24. Homily at the Closing Mass of the GC24

Rome, 20 April 1996

Our capitular experience is coming to an end, enlightened by the presence of the Risen Christ. We have before our minds the image of Mary at the foot of the Cross.

It is a paschal icon. It is only in comparatively recent times that the idea of the "Mater dolorosa" has come to the fore. In the Gospel account there is no reference to tears or sadness; it says simply that she stood near the Cross, taking part in that supreme event for humanity. A first semblance of the Help of Christians.

For St. John the cross coincides with the glorification of Jesus, the culminating moment of his revelation, his going towards the Father. "When I am lifted up from the earth, I shall draw all things to myself". From the cross was born the community of believers, represented by the little group gathered around it and symbolized by the water of baptism and the blood of the Eucharist. On the cross is founded the new unity of the human race which Christ was to realize according to the messianic promise. In this ecclesial framework are set the words addressed to Mary which suggest rather a symbol to decipher, a mystery to unveil, than a moving statement of a fact.

The episode of Mary, in fact, is at the centre of those last scenes which have passed down to us the memory of Christ's death. It is linked with the scene of the "seamless garment" which the soldiers did not divide, and is the symbol of reformed humanity, of the people of God definitively united through the grace of Christ. And it is followed by the expression with which Jesus declares that the design of the Father has been fulfilled: "Having said this Jesus, knowing that everything had been accomplished..."

It is not therefore a matter of the solicitude or filial love of Jesus, concerned about assigning to Mary someone who would support her, or of the affection of the disciple for her. These things are true but John puts less emphasis on them. What he is trying to do is to bring his readers to interiorize the sense of Christ's death and penetrate its salvific mystery. He leaves aside the emotive superficial aspect of the drama and dwells rather on its effects for humanity's pilgrimage. It is in this light that he reports the dialogue between Jesus, Mary and the disciple.

He turns first to Mary. We have the impression, and it is precisely what happened, that it was not a case of Mary being entrusted to John, but that he was entrusted to her as a son. It brings to mind that Mary is not called by her own name but always referred to as "his mother". We recall the episode of Cana when the same John says that in it "Jesus manifested his glory and his disciples believed in him". It is the initial glory of the revelation of the Messiah which reaches its highest point in his death. And it makes us think too of the name "woman" which takes us back to the same episode, symbol of the new nuptials. And going further back in history, to the woman of the creation, of the temptation and of God's sentence: Eve.

Of the disciple, on the other hand, the name is not given. It represents every follower of Jesus, all the disciples together, the community of his faithful followers characterized by the fact that they are friends of Christ and loved by him.

All this makes us think that we are at the making, not of some precautionary measure, but of a solemn and sacred entrustment, a point of departure. Jesus calls Mary to a new kind of motherhood which takes its origin from the cross and for that reason becomes fertile. It is a new capacity for bringing men to birth in the Spirit. We are "in the hour" of Jesus, which at Cana had not yet come. Mary will be his Mother, not only because she bore him in her womb, but because through identifying himself totally and in every place with the community born from the cross she will conceive him continually in history in millions of individuals throughout the centuries.

Mary depicts and concentrates in herself the quality of the universal Church, and even the individual local communities. They are all born at the foot of the cross; they are called to enjoy the riches signified in water and blood, and to bear witness to the fact with the ardent fidelity of the first nucleus.

For this reason the community of the disciples takes Mary to itself. We see her with them as they await the coming of the Spirit. She certainly bore a living witness to the historical existence of Jesus from the first years; but still more she was a motherly mediation for opening us to the mystery of Christ, Son of God. From that point she is present in communities everywhere, visibly in the signs by which the community recalls its veneration of her, and in depth with a fertility which gives ever new and unforeseen signs. This is the companionship which we too will bring to our own communities after the GC24.

She will remind us of the value of giving oneself to God as strength for pastoral charity.

We shall receive today a small statue of the "Good Shepherd" with a sheep on his shoulders. Christ's attitudes and gestures, which we often recall as examples for ourselves (welcoming, listening, support, enlightenment, mercy), find in the cross their explanation and coronation. The Shepherd, whom John presents in his Chapter X, is the one who gives life. If this be ignored, pastoral charity would become a technique of approach, of public relations, a form of beneficence rather than of salvation.

Mary, incorporated interiorly through the words of Jesus into this offering, educates us to the mysterious fertility of love.

For her too everything is revealed and fulfilled in this moment. Her concern for the growth of the Son of God takes on another dimension: from Jesus to the Church, historical and concrete, made of men and their doings; from human fertility to that of grace. Acceptance of this was another test of her faith, almost a qualitative leap.

Mary, at the foot of the cross, reveals to us the value of the community in which our service is realized, of the community which is present at Christ's sacrifice in a unique but different manner. She is the bearer of a memory of which she alone understands the sense. It is more than a "group". It is the place where God reveals salvation.

We may think in this way of the educative community which we animate, of the Salesian Family and Movement, of the churches. We foster the reference to Christ, the unity in love and activity. With them we invoke and await the Spirit and make ourselves attentive to his signs.

Mary at the foot of the cross reminds us of the salvation of which we want to be signs and bearers: it is the salvation that stems from Christ's Redemption, that opens us to God to receive from him the fulfillment of our own existence. We start up many initiatives for the benefit of the young and of adults. They are all oriented to a single main end, all leavened by something included in our motto "Da mihi animas": the salvation of God, which is central to the work of Christ.

With Mary, beside the cross, we discover which are the strengths needed for the transformation God wants to work in us and in our communities: the water and blood. The purification is the Eucharist. The Easter season, in which we are living, is the time of sacramental pedagogy. It is proposed in a thousand different ways by the liturgy and the pages of the Gospel.

Soon we shall pronounce the words of our entrustment to Mary. It will be an act of faith in her assistance and the expression of our desire to take her with us.

We have celebrated the passage of 150 years since Don Bosco began the Oratory at Valdocco. The presence of Mary runs like a golden thread through the various stages of his experience, both spiritual and pastoral: the beginning of the oratory, its definitive establishment, the foundation of the Congregation, and its expansion. Now we find ourselves beginning a new stage. May she still be the guarantee of our oblation, of the salvation we bear, of the communities we form.