HOMILY
SEPTEMBER
15,
1984
"Wisdom
speaks her own praises, in
the midst of her people she glories in herself. I came forth from the
mouth of
the Most High, and I covered the
earth like
mist" (Sir 24:1,3).
Dear
Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
Today's
feast finds us united in this City of
Toronto, together with Cardinal
Carter, Bishop Borecky and the other Bishops, to proclaim God's eternal
Wisdom. The liturgical readings of the
Mass lead us in our praise of
this eternal Wisdom.
The
commemoration of Mary as Our Lady of
Sorrows is linked with yesterday's
feast of the Triumph of the Holy Cross. The mystery of the Cross
on Golgotha and the mystery of the
Cross in the heart of the Mother of
the Crucified One cannot be read in any other way: only in the perspective
of eternal Wisdom is
this mystery clarified for our faith. Indeed
it becomes the beam of a special light in human history, in the midst
of people's destiny on earth. This
light is,
first of all,
in the Heart
of Christ
lifted up on the Cross. This light, reflected
by the power of
a special
love, shines forth in
the
Heart of the Sorrowful Mother at
the foot
of the Cross.
For
Wisdom also means Love. In Love is
the ripest fruit of Wisdom and, at
the
same time, its fullest source.
In
Christ crucified, man has become a sharer of eternal Wisdom,
approaching it through the
Heart of the
Mother who stood beneath the Cross: "Near the Cross of Jesus stood his
mother and his mother's sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary of Magdala"
(Jn 19:25).
Today
- perhaps more than in yesterday's feast
of the Triumph of the Holy
Cross - the liturgy emphasizes the "human" aspect. This is
nothing unusual.
For in
it there is reflected the human Heart of Mary, and beside the Mother is
the
human Heart of the Son, who is God and Man.
In
the Letter to the Hebrews we read the
following words about Christ: "During
his life on earth he offered up prayer and entreaty, aloud and in
silent
tears, to the one who had the power to save him out of death" (Heb 5:7). Does this not perhaps evoke for us the
prayer
in Gethsemane when Jesus prayed that the chalice be removed
from
him, if possible! (cf. Mt
26:39).
Dear
brothers and sisters: the Christ whom we
encounter in our liturgy,
alongside his own Mother of Sorrows, the Christ who offers his
"prayer
and entreaty,
aloud and in silent tears", does so as head of humanity - a
humanity immersed to a great extent in the promises and problems of
technology and tempted to embrace a technological mentality. Christ
continues to send forth to his Father his cry for the salvation of the
world, for the building of a new earth, one that is more human
because it is embraced by the
love of a
Mother - his Mother and ours.
In
this same Letter to the Hebrews we read:
"Although he was Son, he learned
to obey through suffering"
(Heb 5:8). Elsewhere Saint Paul will say:
he became "obedient unto death"
(Phil 2:8), but here we read: "he learned
to obey".
And
together with him, with the Son, his
Mother learned obedience - she, who had previously said "Fiat":
"I am the handmaid of the Lord... let what you have said be done to
me" (Lk 1:38).
This
cry of the Son's Heart and of his
Mother's Heart - a cry which from
the
human standpoint would reject the Cross - is expressed even further
in the Psalm of today's liturgy. This
Psalm is a cry for salvation,
for help,
for
deliverance from the snare of evil:
"In
you, 0 Lord, I take refuge. Let me never be put to shame. In
your
justice, set me free, ...
speedily rescue me. Be a
rock of refuge
for me, a mighty stronghold to save me, for
you are my rock, my stronghold. Release me from the snares they have
hidden... Deliver
me from the hands of those who hate me.
(Ps
30(31):1-3,5,16).
Since
these words of the Psalm reflect the whole "human"
truth of the Hearts of the Son and of the Mother, they also express
an
act of absolute entrusting to God - dedication to God. This dedication
is even
stronger than the cry for deliverance.
"Into
your hands I commend my spirit. It is you who will
redeem me, Lord. But as for my trust in you, Lord, I say: 'You
are my God’"
(Ps 30 (31):5,14).
This
awareness - "You are my God. Into
your hands I commend my spirit" -
prevails
absolutely in the Heart of the Son "lifted up" on the Cross, and
in
the Mother's Heart humanly emptied by the
Son's crucifixion.
We
read in the Letter to the Hebrews: "He
submitted so humbly that his prayer
was heard... but having been made perfect, he became for all who obey
him the source of eternal salvation"
(Heb 5:7,9). In this consists the
mystery of the "Triumph of the
Cross", on which, together with the whole Church, we meditated
yesterday.
Eternal
Wisdom has embraced all that the Cross of Christ contains.
"I
came forth from the mouth of the
Most High and I covered the earth like
mist"
(Sir ?4:3).
So
it is: the whole earth
has been covered by the mystery of eternal Wisdom, whose real name is Love. "God
loved the world so much that
he gave his only Son" (Jn 3:16).
And
behold - at the very centre of this "giving
himself" through love, from
the
height of the Cross on which the Son is completely united to the
Father, and
the Father to the Son - the words resound which confirm his Mother's
presence and her special sharing in the mystery of eternal Wisdom. Jesus says: "Woman, behold your son!"
Beside Mary at the foot of the Cross
stood John, the disciple whom Jesus
loved (cf. Jn 19:26). And he says
to
John: "This is your mother!"
These
words were written by John himself, as
an Evangelist. And he added:
"And from that moment the disciple made a place for her in his home"
(Jn 19:27).
Eternal
Wisdom
came into the world and was spoken in the
Son who became Man
and was born of the
Virgin Mary.
Eternal
Wisdom embraced then from the very
beginning also Mary when it assigned
the Son's dwelling place on the earth: "Pitch you tent in Jacob, make
Israel your inheritance" (Sir
24:13). For she is the daughter of Israel;
she is from the line of Jacob. She is
the Mother of the Messiah!
How
marvellously [sp] are the words
of the Book of Sirach fulfilled in her - an
unknown and hidden Virgin of Nazareth: "From eternity, in the
beginning,
he created me, and for
eternity I shall remain"
(Sir
24:9). You, beloved Daughter of
God our
Father - you were truly foreseen from eternity in Divine
Wisdom, since from
eternity by this Wisdom the Son was given to us.
You,
beloved Mother of God's Son!
You,
Virgin Spouse of the Holy Spirit!
You,
who dwell in the tabernacle of the Most
Holy Trinity!
Truly,
you will never cease to be in the very heart of the
Divine Plan.
And
that which Wisdom proclaims further on in
Sirach is also true: "I ministered
before him in the
holy tabernacle, and thus was I established on Zion... and in Jerusalem I wield my
authority" (Sir 24:10-11).
Eternal
Wisdom caused all this. And in time
eternal Wisdom concealed it
- to the
point of the emptying that took place on the Cross of Christ. But
right there - at the Cross of
Christ - eternal Wisdom revealed both your
service and your power! And it did so with the words:
"This is your mother!"
The
only one who hears these words is John, and yet in him all
people hear them - everyone
and each
one.
Mother,
this is your service, your
holy service!
Mother,
this is your power!
By
means of this holy service, the most holy service, through this
motherly power you "took root in an honoured people, in the portion of
the
Lord, who is their inheritance"
(Sir
24:13).
All
of us desire to have you as a Mother,
for as such you were left to us
by
Christ lifted up on the Cross. And this act of his was the fruit of eternal
Wisdom. All of us desire your motherly
service which conquers hearts,
and we long for
this power which is the motherly service born from the whole
mystery of
Christ.
The
title Sorrowful Mother means precisely
this. Alma Socia Christi means
precisely this, for you have been associated with Christ in his whole mystery, which eternal Wisdom reveals
and in which
we desire to share ever more
deeply:
"They who eat me will hunger for more. They who drink me will
thirst for more" (Sir 24:21).
Dear
brothers and sisters: through the liturgy
today, Christ's prayer and
entreaty and the love of his Mother are offered for all those who experience
the pains and challenges of this world of technology:
-
For all of you who in your ethnic diversity
compose the fabric of this
great city, striving to
remain faithful to your origins, while working together
to express your new moral unity in Canada.
-
For
all of you who live in Toronto, this
heartland of Canada's industrial
and technological
development.
-
For
all who in one way or another make up
the technological society: for
workers in industry; all
those engaged in activities of finance, commerce, education,
publishing,
informatics, medical research, the arts; for
the leaders in communities; for the direct and indirect employers of millions
of people.
-
For
the unemployed and all of you who are
caught in the coils of an economic
crisis and suffer its social effects.
-
For
the poor, those who experience
alienation and all those who hunger
and thirst for
solidarity.
Christ's
prayer is for all of you who live in
hope, beside a cross that rises
to the sky and
illumines daily existence with the light of eternal Wisdom. And side by side with you,
beneath this cross, there is that loving
Mother who has experienced sorrow and understands pain, and who, in her maternity and femininity, offers
to all
humanity the reassurance of loving
care and personal concern for
each individual, each human person.
And
today I appeal to all of you to view
technology within the context of
the message of the Cross
and to do your part so that the power of technology
will serve the cause of hope.
Technology has contributed so much
to
the well-being of humanity; it has done so much to uplift the human condition,
to serve humanity, and to
facilitate and perfect its work. And yet
at
times technology cannot decide the full measure of its own allegiance: whether it is for humanity
or against
it. The same technology that has the possibility to help the
poor
sometimes even contributes to poverty,
limits the opportunities for work and removes the possibility of human
creativity. In these and other instances technology ceases to be the ally of the human person.
For
this reason my appeal goes to all
concerned: to you, labour leaders;
to you, business leaders; to you, scientists; to you, political leaders;
to everyone who can make a
contribution toward ensuring that the technology
which has done so much to build Toronto and all Canada will
truly serve man, woman and child throughout this land.
And
in its final and greatest triumph may
technology lead us to proclaim the surpassing magnitude of that Divine
Wisdom
which makes technology
possible, but which from
the Cross of Christ reveals the very limitations
of this technology. And from the Cross of Christ, Divine Wisdom
portrays that
new earth which all technology must serve: the one embraced
by a
Mother's love. Today we address our prayer to that Mother:
Be
a guide to Christ for us, 0 Mary.
Be
for us a Morning Star that shines in the
heavens of eternal Wisdom, above
the horizons of our human world. Amen.