15 August 1988
Paris, France

Mother Duzan, Father Lloret and my dear Sisters,

How many pilgrimages did Mary, the Mother of God, make, I wonder, during her lifetime? One can easily count twelve for certain, for does not St. Luke in his Gospel refer to that annual pilgrimage which she made with her husband, Joseph, and her Child, Jesus, to Jerusalem. "Now His parents," writes St. Luke, "went to Jerusalem every year at the feast of the Passover. And when Jesus was twelve years old, they went up according to custom." (Lk 2:41, 42). Mary would seem to have kept up that custom of going every year on pilgrimage to Jerusalem, because twenty or twenty-one years later we know that she was in Jerusalem for the feast of the Passover. Presumably she had made the pilgrimage to Jerusalem from her home town of Nazareth. That was the pilgrimage which ended in tragedy, for it was while she was in Jerusalem that year that she learned of the arrest of her Son, and some hours afterwards watched Him put to death on a cross outside the walls of the city. As had happened twenty years previously, she lost her son for three days, but was to find Him again in the glory of the Resurrection.

Mary's pilgrimage to Jerusalem that year would seem to have been prolonged, for we know that seven weeks later she was still in Jerusalem. With her Son's disciples she was waiting to be endued once more with power from on high through the coming of the Holy Spirit on Pentecost Day. That was the day which saw a new sort of pilgrimage inaugurated. The starting point of the pilgrimage was Jerusalem and its destination the ends of the earth. From Jerusalem the apostles set out, making their way through Judea and Samaria and beyond that to the most distant parts of the known world, as they had been asked to do by Jesus.

That particular pilgrimage is not over yet. It has not yet reached its destination. More importantly, you and I are making that pilgrimage and, as the Pope has reminded us in His Encyclical Redemptoris Mater, Mary, the Mother of God, is accompanying us on that pilgrimage. The idea that Our Lady is accompanying the Church on her pilgrimage of faith is one of the central ideas of the Pope's encyclical.

Let us come back to Mary and her pilgrimages. Difficult as her pilgrimages to Jerusalem must often have been--there were no buses or trains in her day--she would have rejoiced as she approached Jerusalem and caught sight of the Temple gleaming in the sunlight. For her, as for the disciples of Jesus, the Temple was not only a hallowed place, but it was "a thing of beauty and a joy forever." "Look, Teacher, what wonderful stones and what wonderful buildings'," (Mk 13:1) exclaimed the disciples as they contemplated with pardonable pride the beauty of their Temple.

Mary would have sung the psalms which are familiar to us, as she entered the Temple. "To You our praise is due in Sion, O God. To You we pay our vows. You will hear our prayer." (Ps 65:1). Looking back on her journey to Jerusalem, Mary would have prayed the final verse of that psalm with a special depth of feeling. "The hills are girded with joy, the meadows are covered with flocks, the valleys are decked with wheat, they shout for joy. Yes, they sing." (Ps 65:13,14). That psalm, as do so many others, celebrates the beauty of God, and we are certainly not stretching our imagination when we reflect that she, who is the most perfect human masterpiece of God s hands, must have had a particular and special appreciation of God's beauty.

There was a Russian writer of the last century who wrote: "The world is saved by beauty." Perhaps we react immediately and say, "No, we are saved by the death of Jesus on the cross." That is true, but even in the pain and horror of the crucifixion, is there not an awesome beauty? Is there not a beauty in Jesus' entrusting all of us to the care of His mother in the final moments of His life? In the words of Pope John Paul II: "Mary's motherhood, which becomes man's inheritance, is a gift which Christ Himself makes personally to every individual." (Redemptoris Mater, p.45) Is there not a pathetic beauty in His prayer for His executioner and in His words of comfort to the dying thief?

When we reflect upon the Beatitudes, on the Sermon on the Mount, and on Jesus' farewell words to His disciples, can we not say that the world has been saved by the beauty of Our Lord's wisdom? And what of His healing of the sick, of His acceptance of sinners, of His tenderness to the poor? Must it not have seemed to these simple people that the world was being saved by the power and spiritual beauty of a man who spoke with authority and authentic love?

The world will continue to be saved by beauty. As you move around in the world of the poor, my dear Sisters, and as you see the countenances of so many people, torn by sufferings, and see, too, the face of evil, you must wonder where beauty is to be found. Must a Daughter of Charity content herself only with the thought that she will see the beauty of God after her death? No. To use a metaphor of St. Vincent, she must think of herself as a ray of sunshine which "gives both light and warmth and is undiminished even when it beams on what is not clean." (CR IX, 2). It should be a source of encouragement to you that for thousands of poor people, the presence of a Daughter of Charity, offering humble and loving service, is an education in the meaning of spiritual beauty. If every human being is searching at every moment for what is good and true and beautiful, then a Daughter of Charity who is living her vocation authentically must be considered as one of the greatest gifts God can give to the poor in this life.

The beauty of God keeps breaking into our lives, like the sun piercing through the clouds. Apart from the many traces of His beauty, which God has left us in His mountains and seas, in His trees and in His flowers--and does not the Spirit of God through the Creation Canticle at Sunday Lauds invite us to lift up our eyes to see the beauty of the world?--there is the beauty of gratitude, of friendship, of fortitude, of faith which the poor so often share with you in most unexpected ways. In your lives you should be open and sensitive to beauty, for where there is true appreciation of beauty, there will be thanksgiving. And thanksgiving is the highest form of giving.

What of today's feast? Is it not a sign post on our road of pilgrimage that, when we have reached our destination, we will be made beautiful in body and in soul, so that we can live fully in the presence of that beauty which, to quote St. Augustine, is "ever ancient and ever new?" (Confessions, Book 10).

Meantime, however, we are traveling on the road of pilgrimage. The road to God's city is not like a modern highway. It is not straight and it is not built for speed. There are many unexpected twists and turns on our pilgrim route, and one can only cover so much ground in a day. He, Who is the Way, has counseled us to live only one day at a time. To rush ahead with excessive speed is to drain ourselves of energy. "Do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Let the day's own trouble be sufficient for the day." (Mt 6:34). At different points of the road there are signs which read: "Mary, the Virgin of Nazareth, was here." At times we read the signs through the mist of tears, and at other times in the bright sunshine of joy and hope. At all times, however, the Daughter of Charity sees Mary, as your Constitutions state, as "the Immaculate one, the Mother of God, Mother of Mercy, and hope of the lowly." (C. 1.12). On the road of pilgrimage we do not travel alone. Indeed the vocation of the Daughter of Charity is to accompany "those who suffer, those stripped of human rights and dignity, those in poor health." (C. 2.1).

Today, my dear Sisters, we lift up our eyes to the mountain of God where Mary, His Immaculate Mother, with glorified body, now dwells. As we look back on that year which was specially dedicated to her, we can sing with the Psalmist the words which Mary herself would have sung in the Temple: "You have crowned the year with Your goodness." (Ps 65:12). Yes, it has been a year crowned with the goodness of God, a year that has brought us closer to His Mother, a year that has given us a clearer insight into her beauty as a person and as a mother.

May the contemplation of Mary's beauty strengthen within you the conviction of St. Peter who wrote to the Christian women of his day: "Your beauty must be the beauty of your inner character and personality. It must consist of the beauty of a gentle and serene character, a beauty which the years cannot wither, for in God's sight that is what is really precious." (1 Pt 3:4).