In heaven, Mary teaches us the virtue of waiting

Mary appears to us as one of the many mothers of our world, courageous to the extreme when it comes to welcoming, in one’s own womb, the history of a new man to be born.

That ‘yes’ is the first step in a long list of examples of obedience — a long list of examples! — that will accompany her journey as mother. Thus, Mary appears in the Gospels as a silent woman, who often does not understand all that is happening around her, but who contemplates each word and each event in her heart.

In this disposition there is a beautiful sample of Mary’s psychology: she is not a woman who is depressed by the uncertainties of life, especially when nothing seems to be going the right way. Nor is she a woman who protests violently, who curses life’s fate, which often shows us a hostile face.

She is instead a woman who listens: do not forget that there is always a great connection between hope and listening, and Mary is a woman who listens. Mary welcomes life as it is conveyed to us, with its happy days, but also with its tragedies … until Mary’s supreme night, when her Son is nailed to the wood of the cross…

We will find her again on the first day of the Church; she, mother of hope, in the midst of that community of such fragile disciples: one had denied, many had fled, all had been afraid. For this reason we all love her as Mother. We are not orphans: we have a Mother in heaven who is the Holy Mother of God. Because she teaches us the virtue of waiting, even when everything seems to lack meaning: she is ever confident in the mystery of God, even when he seems to have eclipsed himself due to the evil of the world.

In the most difficult moments, may Mary, the Mother that Jesus gave to all of us, always support our steps, may she always say to our hearts: “Arise! Look forward, look to the horizon,” because she is the Mother of Hope.

Pope Francis, General Audience, Wednesday, 10 May 2017