Angelus, Seravalle Stadium
ShareOn Sunday, 29 August 1982, at the end of Holy Mass in the Seravalle Stadium, the Holy Father led the faithful in the Angelus.
1. Before the final blessing, I invite you to turn your thoughts to Our Lady, reciting the Angelus.
With this prayer, through which we remember the announcement made by the Angel to the Virgin Mary, we adore the heavenly Father for the great gift of the Incarnation. We adore the Father for the revelation of this central mystery of the history of salvation, that is, of the entry of the eternal Word into the events of this world. This is the mystery of the infinite love of the Father who wanted to establish such familiar relationships with us as to make us his children in his Son. And it is the mystery of the love of the Word who became Man.
The passage from St. James, proclaimed in this liturgy, speaks of the gifts we receive from the Father: "Every gift and every perfect gift comes from above and comes down from the Father of light" ( Jas 1:17). The greatest of these gifts is the Son, which he gave us: Jesus Christ who was conceived in the blessed womb of the Virgin of Nazareth by the work of the Holy Spirit.
With these concluding words of my meeting with you, dear San Marino people, I wish to perform an act of profound adoration to God, collecting and offering the feelings with which past and current generations of San Marino have remembered Christ and the Virgin Mary. I wish to offer all the expressions of love and trust that these generations have directed to Christ and to his Mother throughout the centuries and which they also elevate today.
2. As Bishop of Rome and Pastor of the Universal Church, I would also like to thank the Father with you and for you for the "gift" of the "word that was sown in you" (Jas 1:21) from the origins of this Republic. I urge you to join me in thanking Mary, Mother of Jesus and our Mother, who is for all of you the true model of how the word of God should be welcomed and translated into practice. From her relative Saint Elizabeth she is greeted - as we repeat so often – “blessed among women”, precisely because she believed in the fulfillment of the Lord's words: she believed and lived in this certainty!
3. Finally, I wish to recommend you to the "Father of light" through Christ and through the intercession of his Mother, so that she may enlighten your minds and move your will to generously welcome what I have expressed in the homily of this Eucharistic celebration. May Our Lady help you to always use freedom correctly, according to the law of God and the best tradition of your Republic; may she support you in your commitment to respecting family values, and may she support you in your daily effort to respond generously to the profound needs of the spirit.
© Copyright 1982 - Libreria Editrice Vaticana
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