On January 1, the feast of the Mother of God, the Holy Father had these words:
"The Church needs Mary in order to recover her own feminine face, to resemble more fully the woman, Virgin and Mother, who is her model and perfect image (cf. Lumen Gentium, 63), to make space for women and to be “generative” through a pastoral ministry marked by concern and care, patience and maternal courage. The world, too, needs to look to mothers and to women in order to find peace, to emerge from the spiral of violence and hatred, and once more see things with genuinely human eyes and hearts. Every society needs to accept the gift that is woman, every woman: to respect, defend and esteem women, in the knowledge that whosoever harms a single woman profanes God, who was “born of a woman”.
Let us entrust this coming year to the Mother of God. Let us consecrate our lives to her. With tender love, she will open our eyes to their fullness. For she will lead us to Jesus, who is himself “the fullness of time”, of every time, of our own time, of each one of us. Indeed, as was once written: “It was not the fullness of time that brought about the sending of the Son of God, but the sending of the Son that brought about the fullness of time”
Brothers and sisters, may this year be filled with the consolation of the Lord! May this year be filled with the tender maternal love of Mary, the Holy Mother of God.
I now invite all of us together to proclaim three times: Holy Mother of God! Holy Mother of God! Holy Mother of God!
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