This morning, Pope Francis reminded half a million pilgrims that we all have a Mother, Mary, and we ought to cling to her.
The Holy Father gave this message in his homily during the Canonization Mass for Jacinta and Francesco Marto, the two young visionaries of Fatima. Pope Francis just concluded his May 12-13 Apostolic Pilgrimage to Fatima.
In the Gospel, the Jesuit Pontiff recalled in his homily, we hear Jesus say to his disciple, “Here is your mother” (Jn 19:27).
«We have a Mother!» Pope Francis exclaimed, continuing, ‘So beautiful a Lady,’ as the seers of Fatima said to one another as they returned home on that blessed day of May 13, 100 years ago. That evening, Jacinta could not restrain herself and told the secret to her mother: ‘Today I saw Our Lady.'»
They had seen the Mother of Heaven, the Pope stressed.
Our Lady foretold, and warned us about, the Pope warned, a way of life that is godless and indeed profanes God in his creatures. «Such a life – frequently proposed and imposed – risks leading to hell.»
Mary, he pointed out, came to remind us that God’s light dwells within us and protects us, recalling that in Lucia’s account, the three chosen children found themselves surrounded by God’s light as it radiated from Our Lady.
«She enveloped them in the mantle of Light that God had given her.»
According to the belief and experience of many, «if not all,» pilgrims, Francis said, «Fatima is more than anything this mantle of Light that protects us, here as in almost no other place on earth.»
Therefore, he encouraged, «We need but take refuge under the protection of the Virgin Mary and to ask her, as the Salve Regina teaches: ‘show unto us… Jesus.’”
«Dear pilgrims, we have a Mother. Clinging to her like children, we live in the hope that rests on Jesus.»
When Jesus ascended to heaven, Francis reminded, He brought our humanity to the Heavenly Father, assuming it in the womb of the Virgin Mary and «will never forsake [it].»
«Like an anchor, let us fix our hope on that humanity, seated in heaven at the right hand of the Father,» Pope Francis said, stressing, «May this hope guide our lives! It is a hope that sustains us always, to our dying breath.»
Francis said faithful can work to do this by Saint Francisco and Saint Jacinta as examples, «whom the Virgin Mary introduced into the immense ocean of God’s light and taught to adore Him.»
Noting he felt compelled to come here to venerate the Virgin Mary and to entrust to her all her sons and daughters, Francis encouraged those present to pray to God «with the hope that others will hear us.»
«With Mary’s protection,» Pope Francis concluded, praying, «may we be for our world sentinels of the dawn, contemplating the true face of Jesus the Savior, resplendent at Easter.»
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On ZENIT’s Web page:
Full Text: https://zenit.org/articles/popes-homily-at-canonization-mass-for-jacinta-francisco-marto-in-fatima/
