Walk with Mary

Mass Celebrated by Archbishop Denis Hart
at Saint Patrick’s Cathedral, Melbourne,
on Sunday, 17th April, 2005, at 3.00pm

Introduction

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

Today on Good Shepherd Sunday when we acknowledge Jesus as our Shepherd and Leader, who gave his life for us and is risen that we might have life, we walk with the most incomparable woman, the Mother who brought him to us, in learning how to follow and love him and to diffuse his love to the world.

As we call to mind our sins, let us ask the Lord that we will be encouraged to follow Mary’s example: “I am the servant of the Lord. Let what he has said be done to me”, and be people of faith.

Homily

“I have come so that they may have life and have it to the full.”
( John 10:10 )

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

In the five years since the Great Jubilee of 2000, Pope John Paul urged us to see in Jesus, the Incarnate Word, both the mystery of God and the mystery of man revealed, and in him humanity finds redemption and fulfilment. In the years leading up to 2000, our focus was to be on Christ. Indeed Pope John Paul wrote in Tertio Millennio Adveniente before the Jubilee, “The year 2000 will be intensely eucharistic; in the sacrament of the Eucharist the Saviour, who took flesh in Mary’s womb twenty centuries ago, continues to offer himself to humanity as the source of divine life.” ( T.M.A . No. 55 )

Today, my dear friends, we gather on Sunday, the special day of the Risen Lord and of the Church. In the simple statement ‘The Lord is my Shepherd, there is nothing I shall want’, we commit ourselves to following him who died and rose again as our leader and the guide of our life.

Immediately after the Jubilee, the Pope suggested that everything we do in the Church should begin with a contemplation of the face of Christ; a meeting with Jesus, so that we may find the life that only he gives and a search for the high standard of holiness carried out especially through the art of prayer.

With the proclamation of the Year of the Rosary and the Apostolic Letter, Rosarium Virginis Mariae, the Pope urged us again to contemplate the face of Christ, now from the perspective of Our Lady, joining her in the recitation of the Rosary as we meditate upon the mysteries of Christ’s love. Notice what the Pope said about the Rosary:-

“This traditional prayer, so highly recommended by the Magisterium and so dear to the people of God, has a markedly biblical and evangelical character focused on the name and on the face of Jesus as contemplated in the mysteries and by the repetition of the Hail Mary. In its flow it represents a pedagogy of love aimed at invoking within our hearts the same love that Mary bore for her Son. For this reason, developing a centuries old tradition by the addition of the Mysteries of Light I sought to make this privileged form of contemplation (the Rosary) an even more complete compendium of the Gospel.” ( Rosarium Virginis Mariae , 16 October 2002, 19-21 )

During the Year of the Rosary the Holy Father published the Encyclical Letter, The Church Draws Life from the Eucharist, stressing the need for a eucharistic spirituality and pointing to Mary, a woman of the Eucharist, as its model.

It is most appropriate, therefore, that we should celebrate this Walk with Mary in the middle of the Year of the Eucharist. Here the Pope wished us to remember that we are called in the Eucharist itself to listen to God’s Word and to celebrate the Eucharist, the perfect offering with Christ to the Father, whom we receive in Holy Communion and whom we adore in Adoration of the Eucharist.

This same dynamic operates in the story of the disciples on the road to Emmaus, who listened first as Jesus explained the Scriptures and then were led to recognise the Lord in the celebration of the Eucharist at Emmaus. Still later when he made to go on, they said, ‘Stay with us Lord’, as an indication that all that we do in meeting Christ and contemplating him with Mary is a preparation for the journey in which Christ walks with us himself.

The Pope stressed above all that we must recapture the sense of the presence of Christ in the Eucharist. He says:-

“The presence of Jesus in the tabernacle must be a kind of magnetic pole attracting an even greater number of souls enamoured of him, ready to wait patiently to hear his voice and as it were to sense the beating of his heart, ‘O taste and see that the Lord is good’.”

The importance of Adoration is emphasised because it was Mary who pondered in her heart the events of Christ’s life. To ponder the Rosary with Mary and to come with her to Eucharistic Adoration leads to a oneness of mind and heart with Jesus and Mary. It will provide what the Pope describes as a foretaste of heaven on earth and calls us to show the Gospel to the people of our world.

Mary shed tears of joy in the presence of the great mystery of the Eucharist. The Church which looks to Mary as a model is called to imitate her in relationship with the most holy mystery of the Eucharist ( Ecclesia de Eucharistia, 53 ) and the Eucharistic bread is the spotless flesh of her Son.

Last year Pope John Paul concluded the Letter, Stay with us Lord, for the Year of the Eucharist with these words:

“In this year of grace sustained by Mary, may the Church discover new enthusiasm for her mission and come to acknowledge even more fully that the Eucharist is the source and summit of her entire life.” ( Stay with us Lord , 31 )

+ Denis J. Hart,
Archbishop of Melbourne.