Homily of Pope Francis at the Mass for the Solemnity of Mary Mother of God

This January 1, Pope Francis presided over the Mass for the Solemnity of Mary Mother of God in St. Peter’s Basilica, in which he invited people to entrust the new year 2025 to the Virgin and called to protect human life from the womb.

Below is the homily delivered by Pope Francis:

At the beginning of a new year that the Lord grants us, it is beautiful to be able to raise the gaze of our hearts to Mary. She, being a Mother, evokes the relationship with the Son; It refers us to Jesus, it talks to us about Jesus, it guides us towards Jesus. In this way, the Solemnity of Saint Mary, Mother of God, introduces us once again to the mystery of Christmas. God became one of us in the womb of Mary and we, who opened the Holy Door to begin the Jubilee, are reminded today that “Mary is the door through which Christ entered the world” (St. Ambrose , Epistle 42, 4: PL VII).

The apostle Paul summarizes this mystery by stating that “God sent his Son, born of a woman” (Gal 4:4). These words—“born of a woman”—resonate in our hearts today and remind us that Jesus, our Savior, became flesh and is revealed in the fragility of the flesh.

Born of a woman. This expression refers us above all to Christmas: the Word became flesh. The apostle Paul specifies that he was born of a woman, as if he felt the need to remind us that God truly became man through a human womb. There is a temptation that attracts many people today and that can also seduce many Christians: to imagine or fabricate an “abstract” God, linked to a vague religious idea, to some pleasant fleeting emotion. Instead, He is real, He is human: He was born of a woman, He has a face and a name, and He calls us to relate to Him. Christ Jesus, our Savior, was born of a woman; It has flesh and blood; It comes from the bosom of the Father, but is incarnated in the womb of the Virgin Mary; It comes from the top of the sky, but lives in the depths of the earth; He is the Son of God, but he became the Son of man. He, the image of omnipotent God, came in weakness; and even without having known sin, “God identified it with sin on our behalf” (2 Cor 5:21). He was born of a woman and is one of us; precisely for this reason He can save us.

Born of a woman. This expression also tells us about the humanity of Christ, to tell us that He reveals himself in the fragility of the flesh. He was incarnated in the womb of a woman, being born like all creatures, in this way He shows Himself in the fragility of a Child. That is why the shepherds, when they went to see with their own eyes what the Angel had announced to them, did not find extraordinary signs or grandiose manifestations, but “they found Mary, Joseph, and the newborn baby lying in the manger” (Luke 2,16). They found a defenseless, fragile child, in need of his mother’s care, in need of diapers and food, caresses and love. Saint Louis Grignion de Montfort said that divine Wisdom “did not want, even if it could have done so, to give itself directly to men, but preferred to communicate itself to them through the Holy Virgin, nor did it want to come into the world at the age of the perfect man, independent of others, but as a small and weak child, in need of the care and assistance of a Mother” (Treatise on True Devotion to the Blessed Virgin, 139). And in the whole life of Jesus we can see this choice of God, the choice of smallness and concealment; He will never yield to the splendor of divine power to perform great signs and impose himself on others as the devil had suggested, but he will reveal the love of God in the beauty of his humanity, dwelling among us, sharing the ordinary life made of fatigue. and dreams, showing compassion for the sufferings of body and spirit, opening the eyes of the blind and reviving the lost in heart. Compassion. The three attitudes of God are mercy, closeness and compassion. God becomes close, merciful and compassionate. Let’s not forget this. Jesus shows us God through his fragile humanity, who takes care of the fragile.

Sisters and brothers, it is beautiful to think that Mary, the young woman from Nazareth, always leads us to the mystery of her Son, Jesus. She reminds us that Jesus comes in the flesh and, therefore, the privileged place where it is possible to find him is above all in our lives, in our fragile humanity, in that of those who pass by our side every day. Invoking her as Mother of God, we affirm that Christ has been generated by the Father, but was truly born from the womb of a woman. We affirm that He is the Lord of time, but He inhabits this time of ours, also this new year, with His presence of love. We affirm that He is the Savior of the world, but we can find Him and we must look for Him in the face of every human being. And if He, who is the Son of God, became small to be embraced by a mother, to be cared for and fed, then it means that today He continues to come in all those who need the same care; in every sister and brother we meet and who requires attention, listening and tenderness.

Let us then entrust this new year that begins to Mary, Mother of God, so that we too may learn like Her to find the greatness of God in the smallness of life; so that we learn to care for every creature born of a woman, above all protecting the precious gift of life, as Mary did: life in the womb, the life of children, the life of those who suffer, the life of the poor, the life of the elderly, that of those who are alone, that of the dying. And today, on the World Day of Peace, we are all called to accept this invitation that springs from the maternal heart of Mary: to protect life, to take charge of wounded life—there is so much wounded life—to dignify the life of each “born.” of a woman”; It is the fundamental basis for building a civilization of peace. For this reason, “I ask for a firm commitment to promote respect for the dignity of human life, from conception to natural death, so that every person can love their own life and look to the future with hope” (Message for the LVIII Conference World Peace, January 1, 2025).

Mary, Mother of God and our Mother, awaits us precisely there, in the nativity scene. Also to us, like the shepherds, he shows us the God who always surprises us, who does not come in the splendor of the heavens, but in the smallness of a manger. Let us entrust this new jubilee year to her, let us entrust to her the questions, the worries, the sufferings, the joys and everything we carry in our hearts. she is a mother! Let us entrust the entire world to her, so that hope may be reborn, so that peace may finally flourish among all the peoples of the earth.

History tells us that, in Ephesus, when the bishops entered the church, the faithful people, with staffs in their hands, acclaimed: “Mother of God!” Surely the staffs were the promise of what would happen to them if they had not declared the dogma of the “Mother of God.” Today we do not have canes, but we have the hearts and voices of children. Therefore, all together, we acclaim the Holy Mother of God. All together: “Holy Mother of God!”, three times. Together: “Holy Mother of God! Holy Mother of God! “Holy Mother of God!”