Holy Mass in Mariazell (13 September 1983)

On Tuesday, 13 September 1983, the Holy Father celebrated Holy Mass in the Square in front of the Shrine of Mariazell. In his homily, the Pope spoke to the pilgrims of Mary's trip to Ain-Karem, to visit her cousin Elisabeth. Mary was the" great silent one, as the one who listens in silence: her silence is the womb of the Word." So for all the faithful “silence and recollection, spiritual reading and contemplation are essential for our path and service as hearers and proclaimers of the Incarnate Word.”

1. Mary set out and hurried to a town in the mountains of Judea. The name of the town was Ain-Karem. Today we set out and hurried to her in the mountains of Styria. Father Magnus of St. Lambrecht built a "cell" for her here. For over 800 years she has been receiving pilgrims there and accepting their requests and thanks - here in her sanctuary "Mariazell".

Pilgrims have come and continue to come from far away - with sceptres or walking sticks - and they continually entrust themselves and their families to the protection and intercession of the "Magna Mater Austriae", the "Mater Gentium Slavorum", the "Magna Hungarorum Domina". They thus join the great pilgrimage of the peoples, of which we have just read in the prophet Isaiah: "Nations will go to your light, and kings to your radiant splendour. Look up and see: they all gather and come to you ... Your heart trembles with joy and opens wide."

At this hour, too, Mary's motherly heart opens once again, dear brothers and sisters, as we have also come to her as pilgrims following the great Catholic Day to represent before her not only the dioceses of Austria and the neighboring peoples, but the entire Church of her Son and to entrust ourselves to her love and care.

2. Dear brothers in the episcopate, in the priesthood and in the diaconate, dear religious, dear seminarians, novices, dear brothers and sisters in the lay state! As the pilgrim people of God, we are all "recognized," "destined," and "called" by God to "share in the nature and form of her Son." This common calling has a special expression in the various forms of life and services of the Church. Nevertheless, in the Church, as in a family, there are no dividing barriers between its individual members and groups. Everyone is interdependent, and everyone supports everyone. So every encounter I have these days belongs to all of you, my dear brothers and sisters in faith in Austria: my words on politics and those on culture, my words to young people and those to the sick. And my thoughts on the priesthood and religious life also belong to all of you , which I would like to entrust to you here at the miraculous image of the Mother of God for contemplation and personal reflection.

3. Today's Gospel culminates in the sentence: "Blessed is she who believed that what the Lord had said to her would be fulfilled." With this sentence, the Evangelist looks from the house of Elizabeth back to the room in Nazareth, from the conversation of the two women to the speaking of God. It is God who opens the conversation with the Blessed Virgin, with humanity. The first thing is always the speaking of God. "In the beginning was the Word." Therefore, dear priests and religious, the first thing in our spiritual life must always be listening. First the Word of God must be heard, only then can we respond; first we must listen, only then can we obey. Silence and recollection, spiritual reading and contemplation are essential for our path and service as hearers and proclaimers of the Incarnate Word. Mary is our example and help in this. The Gospels portray her as the great silent one, as the one who listens in silence. Her silence is the womb of the Word. She keeps everything and allows it to mature in her heart. As in the scene of the Annunciation, listening to God automatically becomes a conversation with God in which we can speak to him and he listens to us. So speak to God about what moves you! Thank him with joy for what he has done for you and what he communicates to others through you every day! Bring before him your concern for the people entrusted to you, children and young people, married couples, the elderly and the sick! Bring before him the difficulties and failures in your ministry, all your personal needs and sufferings!

Dear priests and religious, prayer is an irreplaceable part of our vocation. It is so essential that for its sake, many other things - things that seem more urgent - can and must be put aside. Even if your daily life in the service of humanity is often filled to the point of being overly busy, appropriate times of silence and prayer must not be lacking. Prayer and work must never be separated from one another. If we reflect on our work daily before God and commend it to him, it will ultimately become prayer itself.

Learn to pray! Draw above all from the riches of the Liturgy of the Hours and the Eucharist, which should accompany your daily work in a special way. Learn to pray in the school of the Lord yourself so that you become "masters" of prayer and can also teach those who are entrusted to you to pray . When you teach people to pray, you will make their often buried faith speak again. Through prayer you will lead them back to God and give their lives stability and meaning again.

I look at you full of hope, dear candidates for the priesthood, novices and nuns. Your seminaries and novitiates should already be places of reflection, prayer and practice in intimate contact with the Lord. I know what a new longing you have for proper prayer and that you are also looking for new ways to let prayer permeate your life even more deeply. Together with you, we all want to learn to pray anew! Let us be carried away by the Psalmist of the Old Testament, who prays: "One thing I ask of the Lord, this is what I long for: to dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the Lord and to meditate in his temple."

4. Dear brothers and sisters! God's word leads us into silence, to ourselves, to an encounter with him, but it does not separate us from one another. God's word does not isolate, but unites. In the silence of her conversation with the angel, Mary learns of Elizabeth's motherhood. From the silence of this conversation, she sets out and hurries to her in the hill country of Judea. Mary knows of God's work on Elizabeth and tells her of God's work on her. Precious prayers are the gift of that hour. "Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb," is how Elizabeth answers Mary's greeting, and our daily Magnificat is Mary's answer to Elizabeth. Let us remember from the Gospel of our pilgrim mass today: God not only calls, but he also helps those called to understand each other in their respective callings and to accept each other.

Jesus wants those who are called to be with him, not as isolated individuals, but in community. The entire people of God, but also the individual vocations within it, are in "communio" with the Lord and with one another. As with Mary and Elizabeth, this community encompasses the life of faith as well as everyday life. This is particularly clear in you religious. Do you live even more than others according to the example of the early Church, in which "the community of believers was of one heart and one soul"? The more you succeed in living in true love in your communities, the more forcefully you bear witness to the credibility of the Christian message. Your unity, in the words of the Council, "makes the coming of Christ evident, and a great apostolic power emanates from it."

This applies in a similar way to you diocesan priests and deacons. I know that some of you suffer from loneliness . Many of you are alone in your work - also because of the growing shortage of priests. You may feel that you are not understood and accepted enough in a world that thinks differently and sees you and your message as something strange. All the more reason why we must consider and try to live out in practice what the Council says about the community among priests . You, secular priests and deacons, are never really alone either: together you form an intimate community of destiny! For through holy ordination and mission you are, as the Council emphatically emphasizes, "united with one another in very close brotherhood", in "intimate sacramental brotherhood". You are united with your "fellow brothers through the bond of love, prayer and all-round cooperation". Strive, dear brothers, to live this blissful reality, which is founded in the sacrament of ordination, in a lively priestly community! We, the Pope and the bishops, also make this our common concern with you. Let us do everything in our power, with God's help, to accept one another in a brotherly way, to support one another and thus to bear witness together for Christ.

The celibacy that you priests and religious have chosen for the sake of the Kingdom of Heaven makes you more free for communion with Christ and for service to humanity. But it also makes you more free for a closer and deeper communion with one another. Do not allow anyone or anything to tempt you to diminish or take back this generous availability.

Rather, make them fully fruitful for your life and your service for the salvation of humanity.

Dear candidates for the priesthood in the seminaries! You are full of ideas about the ministry and life of priests in our time. We want to open ourselves with you to "what the Spirit says to the communities." At the same time, I ask you to live your ideals now, especially the ideal of community - among yourselves and with your rector - in your life of faith, study and leisure time.

The more community spirit there is among the religious and priests, the more effective their service will be. The way in which they live in community will also determine whether more young people dare to take the step towards religious and priestly vocations. Where there are lively convents, where pastors live together in brotherhood, where priests and lay people stand together in the unity of the Body of Christ, there are also the most vocations!

5. Dear brothers and sisters, it is a very special joy for me to be able to address these words to you here in front of the miraculous image of Our Lady of Mariazell. As Mother of God and Mother of the Church, Mary is also , in a special way , the mother of those who continue the mission of her Son in history. In her calling, in her unconditional yes to the message of the angel, in her praise of the gracious mercy of God in the Magnificat, we recognize the mystery and greatness of our own calling. In the faithful yes to her election and mission, God's word became historical reality in her. In this way, the eternal plan of God was realized, of which Saint Paul speaks in today's second reading: "All those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the nature and likeness of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers."  Through her faithful obedience to the word of the angel, Mary became the centre of the divine plan of salvation. Through her motherhood, the Son of God became our brother, so that we might be conformed to him in righteousness and glory. For, as Saint Paul continues today, those whom God "called he also justified; and those whom he justified he also glorified." The exaltation of man to the point of participation in the glory of the Most Holy Trinity is accomplished through Christ, the Son of God, who became the Son of Man through Mary's faithful "Fiat." Indeed, "Blessed is she who believed"; behold, from now on all generations call her blessed.

Yes, dear brothers and sisters, blessed are we too who have believed, if, like Mary, we set out from our personal encounter with God to announce today to the inhabitants of the mountains and valleys of every country and continent , the great deeds of God that have taken place in Mary's womb, in Christ, her Son, and in us, his brothers. For, as the prophet Isaiah tells us in the first reading, "Darkness covers the earth and darkness the peoples, but the Lord will rise upon you, his glory will be seen upon you". Through Mary's faith, the light of God has shone forth and illuminates the new Jerusalem. It is the shining of the glory of the Most High, that light which at first already illuminates every human being, but which, in Jesus Christ, wishes to shine brightly upon all. Therefore, we are called to proclaim: "Arise, shine, for your light has come, and the glory of the Lord has risen upon you".

This mission of the Church applies to those who have a spiritual vocation in a special way. Christ not only called his disciples into his intimate proximity, but he also sent them out of his familiarity with him to the people. "Go into all the world and proclaim the Gospel to every creature." In this context I would like to make special mention of your priests, brothers and sisters in the mission who, together with the Church's development workers, proclaim the Good News in word and social deed throughout the world. Whoever you are and wherever you work, your spiritual mission is the same everywhere, namely to enlighten all those who "sit in darkness and the shadow of death" with the "shining light from on high." This is your mission, whether you are a priest in an urban parish or care for a small rural community, whether you are a religious in a school or work in social care or nursing, or whether you are condemned to apparent inactivity by illness and old age.

I feel particularly connected to you sick and elderly priests and members of the order at this time - I will greet some of you personally afterwards. The whole Church in the wide world commends itself to your concern and your remembrance. There are no longer any spatial barriers to your mission. Your language is prayer and the suffering that you courageously accept again and again. The Lord sends you out again and again. Your special service - prayer and suffering - is irreplaceable in the mission of the Church. At the end of his life, the Lord also stopped preaching. He only took up his cross and bore it and endured it until finally everything was accomplished.

6. Dear brothers and sisters in the priesthood and religious order and all of you who are preparing for these spiritual vocations! The Lord has chosen you to be with him in prayer and recollection, to live your vocation in community and to bring his salvation to people. At the end of the Eucharist I will commend your vocation to the maternal protection and support of the Mother of Grace of Mariazell.

To summarize what I would like to share with you from our pilgrimage together, what Mary herself would like to share with you - and with me - from this shrine of hers, I will choose a word that she herself must have prayed many times in her life, a verse from today's responsorial psalm. With it I would like to take up the great theme of the Catholic Day once again and let Mary lay it in the hearts of each of you:

"Hope in the Lord, be strong! Be of good courage and hope in the Lord!" Amen .

© Copyright 1983 - Vatican Publishing House

Copyright © Communications Department - Vatican Publishing House