The Tablet October 25, 2004

Through Mary to Jesus

My dear brothers and sisters in Christ,

My first pastoral letter issued two weeks ago on the New Evangelization ended with these words with which I now begin this sermon in this great basilica dedicated to the Mother of God. "With God's help, relying on the Holy Spirit, we entrust the mission of the New Evangelization to the Blessed Virgin Mary under the title of Our Lady of Guadalupe. It was through her intercession and appearance to newly baptized Indian Saint Juan Diego over five centuries ago that the first evangelization of America took place. Through her intercession, the New Evangelization can be effective and bear fruit. To her we entrust with filial devotion the Church in the new millennium, as an instrument for the New Evangelization. It is she who is the Star of the Sea, our guide, as we 'put out into the deep.' "

My brothers and sisters, we have come on this diocesan pilgrimage to this Basilica in honor of the Blessed Virgin Mary as we begin our journey into the deep waters of the New Evangelization in the Diocese of Brooklyn and Queens. We come in a special way to seek Mary's intercession and to learn from her, who was the first to hear the Word of God at the Annunciation, how we too, having heard this word can bring it to others.

Mary's unconditional cooperation with the Holy Spirit was expressed when she said: "Let it be done to me according to your word." Mary's willingness to turn the tide of human nature that had been awaited for so many centuries made it possible for the word to become flesh, for God to enter our human history. Mary proclaimed her willingness and awe for God when she proclaimed in the Magnificat: "For he has looked upon his servant in her lowliness; all ages to come shall call me blessed. God who is mighty has done great things for me, holy is his name and his mercy is from age to age on those who fear him." We are the beneficiaries of Mary's willingness to become an instrument in God's hands for the redemption of the world. It was Mary who from the very beginning accompanied her son, Jesus Christ, on the path to redemption. She has become the model and image of the pilgrim Church on its way to establishing the Kingdom. The announcing of the Kingdom of God was the work of Jesus, her son, who is the object of the New Evangelization. It is a relationship with Jesus that we seek to share with others. There is no better or surer way to develop a relationship with Jesus except through a relationship with Mary, his Mother. There is no one else who knew Jesus as well; there is no one else who can show us the way of becoming true disciples and evangelizers.

Mary has shown her constant and maternal care for us her children ever since the day when Jesus, dying on Cross, told us to behold our Mother and that she should behold her son, thereby giving us to her and her to us.

Moreover, her maternal affection for those in need was first shown at Cana in Galilee when at the wedding feast the wine ran out. She came to the assistance of that newly married couple who were faced with embarrassment. It was she who said to her son: "They have no wine," making possible with these words the first miracle of the God made man. It is Mary who tells the servants to do whatever her son would ask. It is she who tells today that we too must do what Jesus asks of us. In a special way we are called to be the new evangelizers in a new millennium. We are to proclaim Jesus loud and clear with our lives, with all that we are.

Mary, our Mother, draws us around herself today and always as the teacher of evangelization. It was she who at the first Pentecost gathered with the apostles and prepared in prayer and silence for the coming of the Holy Spirit. Scripture tells us: "Together they devoted themselves to constant prayer. There were some women in the company, and Mary the Mother of Jesus." The first Pentecost radically changed the apostles and disciples' attitude toward the Good News and marked the beginning of the first evangelization, which continues today.

In a world in need of evangelization, Mary's relationship with the Holy Spirit takes on particular relevance. Our Mother Mary made possible the Incarnation of the Word when the Spirit covered her with its shadow and she made possible the evangelizing mission of the Church, along with the apostles when she received the fire of the Holy Spirit. On Pentecost, people of different tongues heard the same words. The words that Peter spoke and that Mary, through her union with her son and the Spirit, made understandable.

In the Diocese of Brooklyn and Queens, we too are the fruit of the new Pentecost in the Church. We are peoples of different languages and tongues and yet we all hear the same message, Jesus Christ is Lord. Together we will create a new Pentecost where the universal language of love and acceptance is understood. Each language apostolate will develop its own plan for the New Evangelization in our Diocese. Many of you here today represent the variety of nations, races and tongues that make up our marvelous Diocese. We count on you to make the New Evangelization a reality.

We come with filial devotion to Mary whose entire life was one of dedication to, and cooperation with, the Holy Spirit. We seek Mary, as the Holy Father has told us so many times as the "sure way to come to know the Lord Jesus Christ."

Our Holy Father, Pope John Paul II, in his Apostolic Letter on the Rosary of the Blessed Virgin Mary, tells us that: The rosary…blends easily into the spiritual journey of the Christian life which after 2000 years has lost none of the freshness of its beginnings and feels drawn by the Spirit of God to set out into the deep "in order once more to proclaim and even cry out before the world that Jesus Christ is Lord and Savior, the Way, the Truth and the Life, the goal of human history and the point on which the desires of history and civilization turn. The rosary, though clearly Marian in character, is at heart a Christo-centric prayer." The Holy Father tells us that if indeed we wish to plumb the depths of the mystery of Christ, it is Mary who has hidden these mysteries in her heart from the very beginning of Jesus' life, and if we penetrate her heart we will be brought to understand the mind of Jesus. We will come to understand in what way we must bring that knowledge to the world. The Rosary is our most powerful means to become new and effective evangelizers in the world today. The Rosary brings us with humble devotion to the feet of a mother who truly knows her son and wishes to reveal him to any who would come to know him. Is it not the task of the New Evangelization to discover the face of Christ? Who knows the face of Christ better than Mary? She who contemplated from the first moments of his birth until the day he died on the Cross. That face of Christ, that knowledge of Jesus Christ is what we seek to communicate in the New Evangelization.

My fellow evangelizers, it is we who are entrusted with the sacred task of bringing the knowledge of Jesus Christ to a world that sorely needs it. First we must experience him ourselves, and with that experience fresh in our hearts, we can communicate it effectively to others. Join me now as we pray together in the various languages represented here today that Mary, Queen of the Most Holy Rosary will intercede for us that we might bring the New Evangelization to the Diocese of Brooklyn and Queens.