Taipei, 25 November 2004

Jn. 2, 1-11
Dear brothers and sisters:

In the text we have read from the Gospel of St. John, Our Lady appears in the happy context of the feast of marriage, as the powerful intercessor by whose intervention the water becomes the wine of gladness, as a symbol of the true life. In Cana, Mary actually appears as the vigilant and kind mother of a woman who will become a mother and a man who will become a father. This mother and this father will be the symbol of all the parents in the World.

Today’s world dominated by the culture of death stands in contrast with this happy fact. We read from Holy Scripture that death was introduced into the World by sin; and this situation endures up to our days (Rom. 5,12-21). In fact we see death everywhere. At the international level, we see wars in so many various countries, as well as imminent risks of war in others. We see the economic globalization with its great benefits, but we also witness the downside of it, when it dominates all as the only value for all peoples; we are aware of the attacks against life in the sector of the family in all countries, perpetuated by a Malthusian ideology. We experience death in the authoritative law, which ultimately controls all people: the contract, where the conditions are dictated by the strongest, and of course, only according his own interest.

It is actually impossible to react against the Trade laws. Money has acquired an almost almighty power, and anybody who obstructs its course will be smashed.

To be the winner in this fight one needs a force that is greater than the force of the evil economy and its consequences, this force is only the divine omnipotence. And this is exactly the Christian redemption: Only God through Christ can redeem us from the power of death, and only him can lead us to the authentic life.

But it is necessary to understand Christianity not only as a doctrine, but also as a wonderful historical fact: God made Himself Man in the immaculate womb of Our Lady Mary, to take us away from the dominion of death. Mary becomes the mother of the divine-human life. And we must say that this is a historical fact accomplished in the death and resurrection of the Lord. This historical fact takes us now away from our actual death. The veracity of this wonderful miracle is called Mary.

We are now celebrating the Eucharist. The Eucharist makes the fact of the redemption concrete. The Eucharist makes so real the fact of the Incarnation of the Word. The Eucharist makes Mary contemporary with us in the Incarnation. And so Mary becomes for us now the guarantee of the fact that Christ redeems us from the evil of death and gives the true life. Mary is the historical guarantee that God has entered in our history and so She is for us actually the source of the authentic life. Therefore, Mary as the mother of Christ is for us the mother of any life.

Indeed we received the life from our parents. But this life is directed to death. If we desire to overcome this fatal destination and convert our life into authentic life and not death, our life must have its new origin only in Christ, and so it must proceed from Mary our great Mother.

Exactly this is the meaning of the sacrament of Marriage, symbolized in the Wedding of Cana. In this sacrament, in connection with the Eucharist, Mary becomes again for the future parents the true mother of life. She establishes Herself as the Mother of all the fathers and mothers, because, from Her comes all the authentic life, that is Christ.

We are now in this great conference of medical doctors. The fundamental law of a doctor is always to give life, never to produce death. If we wish that a physician might accomplish his mission, he must always remain holding the hand of his beloved mother, Our Lady Mary.

So today, Mary by Her powerful intercession, as in Cana, makes the water of the transitory life change into the wine of a life that never ends. And this miracle is possible only in the optimism of love, gladness and feast, as it was in the wedding at Cana. Mary reveals Herself as the true Mother of all mothers and fathers. That is the way in which we meet her now in this Eucharistic Celebration.

Taipei, 25 November 2004.

+ Javier Cardinal Lozano Barragán ,
President of the Pontifical Council
for Health Pastoral Care.