“Blessed are you who has believed!

1. Ave Maria “Blessed are you who has believed!

2. Yes, Mary, blessed are you who has believed. Blessed are you who helps me to believe, blessed are you who had the strength to accept all the mystery of the nativity and the courage to give your body to an event so immense in its grandeur and finite in its simplicity

3. In the incarnation the extremes meet and the infinitely far comes infinitely close, the infinitely powerful is made infinitely weak.

4. Mary, do you know what you have done? You rise to stand firm beneath the weight of a mystery without limits. You rise without quivering before the light of the Eternal who seeks your womb as a home to shelter.

5. You rise without fear before the taunts of Satan who tells you that it was something impossible for the transcendence to enter sinful humanity. What courage, Mary! Only your humility was able to assist you to withstand the power of such powerful light

6. Ave Maria Mother of all our desires for happiness you are the earth that says YES to life. You are humanity that says YES to God. You are the new Eve and the mother of the living.

7. You are the fruit of the past promises and the future of our present. You are the faith that accepts the unpredictable, listening to the Creator Spirit and marvel. You are the faith that accepts the invisible, as flowers open to the warmth of the sun (....)

8. Ave Maria Mother of all our seeking, this God who gets lost in the temple, to Calvary where he is lost, your path always seems foolish.

9. You are each of us seeking God, without knowing well your life and your words. You are the Mother of the obscurity of faith, who guards all who take shelter in your heart, you seek and contemplate on your “why” and struggle at the coming of God, your Lord.

10. Ave Maria Mother of all our suffering. You are the upright woman at the foot of the crucified man.

11. You are the mother of all those who weep, massacred innocents and the tortured prisoners. You are our maternal hope that accepts our cries and our sorrows.

12. Ave Maria Mother of Jesus and the disciple who believed. You are the mother of men and of the Church.

13. You are the crossroad of history and salvation that God set up from Abraham and Moses.

14. Ave Maria Mother of our every Pentecost. you are with the apostles who pray and you receive the Holy Spirit.

15. Ave Maria Mother of all our hopes. You are the radiant star of a people journeying toward God. You are the sign of a transfigured humanity, You are the restored creation that God has made from all eternity.

16. Lord, like Mary,help us to live our faith: that our faith be strong especially in moments of pain and trial. Like Mary, help us to live in love: that we may know how to forget ourselves and see your face in the face of our brothers. Like Mary, help us to live in hope: that we may not remain overcome by difficulty and failure, but look to your Son, dead, buried and risen in love.

17. Like Mary, help us to be humble. Like Mary, help us to say “yes” when called. Like Mary, help is to be poor. because we know to give oursleves. Like Mary, help us to encounter you in silence, so that, the silence makes us better people of prayer each day. Amen. Art by Antonio Barone www.donboscosmadonna.org