month of May let us ask Mary, mother of mothers, mother of pastors, mother of educators and our mother to help us to live our lives moving ever closer to those great Christian ideals to which our hearts are drawn. May we grow in living and loving our life to the full because only by respecting our life, respecting our own limits, will we be able to be authentic disciples of Christ.