If we contemplate the Virgin of Nazareth in the halo of her prerogative
and her virtues, we will see her shine before our eyes as the New Eve, the
exalted daughter of Sion, the summit of the Old Testament and the dawn of the
New Testament, in which the fullness of time was realized, which was
preordained by God for the mission in the world of His only-begotten Son. In
truth, the Virgin Mary, more than all the patriarchs and prophets, more than
the just and pious Simeon, awaited and implored the consolation of Israel...the
Christ of the Lord, and then greeted His advent with the hymn of Magnificat
when He descended into her most chaste womb to take on our flesh.
It is in Mary, therefore, that the Church of Christ indicates the example
of the worthiest way of receiving in our spirits the Word of God, in accordance
with the luminous sentence of St. Augustine: Mary was therefore more blessed in
receiving the faith in Christ than in conceiving the flesh of Christ.
Accordingly, maternal consanguinity would not have benefited Mary if she had
not felt more fortunate in having Christ in her heart then in her womb. And it
is still in her that Christians can admire the example of how to fulfill, with
humility and at the same time with magnanimity, the mission which God entrusts
to each one in this world, in relation to his own salvation and that of his
fellow beings.
Therefore, I beg you, be imitators of me as I am of Christ. These words,
and with greater reason than the Apostle Paul to the Christians of Corinth, can
be addressed by the Mother of the Church to the multitudes of the faithful,
who, in a symphony of faith and love with the generations of past centuries,
acclaim her as blessed. It is an invitation which it is a duty to heed
docilely.
And then a message of supreme utility seems today to reach the faithful
from her who is the Immaculate one, the holy one, the cooperator of the Son in
the work of restoration of supernatural life in souls. In fact, in devoutly
contemplating Mary they draw from her a stimulus for trusting prayer, a spur to
the practice of penance and holy fear of God. Likewise, it is in this Marian
elevation that they more often hear echoing the words with which Jesus Christ
announced the advent of the Kingdom of heaven: Repent and believe in the
Gospel; and His severe admonition: Unless you repent you will all perish in the
same manner.
Therefore, impelled by love and by the wish to placate God for the
offenses against His sanctity and His justice and, at the same time, moved by
trust in His infinite mercy, we must bear the sufferings of the spirit and of
the body, so that we may expiate our sins and those of our fellow beings and so
avoid the twofold penalty of “harm" and of "sense," that is, the
loss of God, the supreme good, and the eternal fire….
May the Immaculate Heart of Mary shine before the eyes of all Christians as the model of perfect love toward God and toward our fellow beings; may it lead them toward the Holy Sacraments by virtue of which souls are cleansed from the stains of sin and are preserved from it. May it also stimulate them to make reparation for the innumerable offenses against the Divine Majesty. Lastly, may it shine like a banner of unity and a spur to perfect the bonds of brotherhood among all Christians in the bosom of the one Church of Jesus Christ which, taught by the Holy Spirit, honors her with filial affection and piety as a most beloved mother.
From
the Apostolic Exhortation ‘Signum magnum’ of Pope Paul VI