Rediscovering The Grace Within
Simone Riva - Today Mary, surprised by the grace that made her beautiful from the first moment of her life, leads us to be amazed by our beauty. We can grasp it through an image: that of the white robe of Baptism; it reminds us that beneath the evil we have been stained with over the years, there is in us a greater good than all those evils that have happened to us.
Let us listen to its echo, let us hear God saying, 'Son, daughter, I love you and am with you always, you are important to me, your life is precious.' When things don't work out, and we get discouraged, when we get down and are in danger of feeling worthless or wrong, let's think about this, about original grace. God is with us, God has been with me since that day. Let us reconsider.”
With these words, Pope Francis recalled, a few years ago, the heart of the feast of Mary's Immaculate Conception. Baptism has placed in us a gift that, often, is the least of our thoughts. We occupy energy and time to earn the consequences of what we have in mind, and if we fail, we get depressed. Goals take the place of the reasons we move through life, the purposes we give ourselves undermine the origin of who we are. Today's celebration is the exaltation of the origin, of the first instant, of that moment when we could do nothing, plan nothing, conquer nothing. Everything was a pure gift, pure will of an Other who thought of us and favored us.
That instant was the sole concern of the Creator, who chose Mary to lead each of us back to that moment because we were all “that moment.” Then we grow up and believe we can build on other foundations. No one prevents us, but we have to do the personal verification about the resilience of our attempts. Some may even succeed, we may succeed, succeed in actually accomplishing what we have in mind and be recognized by the world, but what really lasts? What really fills the heart with the reasons it needs?
The criterion that the Trinity wanted, and wanted as one of us, is the humanity of the Virgin Mary. Fr. Marco Pozza's extraordinary editorial, which appeared here yesterday said it effectively, using the image of the key: “If we have a box in which to keep money, the only thing to pay attention to is the key: the key is not the money, but without the key we cannot get to the money. Our Lady is our key; without her, one does not get to Christ: He came through her. What the saints can do with Her help, only She can do alone. She is She.”
For these reasons, Mary cannot but be the method of every action that wants Christ as its origin and purpose.
We often hear great speeches—elaborate and well-researched.
We see men and women agitating in a thousand ways, turning everything into a laboratory.
Enlightened people of yesterday and today pontificate with their analyses and solutions.
But here, we have a criterion to unmask the hidden narcissism that cunningly hides behind these appearances: Mary.
If She is missing, if She is never placed as a reference if Her life does not become a method for ours, we will continue to be clanging cymbals, and our words only words, perhaps much applauded.
The author has not revised the text translation.
