In his January 1, 2017, homily for the Solemnity of Mary, Mother of God, Pope Francis began the New Year by reminding us that \u201cwe are a people with a Mother; we are not orphans\u2026Where there is a mother, there is unity, there is belonging, belonging as children.\u201d<\/p>\n
Remembering this can prevent the corrosive disease of becoming \u201cspiritual orphans\u2026having a narcissistic heart capable of looking only at its own interests. It grows when we forget that life is a gift we have received \u2013 and owe to others \u2013 a gift we are called to share in this common home.\u201d<\/p>\n
He finished by saying:<\/p>\n
Jesus, at the moment of his ultimate self-sacrifice, on the cross, sought to keep nothing for himself, and in handing over his life, he also handed over to us his Mother.\u00a0 He told Mary: Here is your son; here are your children.\u00a0 We too want to receive her into our homes, our families, our communities and nations. \u00a0We want to meet her maternal gaze.\u00a0 The gaze that frees us from being orphans; the gaze that reminds us that we are brothers and sisters, that I belong to you, that you belong to me, that we are of the same flesh.\u00a0 The gaze that teaches us that we have to learn how to care for life in the same way and with the same tenderness that she did: by sowing hope, by sowing a sense of belonging and of fraternity.<\/em><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" In his January 1, 2017, homily for the Solemnity of Mary, Mother of God, Pope Francis began the New Year by reminding us that \u201cwe are a people with a Mother; we are not orphans\u2026Where there is a mother, there is unity, there is belonging, belonging as children.\u201d Remembering this can prevent the corrosive disease…<\/p>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6103,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[55],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6102","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-home-news"],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-09-01 09:07:47","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.franciscansusa.org\/it\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6102","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.franciscansusa.org\/it\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.franciscansusa.org\/it\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.franciscansusa.org\/it\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.franciscansusa.org\/it\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6102"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.franciscansusa.org\/it\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6102\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.franciscansusa.org\/it\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6102"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.franciscansusa.org\/it\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6102"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.franciscansusa.org\/it\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6102"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}