In the Magnificat, the great song of Mary we've just heard in the Gospel, we find surprising words. Mary says: "Henceforth all generations shall call me blessed." The Mother of the Lord prophesies the Church's Marian praises forever, the Marian devotion of the People of God until the end of time. In praising Mary, the Church hasn't invented something foreign to Scripture: it is responding to the prophecy Mary made in that moment of grace.
These words of Mary weren't merely personal, perhaps arbitrary, words. As St. Luke tells us, Elizabeth, full of the Holy Spirit, had exclaimed: "Blessed is she who has believed." And Mary, also full of the Holy Spirit, continues and completes Isabel's words, affirming: "All generations will call me blessed." It is an authentic prophecy, inspired by the Holy Spirit, and the Church, in venerating Mary, is responding to a command of the Holy Spirit, fulfilling a duty.
There are no English translations of the audiences and Angelus while I was away, so I'll wait except to tell you that at today's Angelus the Pope warned that all work and no pray makes...well, you know. Of course he said it much more eloquently, invoking St. Bernard of Clairvaux, whose feast would be today were it not Sunday.
It is necessary to pay attention to the dangers of excessive activity, regardless of one's condition and occupation, observes the saint, because -- as he said to the Pope of that time, and to all Popes and to all of us -- numerous occupations often lead to "hardness of heart," "they are no more than suffering for the spirit, loss of intelligence and dispersion of grace" (II, 3).
This admonition is valid for all kinds of occupations, including those inherent to
the governance of the Church. The message that, in this connection, Bernard addresses to the Pontiff, who had been his disciple at Clairvaux, is provocative: "See where these accursed occupations can lead you, if you continue to lose yourself in them -- without leaving anything of yourself for yourself" (ibid). How useful for us also is this call to the primacy of prayer!
Zenit has the whole thing.
In other Vatican news, the Pontifical Academy for Life is holding a major conference on Stem Cell Research. And here's a fun story on the incoming Vatican Sec. of State, which jokes that he got the appt. because he's the only one who can read the Pope's handwriting, and says he's this kind of man:
Cardinal Bertone’s priest secretary recalled for the paper an occasion in which Bertone decided to take a public bus to the Vatican. As the cardinal in his long black cassock and red fascia strode on to the bus, the people-- especially a group of young people-– stared in silence. Cardinal Bertone immediately broke the ice with his “characteristic” smile. By the time he reached his destination the prelate had engaged the youth in a deep conversation on love, sex, virginity, and chastity.
