Q: Holy Father, I am Fr. Gulliermo M. Cassone, of the Community of Schoenstatt Fathers in Rome, and pastoral vicar in the parish of the Patron Saints of Italy, St. Francis and St. Catherine, in Trastevere. After the Synod on the Word of God, reflecting on proposition 55, ‘Mary Mother of God and Mother of Faith,’ I asked myself how to improve the relationship between the Word of God and Marian piety, both in the spiritual life of the priest and also in pastoral activity. Two images helped me: the Annunciation for hearing, and the Visitation for proclamation. I would like to ask, Holiness, that you illuminate us with your teaching on this theme. Thank you for this gift.

Benedict XVI:

It seems to me that you’ve already given the answer to your question. Really, Mary is the gift of hearing: we see it in the encounter with the Angel, and we see it again in all the scenes of her life, from the wedding at Cana, all the way to the Cross and to the day of Pentecost, when she is among the Apostles to welcome the Spirit. She is the symbol of opening, of the Church which awaits the coming of the Holy Spirit.
In the moment of the Annunciation, we can already glean the attitude of hearing – a true hearing, a hearing of interiorization, which does not simply say ‘yes,’ but assimilates the Word, takes the Word – and then follows it with true obedience, as if it were an interiorized Word, that is, it has become Word in me and for me, almost as the form of my life. This seems to me very beautiful: To see this active hearing, a hearing which attracts the Word in such a way that it enters in me and becomes Word in me, reflecting on it and accepting to the depths of the heart. Thus the Word becomes incarnation.

We see the same thing in the Magnificat. We know that it’s a fabric woven from the words of the Old Testament. We see that Mary truly is a woman of hearing, who conserves the Scripture in her heart. She not only knows the words of certain texts, but she was so identified with the Word that the words of the Old Testament become, in synthetic form, a song in her heart and on her lips. We see that her life was truly penetrated by the Word: she entered into the Word, she assimilated it and it became life in her, transforming itself anew in a Word of praise and of proclaiming the greatness of God.

It seems to me that St. Luke, referring to Mary, says at least three times, perhaps four times, that she assimilated and conserved the Words in her heart. She was, for the Fathers, the model of the Church, the model of the believer who conserves the Word, who carries in herself the Word; who not only reads it, interpreted with the intellect for knowing what it meant in that time and what the philological problems are and so on. All this is interesting and important, but it’s more important to hear the Word that must be conserved and that becomes Word in me, life in me, and the presence of the Lord. Thus, to me the connection seems important between Mariology and theology of the Word, regarding which the synodal fathers spoke, and about which we too will speak in the post-synodal document.

It’s obvious: ‘Madonna’ is a word of hearing, a word of silence, but also a word of praise, or proclamation, so that the Word of hearing becomes flesh anew and becomes the presence of the greatness of God.

(Benedict XVI, Q&A With Priests of Rome, 26 Feb 2009)