Vatican City, Dec.04,2008 (vaticans.org) – Benedict XVI chose for his first visit of 2008 a shelter run by the Missionary of Charity near the Vatican. He came to greet the outgoing superior, Sister Mark, as well as her replacement, Sister Agnes-Marie, but he especially came to “renew [. . .] my gratitude to the sisters, the volunteers and others who collaborate here,” and “to express my spiritual closeness” to the poor and the homeless men and women “who in this house find loving welcome, acceptance and understanding, a form of daily support that is both material and spiritual.”

The ‘Dono di Maria’ (Gift of Mary) shelter was inaugurated in 1988 by John Paul II and the Blessed Teresa of Kolkata in a wing of the building of the former Holy Office where then Cardinal Ratzinger worked for many years.

The shelter feeds hundreds of poor men and women and provides overnight accommodation and staffed medical care for about 70 women.

Talking about it the Pontiff said that “for whoever comes to knock on the door, being welcomed in the loving embrace of the sisters and volunteers is like a gift of Mary” as is “the presence of people who pause to listen to those in difficulty and serve them with the same readiness that caused the mother of the Lord to visit St. Elisabeth. May such evangelical love always distinguish your vocation, enabling you to give the people you meet every day, apart from material assistance, that same passion for Christ and that same luminous 'smile of God' which animated the life of Mother Teresa.”

The Pope who said that “Deus caritas est” also noted that “Mother Teresa liked to say that it is Christmas every time we allow Jesus to love others through us. Christmas is the mystery of love. The Christmas season, by representing our contemplation of the birth of Jesus in Bethlehem, shows us the infinite goodness of God who, by becoming a child, chose to be close to mankind’s poverty and loneliness. He agreed to dwell among us, sharing our daily difficulties; He did not hesitate to bear along with us the burden of existence with all its pains and concerns. He was born for us, to stay with us and to offer anyone who opens the door to Him the gift of His joy, His peace and His love. Born in a manger because there was no room for Him elsewhere, Jesus experienced the discomforts that many of you experience.”

“Christmas,” added the Holy Father, “helps us understand that God never abandons us and that He comes out to meet us, protects us and concerns himself with each one of us, because each individual, especially those who are weak and defenceless, is precious in the tender and merciful eyes of the Father. For us and our salvation He sent His Son into the world, whom we contemplate in the mystery of Christmas as the Immanuel, God with us. With such sentiments I renew my warmest greetings to all of you for the New Year which just began and I pledge that I shall remember you every day in my prayers. And as I call upon the maternal protection of Mary, Mother of Christ and of us, with affection I bless you all.”

After visiting the men's canteen the Holy Father visited the ward for sick women and then proceeded to a nearby church where he met the Missionary Sisters and Brothers of Charity and their lay collaborators.

After receiving written greetings from the order’s Superior General, Sister Mission Nirmala Joshi, the Pope offered them his encouragement that they may be like the Magi, the Wise Men, who “came from afar to worship the King Messiah” and then went home to their faraway lands.

“You go as well, dear Brothers and Sisters” said the Pontiff by way of conclusion. “Take to the roads of the world; follow Mother Teresa’s example and always bear witness to the joy of the love of Jesus, especially towards the humble and the poor, and may your Blessed founder accompany and protect you from heaven.”

Source: Asia News

Vatican City, Dec.02,2008 (vaticans.org) - An invitation to “carefully consider the importance of the presence of Mary in the life of the Church and in our personal life”. It was made today by the Pope, who devoted the first general audience of 2008 to the figure of Mary, “the Mother of God” (Theotokos), from the name that was officially given Her by the Council of Ephesus of 431, until the doctrine of Mary, summarised by the eighth chapter of the “Lumen gentium”. “The qualification of God’s Mother, so deeply linked with the Christmas festivities – recalled Benedict XVI –, is the fundamental appellation with which the community of believers has always honoured the Virgin” and that “aptly expresses the mission of Mary in the history of salvation”, because “any other qualification given to the Virgin has its foundation in Her calling as the Mother of the Redeemer, the human creature elected by God to accomplish the plan of salvation”. Also at the centre of the representation of the Nativity, the heart of the Christmas festivities, “we find the Virgin Mother who offers the Holy Child up for the contemplation of those people who go and worship the Saviour: the shepherds, the poor people of Bethlehem, the Three Wise Men”. In addition, the devotion of the Christian people “has always considered the birth of Jesus and the divine motherhood of Mary as two aspects of the same mystery of the incarnation of the Word”.

The appellation of “God’s Mother”, explained the Pope, “led to all the other qualifications with which the Church honours the Virgin”: first and foremost, the “privilege” of the “Immaculate Conception”, whereby Mary is “immune from sin since conception” and “was preserved from any stain of sin, because she had to be the Mother of the Redeemer”. “Even the unique, unrepeatable place which Mary has in the Community of believers – commented the Holy Father – derives from her fundamental calling to be the Mother of the Redeemer” and the “Mother of the Church”: an appellation, this one, that Paul VI “rightly” gave Mary during the Second Vatican Council, on 21st November 1964. “Just because she is the Mother of the Church, the Virgin is also the Mother of each one of us, who are the limbs of the mystical Body of Christ”, went on Benedict XVI: “At the supreme moment of the accomplishment of the messianic mission, Jesus leaves to every one of His disciples, as a precious legacy, His own Mother, the Virgin”. Hence the Pope’s wish for 2008: “That the new year, which began under the sign of the Virgin – said the Pope –, may make us feel her motherly presence more deeply, so that, supported and comforted by the protection of the Virgin, we may contemplate with new eyes the face of her Son, Jesus, and more quickly walk along the ways of the good. Happy New Year, everybody!”.

The Nativity should not be “considered something of the past”, because “we are the contemporaries” of the shepherds, of the people of Bethlehem, of the three Wise Men, and “we are full of joy in saying ‘God with us’, because we can say yes to the Child and His Mother, who is our Mother”. With these words, uttered off the cuff during the first audience of 2008, wholly devoted to the figure of Mary, the Pope offered, as it were, a “Marian” interpretation of the Nativity, at the core of the Christmas festivities that have just ended. Also the “privileges” which stem from the appellations with which the Church honours the Virgin, explained the Pontiff off the cuff, “do not make Mary alien to us, but closer: like with this woman, God is extremely close to us, and she helps us as a mother and as a sister”. “Let’s place our trust in Her – was the Pope’s final prayer, starting from the figure of “God’s Mother” –, that She may guide our steps in this new period of time that the Lord gives us to live and may She help us be the true friends of Her Son and the brave authors of His Kingdom in the world, the Kingdom of peace and truth”.

Source: SIR