Mary shows us how to face fear and hear God’s call, Pope says

Pope Francis called Catholics to follow Mary in “putting our life in the Lord’s hands” with humility and trust, at his weekly general audience.

Continuing his series of audience talks about prayer, Pope Francis reflected on Mary as a model of prayer.

“There is no better way to pray than to place oneself like Mary in an attitude of openness with a heart open to God, ‘Lord, what you want, when you want and how you want,'” he said during his general audience, November 18.

Mary did not autonomously orchestrate her life, the Pope said, “She waits for God to take the reins of her path and guide her where he wants”.

By being docile and willing to be God’s instrument, she prepares the way for “the great events in which God takes part in the world,” he said.

When the angel Gabriel told Mary of God’s plan for her, the Pope said, Mary “knew how to reject fear, even while sensing that her ‘yes’ would bring her tremendously difficult trials. If in prayer we understand that each day given by God is a call, our hearts will then widen, and we will accept everything.”

Mother of the Church

Mary not only accompanied Jesus’s entire life in prayer, right up to his death and resurrection, she also accompanied the first steps of the church, praying with “the men and women whom her son had called to form his community,” Pope Francis said.

“Mary is not a priest among them. No. She is the mother of Jesus who prays with them in community, like one of the community; she prays with them and for them,” he said.

Not only did she become the mother of God, she also became the mother of the church through the work of the Holy Spirit, he said.

Her “natural feminine intuition is exalted by her most singular union with God in prayer,” the pope said.

“How beautiful it would be if we, too, could be a bit like our Mother with a heart open to the Word of God, with a silent, obedient heart” that lets God’s word grow.