If I could have given just one sermon about her as a priest, that would have been enough for me to get across my ideas about her. In the first place, I would have shown how little is actually known about Mary’s life. Of course, I believe that we must not say incredible or made-up ideas about her; for example, I would have never said that she went to the Temple at the age of three, “to offer herself to God, filled with intense feelings of love and great enthusiasm”, when the truth is that perhaps she only went there to obey her parents… Why do we say about Simeon’s prophetic words, that the Blessed Virgin had Christ’s passion constantly present before her eyes from that moment on? … “And a sword shall pierce will pierce your soul too…” (Lk 2:35). It is clear to see, my dear Mother, that that prediction was for much later…