His mother said: ‘Do whatever he tells you’ (Jn 2,5)
Rector Major’s Homily for the Mass of Mary Help of Christians
Hyderabad, 9 February 2006
I am very happy to celebrate this Eucharist with the Salesians, novices, aspirants and all the Salesian Family of the Hyderabad Province. I invite you to make of it an act of thanksgiving to Mary Help of Christians, to whom I have entrusted the Congregation, together with the whole Salesian Family and the world’s young people, from the very first moment of my election and afterwards when I went on pilgrimage to her Basilica in Turin.
I would like this Eucharist therefore to express our combined gratitude to God for the motherly presence of Mary in the world, in India, and in the Church, in this province, and its families, and in each one of us.
“Mary, Mother of the Church and Help of Christians”
For Don Bosco, Our Lady was very much a living presence from the time of the “dream at the age of nine years” when he embraced her as his mother and teacher, under whose guidance he modeled his heart as that of a shepherd of the young.
Like Don Bosco, “we believe that Mary is present among us and continues her 'mission as Mother of the Church and Help of Christians'. We entrust ourselves to her, the humble servant in whom the Lord has done great things, that we may become witnesses to the young of her Son's boundless love” (C 8).
In connection with this brilliant intuition of Don Bosco, it is important that we do not separate the two titles. “Mother of the Church” and “Help of Christians” are, in fact, two faces of the same coin. As disciples of Christ we are the Church which has Mary as its mother, and as Christians we rely on her motherly protection and are called to be “helpers” of the young in anticipating and striving against all the problems that threaten their lives from every point of view – be it physical, financial, social and also moral and spiritual – and pose a threat to their happiness and even to their salvation.
In this Salesian devotion to Mary Help of Christians are highlighted the “motherly” aspects, in the sense that she gives an unconditional welcome to young people in need or in situations where they are at risk spiritually or socially, and shows kindness to be the fundamental attitude in our relationship with them as educators.
The invitation to entrust ourselves to Mary calls to mind a gesture that echoes Psalm 130: “as a child in its mother’s arms”, but in the knowledge that we are giving ourselves to her so as to belong to her. In this way the devotion of the Salesian to Mary implies entrustment, confidence, affiliation and availability.
When we contemplate Mary, there naturally comes to mind the hymn of the Magnificat, which prompts us to recall humanity’s whole sad story, which began a revival in and through Mary, the new Eve. From this flows the mission of the Salesian which does not consist in doing things, striking though they may be, but in “becoming witnesses to the tireless love of the Father revealed in his Son”.
With Don Bosco we want to foster this gratitude to Mary for what she has been and continues to be in the Church and the Congregation, and at the same time to take up this devotion to the Help of Christians as a program of life, so that our love may be expressed in docility, imitation and commitment so as to make God’s love for the young visible, credible and efficacious.
From this we can readily understand that the two-fold invocation of Mary Immaculate and Mary Help of Christians was very important for Don Bosco. It is not a matter of two titles interchangeable with others like labels. Mary Immaculate and Mary Help of Christians are closely linked with the Salesian mission, with those to whom it is directed, and with its educational method.
In so far as she is entirely free from all stain of sin Mary represents the divine pedagogy, the dynamic force of love which has the immense power needed to open the hearts of men and women, and hence also of young people; which “makes them feel they are loved” (as Don Bosco would put it) and brings them “to learn to see the love behind those things which naturally speaking they would not like, such as discipline, study, self-denial, and to do such things with love” (MB XVII, 110).
It is not surprising that Don Bosco centered all his pedagogy on love and kindness. This prompted him to adopt the Preventive System which puts the emphasis on taking the first step in approaching the young, and on a special concern for the poorest of them. Mary Immaculate represented for Don Bosco the incarnation of God’s anticipating love, especially on behalf of the young who are poor, abandoned and at risk.
As Help of Christians, Mary represents both the defense of the most needy and exhausted, and also the motherly care of one who takes you by the hand and looks after you, educates and forms you. Without any doubt the title of Help of Christians had other overtones in Don Bosco’s time which were different from what it may have nowadays. The fact is that the chief victims of the negative aspects of society today are the young, either because their lack of the necessary means compromises their normal development, and tempts them to seek ways of living that do not lead to the fullness of life, or because they become closed in on themselves, and in looking for pleasure and comfort they lose the meaning of life, the ability to give themselves in the free service of others, and end up organizing their life with God, who is the source of life, only on the margins.
Those to whom our mission is addressed, young people who are poor, abandoned and at risk (MB XIV, 662), show that our devotion to the Help of Christians is well-founded. They are people who have no other help save what comes from God, who glories in being their defender.
“His mother said: ‘Do whatever he tells you’” (Jn 2,5)
God’s word sheds light on our devotion because it makes us see Mary as God’s chosen instrument for our salvation. She is the woman clothed with the sun and fighting against the dragon. She is the woman who willingly collaborated with God in the mystery of the incarnation of his Son so that he could share fully in our human condition and make us adopted sons. She is the woman whose faith restores joy to those who have lost it, or the meaning to life when this no longer exists, like the wine at the marriage-feast at Cana, which then gave rise to the faith of the disciples.
The Gospel story presents Mary to us as a true woman, full of kindness and attentive to small details. She notices the lack of wine, and realizes that there is a danger of joy turning to sorrow. The whole scene is full of biblical symbolism. It should be remembered that in more than one prophetic text salvation is spoken of in terms of a banquet with abundant rich wine (cf. Is 25,6), for a people deprived of the wine of happiness and wisdom (Is 55, 1-3), and that Jesus himself later used the same image in a parable likening happiness to participation in the banquet of the Kingdom of God (cf. Mt 22, 1-10; Lk 14, 15-24).
Mary’s greatness consists, for the evangelist, in her ability to discern not only the distress of the couple caught unawares but the presence of Jesus, and to direct others to him: “Do whatever he tells you” (v.5).
In his turn, Jesus – who at first seemed to react rather unfeelingly towards his mother – intervenes, and in effect provides the “better wine” of the happiness promised at the end of time, as a sign of the fullness of life and joy which he has brought to the world. The new wine of the covenant is love, but this depends on the final glorification of the Messiah, on that “hour” which through death will lead to the fulfillment of the mystery of the definitive manifestation of God: “When Jesus knew that his hour had come to depart out of this world to the Father, having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end” (Jn 13,1).
Mary appears at Cana as a believer and one who generates faith, as a developer of the faith of the disciples in virtue of her own faith which led her to induce Jesus to give the sign which revealed the presence of God and his salvation. John says, in fact, in the Gospel text, that because of the miracle worked through Mary’s intercession, the disciples believed in him.
At the school of Cana, Mary teaches us four important attitudes for our life as believers.
In the first place, to share the ups and downs of men and women. The form in which the story begins is eloquent in its simplicity: “There was a marriage at Cana in Galilee, and the mother of Jesus was there”. The implication is that we should participate in the trials and sadness, the hopes and joys of our contemporaries.
Secondly, to be attentive to the needs of others, to live with our lives not centred on ourselves but on others. The fact that the wine was running out and that Mary was concerned about it – “The mother of Jesus said to him: ‘They have no wine’” – is a proof of her ability to note what is lacking. It means knowing the situation and its implications: the lack of wine would have put at risk the continuation of the festivities, and would have meant the end of the joyful atmosphere.
In the third place she teaches us to discern the presence of Jesus and to turn to him, as the only one capable of responding to our deepest needs and real life problems. After she had told the servers to “do what he tells you”, Mary disappeared from the scene. It means that we must leave to Jesus the place which is his: he is the Messiah, the Christ, the one who provides the good wine in abundance, the meaning of life and its fullness in love.
And fourthly, to be believers who are credible, so that our own faith may be such as to make possible the faith of others. John adds a small note to the text which might be considered no more than an editorial comment but which, in fact, has catechetical force: “This, the first of his signs, Jesus did at Cana in Galilee, and manifested his glory: and his disciples believed in him”. It means using our own faith to collaborate in such a way that others may attain to faith.
We are urged to take Mary into our own home, as did the beloved disciple, so that she may be for us, as she was for him and for Don Bosco, a mother and teacher who will enable us too to be helpers of the young.
Don Pascual Chávez V.
