Homily of His Beatitude Patriarch Pierbattista Pizzaballa for the Feast of the Annunciation
Below you can find the homily delivered by His Beatitude Patriarch Pierbattista Pizzaballa, Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, on the occasion of the Feast of the Annunciation.
Nazareth March 25, 2022.
Is. 7,10-14; 8,10; Heb. 10, 4-10; Lk. 1, 26-38
Dearest Brothers and Sisters,
May the Lord grant you peace!
We gather here in great numbers this year, once again at the feet of the Virgin of Nazareth, in her house and in her city. We turn to her once again in prayer as we listen to the Word. Through the Word we ask her, the mother of Jesus, to enlighten us to live in the right spirit in these times, which are once again full of violence and pain.
At the end of this celebration, we will join the Holy Father, Pope Francis, to consecrate to the Immaculate Heart of Mary the peoples of Russia and Ukraine. Two peoples, two brothers are at war with each other. One has attacked and the other has been attacked, one is bigger, the other smaller. Both experience profound human tragedies and leave behind enormous material and spiritual rubble.
Here in the Holy Land we know what war is, we feel how it enters people’s hearts and becomes a way of thinking, creates deep divisions and frustration, erects physical and human walls, destroys prospects for trust, vision and peace. Precisely because of this, because we know what it all means, because we have experienced it on our skin, we will pray for those peoples, for their rulers and above all for the little ones of the Gospel, the mothers, the children, the elderly left homeless, alone, at the mercy of incomprehensible violence, dictated by human calculations that are narrow-minded and without perspective. May the Virgin of Nazareth, who became the Mother of Jesus here in this place, intercede for them and for all those in the world who are suffering these same situations. Every year we read the Gospel of Nazareth, the announcement of the angel. Like every year, this passage challenges us as if for the first time.
Our Church is on a synodal journey. Listening is one of its central themes. Today I would like us to pause and reflect on this. It is one of the first lessons of what Paul VI called “the school of Nazareth”, a lesson in listening.
The Virgin Mary listened to the voice of the angel. The request that came to her from Heaven became a request that she made her own. After Mary, Joseph also accepted what was communicated to him from Heaven through the dream. These requests were unheard of. They were difficult to understand. They went against everything considered customary at the time, against the way of thinking, against every human reasoning. These requests left Mary and Joseph baffled. Yet, the Virgin did not hesitate to say her “yes”. She accepted to be part of a project of which she did not know the details and whose future prospects were unknown to her. After Mary, this has also been the experience of many people who have bet on the Lord, who have accepted to be part of a project that they knew nothing about. But they trusted, they knew how to let themselves be conquered by the word they listened to, without making too many human calculations.
Listening is more than hearing. Listening means opening oneself to the other, making room for the other within oneself, in one’s way of thinking, in the things to be done, in the perspectives to be given. It requires an attitude of trust, freedom and without expecting something in return. In a certain sense, it is like being called to become mothers, that is, to welcome in ourselves the life of another person.
Many of our crises at all levels of social life depend precisely on this, on our difficulty in listening to one another: in politics, we shout at one another, and when we shout we don’t listen to one another. It happens just about everywhere in the world. The media today show us this situation in Russia and Ukraine, but we know that it also happens in Africa, Asia and many other countries. Even in the Holy Land we have a long way to go to learn to really listen to each other: between Arabs and Jews, for example, between the different generations, between the various religious communities that make up society. In our Church, too, we need to listen to each other more, and we have talked a lot about this in this synodal way journey. Listening is necessary between priests and laity, between religious institutions and the Christian community in general, in the world of our schools. The problem also exists in our families: between parents and children, between spouses... I could go on at length listing the difficulties of listening in our various spheres of life. In fact, the time we are living in is greedy, it absorbs all our energy. We are all so busy, full of things to do and commitments to fulfill, of worries of all kinds, that we cannot find the time and space for one another; sometimes we cannot even find the time for those with whom we live and who little by little run the risk of becoming strangers. Today, the Virgin Mary reminds us that listening, that is, making space for the other, trying to understand their reasons, is not time stolen from the things to be done, but rather it is the first action that gives meaning and content to our daily life, gives real proportions to our life contexts, enriches us with true relationships that build the future. How many misunderstandings and how much loneliness arise when we fail to welcome and listen to one another!
Listening in a trusting way is possible if there is love. The Virgin of Nazareth was able to confidently give her ‘yes’ to the angel because her familiarity with God was not unknown to her, her faith already sustained her. The angel’s question did not come to her from an unfamiliar world, but blossomed within an already existing relationship. Her faith was already nourished and was being lived. Before being inhabited physically by the Word, Mary was already inhabited by love for God the Father, which gave meaning and direction to her choices. The Virgin was able to accept to participate in God’s project, to become part of the history of salvation, because she already knew the history of salvation. That unheard-of request of the angel could really be fulfilled, because she already knew that “nothing is impossible to God” (Lk. 1:37). Trusting, therefore, was a response of love on the part of the Virgin, an acceptance of remaining within the relationship with God the Father, albeit in a completely new, extraordinary and unprecedented way.
To listen, therefore, to say “yes” to God, is above all a way of being in life. Making space for the other means first of all having the disposition to love him. And if you love him, you can also bet on him, you can risk, you can trust him. Faith and listening are mutually necessary.
If we trust God, then we must also trust man. We cannot say we have faith in God and then be afraid to risk putting ourselves on the line in our human relationships: in politics, in the church, in the family, everywhere.
In these times of ours, perhaps this is what frightens us. Knowing how to say “yes” to life to the end, without fear, without counting the cost. There would be so many reasons not to believe that this is possible. There are so many questions and fears that inhabit our hearts: “how can we think of creating a new family when we see so many family crises around us? How can we bet on peace when there are so many wars in the world? How can we work for justice and equality when there is so much discrimination that never seems to end?” Who knows how many and what similar questions are in the hearts of each of us.
The school of Nazareth today reminds us that fears have never built anything, but on the contrary destroy. It teaches us to stay in the life of the world with confidence in God’s plan that wants our salvation, but that needs our love, our “yes” to realize it, just as it needed the Virgin’s “yes”. Evil will not disappear, we know, but it will have no power over those who have faith in God. The world today needs men and women who still have the courage to bet on God and therefore to commit themselves to the life of the world, like Mary, Joseph and so many others in history, and who are not afraid of the snares of evil and sin.
We need the Church, which is the place of the presence of the Word: that she may give Him to the world with love, working for justice, becoming the voice of the poor, capable of listening to the cry of those in Ukraine, Russia, the Holy Land and the rest of the world who await a word of truth and acts of justice. A Church, in short, that knows how to defend the rights of God, which are also the rights of man.
May Mary of Nazareth intercede for all of us, for our families, for the peoples of the Holy Land. In particular, we pray and entrust once again to her the peoples of Russia and Ukraine, that they may listen to each other again, that she may help them to rebuild relationships of trust between them, without which there will be no future. May you console those who are now in pain and weeping and give strength to those in those countries and throughout the world who work for justice and peace. Amen.
† His Beatitude Patriarch Pierbattista Pizzaballa
Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem
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