Pope Francis denounced
consumerism as a poison that threatens true happiness, which comes from
membership in the church. The pope made his remarks before
praying the Angelus with a noontime crowd in St. Peter's Square. "The
encounter with the living Jesus, in the great family that is the church,
fills the heart with joy, because it fills it with true life, a
profound goodness that does not pass away or decay," he said. "But this
experience must face the daily vanity, the poison of emptiness that
insinuates itself into our society based on profit and having (things),
that deludes young people with consumerism," he said. "Young people are
particularly sensitive to the emptiness of meaning and values that
surrounds them," he said. "And they, unfortunately, pay the
consequences."
The spiritual climax of the Gospel of John, as Father John Waiss points out, occurs at the foot of the Cross, where Jesus utters his parting words: “Woman, behold, your son!” and “Behold your mother!” (John 19:26-27). While these words were addressed to the Apostle John, the disciple whom Jesus loved, the Church has long understood this moment as a universal adoption. To truly image Christ, we must share in His parentage; if we embrace God as our spiritual Father but reject Mary as our mother, we treat Christ as a half-brother rather than our "firstborn among many brethren" (Rom. 8:29). As Origen noted as early as the third century, the profound depths of the Gospel are only accessible to those who, like John, rest their heads on Jesus’ breast and receive Mary into their own homes. This maternal role is deeply rooted in biblical typology, positioning Mary as the fulfillment of the great mothers of the Old Covenant. She is the New Eve , the mother of all the living according ...