Celebration of the Marian Word and Consecration of Spain to Our Lady (6 November 1982)

On 6 November 1982, the Holy Father celebrated the Liturgy of the Word at Zaragoza where he consecrated Spain to Mary at the Sanctuary of Our Lady of Pilar.

Dear Brothers in the Episcopate,
Dear Brothers and Sisters,

1. The Marian paths bring me to Zaragoza this afternoon. On his apostolic journey through Spanish lands, the Pope is today a pilgrim on the banks of the Ebro. The Marian city of Spain. To the Sanctuary of Our Lady of Pilar.

I thus see the fulfillment of a desire that I had previously wished I could fulfill, to prostrate myself as a devoted son of Mary before the sacred Pillar. To pay this good Mother my homage of filial devotion, and to do so united with the Pastor of this diocese, the other Bishops and you, dear Aragonese, Riojanos, Sorians and Spaniards all, in this national Marian act.

I make a pilgrimage to this sanctuary, as in my previous apostolic journeys that took me to Guadalupe, Jasna Gora, Knock, Our Lady of Africa, "Notre Dame", Altötting, Aparecida, Fátima, Luján and other sanctuaries, places of encounter with God and of love for the Mother of the Lord and ours.

We are in the lands of Spain, rightly called the land of Mary . I know that, in many places in this country, the Marian devotion of the faithful finds concrete expression in so many venerated sanctuaries. We cannot mention them all. But how can we not prostrate ourselves spiritually, with reverent affection, before the Mother of Covadonga, of Begonha, of Aránzazu, of Ujué, of Monserrate, of Valvanera, of Almudena, of Guadalupe, of the Desamparados, of Lluch, of Rocio, of Pino?

Of these sanctuaries and of all others no less venerable, where you are often united in love with the only Mother of Jesus and ours, the Pillar is a symbol today. A symbol that brings us together in the One who, from every corner of Spain, everyone calls with the same name: Mother and Our Lady .

2. Following so many millions of faithful who have preceded me, I come as the first pilgrim Pope to Pilar, as a sign of the pilgrim Church throughout the world, to place myself under the protection of our Mother, to encourage you in your deep-rooted Marian love, to give thanks to God for the unique presence of Mary in the mystery of Christ and the Church in Spanish lands, and to deposit in her hands and in her heart the present and future of your Nation and the Church in Spain.

The Pilar and its tradition evoke for you the first steps in the evangelization of Spain.

That temple of Our Lady which, at the time of the reconquest of Zaragoza, is indicated by its Bishop as highly esteemed for its ancient reputation for holiness and dignity; which had received signs of veneration for several centuries before, finds continuity in the current Marian Basilica. Crowds of the Virgin's children continue to pass through it, arriving to pray before her Image and to venerate the blessed Pillar.

This heritage of Marian faith from so many generations will become not only a reminder of the past, but a starting point for God. The prayers and sacrifices offered, the vital pulse of a people, who express before Mary their secular joys, sadness and hopes, are new stones that elevate the sacred dimension of a Marian faith.

Because in this religious continuity, virtue engenders new virtue. Grace attracts grace. And the centuries-old presence of Saint Mary has taken root over the centuries, inspiring and encouraging successive generations. In this way, the difficult climb of a people to the top is consolidated.

3. A characteristic aspect of evangelization in Spain is its deep connection with the figure of Mary. Through her, through many different forms of piety, the light of faith in Christ, Son of God and Mary, reached many Christians. And how many Christians today also live their communion of ecclesiastical faith sustained by devotion to Mary, thus becoming the pillar of that faith and a safe guide to salvation!

Remembering this presence of Mary, I cannot fail to mention the important work of Saint Ildefonso of Toledo "On the perpetual virginity of Saint Mary", in which he expresses the Church's faith in this mystery. With a precise formula it indicates: "Virgin before the coming of the Son, virgin after the generation of the Son, virgin with the birth of the Son, virgin after the birth of the Son" (c. 1: PL 96, 60).

The fact that the first great Spanish Marian affirmation consisted of a defense of Mary's virginity was decisive for the image that the Spanish have of Her, whom they call "the Virgin", that is, the Virgin par excellence.

To illuminate the faith of Spanish Catholics today, Bishops of this Nation and the same Episcopal Commission for the Doctrine of the Faith recalled the realistic meaning of this truth of faith (cf. Note of April 1, 1978 ). In a virginal way, "without knowing man and by the work of the Holy Spirit" ( Lumen gentium , 63), Mary gave human nature to the eternal Son of the Father. In a virginal way, a holy body animated by a rational soul was born of Mary, at the same time which the Word was hypostatically united.

It is the faith that the broad Creed of Saint Epiphanius expressed with the term "always a Virgin" (DS 44) and that Pope Paul VI united in the ternary formula of virgin "before childbirth, in childbirth and perpetually after childbirth" (DS 1880 ) . The same as taught by Paul VI: "we believe that Mary is the Mother, ever Virgin, of the Incarnate Word" ( "Creed" of the People of God , June 30, 1968). The one that you will always maintain in all its amplitude.

Marian love was a leaven of catholicity in your history. He encouraged the people of Spain to a firm devotion and intrepid defense of the greatness of Mary, especially her Immaculate Conception. The people, associations, fraternities and university institutions, such as those in this city, Barcelona, ​​Alcalá, Salamanca, Granada, Baeza, Toledo, Santiago and others, struggled in this. And it is what also encouraged the transplantation of Marian devotion to the New World discovered by Spain, which is known to have received it from there and which keeps it so alive.

This fact raises here, in Pilar, echoes of deep communion before the Patroness of Hispanity. I am pleased to remember him today, ten years away from the 5th centenary of the discovery and evangelization of America. A meeting that the Church cannot miss.

4. Pope Paul VI wrote that "in the Virgin Mary everything is referred to Christ and everything depends on Him" ​​( Marialis cultus , 25). This has a special application in Marian worship. All the reasons we find in Mary to worship her are gifts from Christ, privileges deposited in her by God, so that she could be the Mother of the Word. And all the worship we pay to her results in the glory of Christ, at the same time that the worship of Mary leads us to Christ.

Saint Ildefonso of Toledo, the oldest witness to this form of devotion called Marian slavery, justifies our attitude as slaves of Mary by the unique relationship that She has with what refers to Christ: "That is why I am your slave, because the my Lord is your Son. Therefore you are my Lady, because you are my Lord's slave. Therefore I am the slave of my Lord's slave, because you were made the mother of your Lord. Therefore I became a slave, because you were made mother of my Creator" ( De virginitate perpetua Sanctae Mariae , 12: PL 96, 106).

Obviously, these real relationships between Christ and Mary mean that Marian worship has Christ as its ultimate object. The same Saint Ildefonso understood this clearly: "For this is how he who serves the slave refers to the Lord; this is how he who gives himself to his Mother returns to the Son; this is how the honor given in the service of the queen passes to the king" (c. 12: PL 96, 108). One understands, then, the double recipient of the desire that the same Saint expresses, when speaking to the Blessed Virgin: "may you grant me to give myself to God and to You, to be a slave of your Son and Yours, to serve your Lord and to You" (c. 12: PL 96 105).

There is no shortage of scholars who believe they can maintain that the most popular prayer to Mary — after the "Ave Maria" — was composed in Spain, and that its author was the Bishop of Compostela, S. Pedro de Mezonzo, at the end of the 10th century. ; I refer to the prayer "Hail".

This prayer culminates in the petition: "Show us Jesus." This is what Mary constantly accomplishes, as reflected in the gesture of so many images of the Virgin, spread throughout the cities and towns of Spain. She, with her Son in her arms, as here in the Pillar, continually shows Him to us as "the way, the truth and the life" ( John 14:6). Sometimes, with her dead Son in her lap, she reminds us of the infinite value of the blood of the Lamb that was shed for our salvation (cf. 1 Pet 18 s.; Eph 1:7). On other occasions, his image, by leaning towards men, brings his Son closer to us and makes us feel the approach of him who is the radical revelation of mercy (cf. Dives in Misericordia , 8), thus manifesting himself , Herself, as Mother of mercy ( ibid ., 9).

The images of Mary thus capture an evangelical teaching of primordial importance. In the wedding scene at Cana, Mary said to the servants: "Do whatever He tells you" ( John 2:5). The phrase might seem limited to a transitory situation. However, as Paul VI highlights (cf. Marialis cultus , 57), its scope is much greater: it is a permanent exhortation that we open ourselves to the teaching of Jesus. In this way we achieve full consonance with the voice of the Father in Tabor: "This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased; listen to Him" ​​( Mt 17:5).

This broadens our horizon to unfathomable perspectives. God's plan in Christ was to conform us to the image of His Son, so that He would be "the firstborn among many brothers" ( Rom 8:29). Christ came into the world "that we might receive adoption" ( Gal 4:5), to grant us the "power to become children of God" ( Rom 1:12). By grace we are children of God and, supported by the testimony of the Spirit, we can cry: Abba, Father (cf. Rom 8, 15 s.; Gal 4, 6 s.). Jesus made, by his death and resurrection, his Father our Father (cf. John 20:17).

And so that our fraternity with Him would be complete, I then wanted His Most Holy Mother to be our spiritual Mother. This Motherhood, so that it would not be reduced to a mere legal title, was carried out, by the will of Christ, through Mary's collaboration in the saving work of Jesus, that is "in the restoration of the supernatural life of souls" ( Lumen gentium , 61 ).

5. A father and a mother accompany their children with concern. They strive for constant educational action. In this light, the agreed voices of the Father and Mary acquire their full meaning: Listen to Jesus, do what He tells you. This is the advice that each of us must seek to assimilate, and which from the beginning of my Pontificate I wanted to echo: "Do not be afraid; open wide the doors to Christ" (cf. AAS 70, 1978, 947 ).

Mary, for her part, is the supreme example of this attitude. To the angel's announcement, she responds with an unconditional yes: "Behold the handmaid of the Lord, let it be done to me according to your word" ( Luke 1:38). She opens herself to the eternal and personal Word of God, which in her womb will take flesh. Precisely this welcome makes her fruitful: Mother of God and our Mother, because it is at this time that her cooperation in the salvific work begins.

This fruitfulness of Mary is a sign of the fruitfulness of the Church ( Lumen gentium , 63 s): By opening ourselves to the word of Christ, welcoming Him and His Gospel, each member of the Church will also be fruitful in their Christian life.

6. The Pillar of Zaragoza has always been considered a symbol of the Spanish firmness of faith. Let us not forget that faith without works is dead (cf. James 2:26). Let us aspire to "faith that works through charity" ( Gal 5:6). May the faith of the Spaniards, like the faith of Mary, be fruitful and operative! May it become concern for everyone, especially for the most needy, marginalized, disabled, sick and those who suffer in body and soul.

As Peter's successor, I wished to visit you, beloved children of Spain, to encourage you in your faith and instil hope in you. My pastoral duty obliges me to urge you to be consistent between your faith and your lives. Mary, who on the eve of Pentecost interceded for the Holy Spirit to descend upon the nascent Church (cf. Acts 1:14), also intercedes now. So that this same Spirit produces a profound Christian rejuvenation in Spain. So that it knows how to capture the great values ​​of its Catholic heritage and face the challenges of the future with courage.

7. I give deep thanks to God for the unique presence of Mary in this Spanish land that produced so much fruit. And I want to finally recommend to you, Holy Virgin of Pilar, all of Spain, each and every one of its children and peoples, the Church in Spain, as well as the children of all Hispanic Nations.

God save you, O Mary,
Mother of Christ and the Church!
God save you, life, sweetness and our hope!

To your care this afternoon I entrust
the needs of all families in Spain,
the joys of children,
the aspirations of young people,
the cares of adults,
the suffering of the sick
and the serene sunset of the elderly.

I commend to you the fidelity
and selflessness of the ministers of your Son,
the hope of those who prepare for this ministry,
the joyful donation of the cloister virgins,
the prayer and concern of the men and women religious,
the life and commitment of those who work for the kingdom of Christ in these lands.

In your hands I place the fatigue
and sweat of those who work with yours;
the noble dedication of those who transmit their knowledge and the effort of those who learn;
the beautiful vocation of those who, through their science
and service, alleviate the suffering of others;
the work of those who, with their intelligence, seek the truth.

In your heart I leave the desires of those who,
through economic activities,
honestly seek the prosperity of their brothers;
those who, in the service of truth,
correctly inform and form public opinion;
of those who, in politics,
in military functions,
in trade union work or in the service of public order,
provide their honest collaboration in favor of a fair,
peaceful and safe coexistence.

Holy Virgin of Pilar:
Increases our faith,
consolidates our hope,
makes our charity more alive.

Help those who suffer misfortune,
 those who suffer loneliness,
ignorance,
hunger or lack of work.

Strengthen the weak in faith.

It encourages young people to be available
 for total surrender to God.

Protect all of Spain and its people,
its men and its women.
And motherly assist,
O Mary, those who invoke you as Patroness of Hispanity.
So be it.

© Copyright 1982 - Libreria Editrice Vaticana

Copyright © Dicastery for Communication - Libreria Editrice Vaticana