Mass with the Justice & Peace Groups of the Diocese of Paisley

1. “He has pulled down princes from their thrones and exalted the lowly.” Recent events in Burma where pro-democracy demonstrations have been brutally suppressed have highlighted the relevance in today’s world of this theme from Mary’s Magnificat and show us that there is still much to do to raise the lowly to the human dignity of men and women created in the image and likeness of God. It is part of the remit of the Justice & Peace Movement to keep this and other matters of human dignity, human rights and justice before the eyes of the Catholic community and of society as a whole. I am grateful and pleased that you do that in the Diocese of Paisley and I encourage you to continue to do that.

2. We can never tire of reflecting on the truth that the spiritual foundation and ultimate wellspring of our commitment to social justice and to the social doctrine of the Church has to be love. This love is first of all God who is love, whose love has been made visible in his Son Jesus Christ, who in turn himself gave us the commandment to love one another as he loved us.

3. That mystery of love makes us reach out to all our brothers and sisters made in God’s image and likeness and included in the abundance of his redemptive love, to safeguard, protect, defend and promote the sacredness of their lives, their integral human dignity, their fundamental human rights, and their freedom and well-being. It is that love which makes us concerned for them, reach out to them, sad and even angry when their rights are denied and infringed, joyful when they are restored and respected, vigilant for their future.

4. So it is at the heart of Christian commitment, of social justice and of the spirituality and work of Justice & Peace to raise up the lowly. And when Mary praised God for exalting the humble, she was thinking also of herself who, a lowly maiden of Nazareth, was raised up to bear the Son of God and bring the Prince of Peace into the world.

5. Of her, of Mary,  the Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church, echoing words of Pope John Paul II, observes: “Looking to the heart of Mary, to the depth of her faith expressed in the words of the Magnificat, Christ’s disciples are called to renew ever more fully in themselves ‘the awareness that the truth about God who saves, the truth about God who is the source of every gift, cannot be separated from the manifestation of his love of preference for the poor and humble, that love which, celebrated in the Magnificat, is later expressed in the words and works of Jesus” (CSDC art. 59).

6. May Mary always help us to hold together our faith in God and our love for the poor and lowly. Amen.

St. Fergus’, Paisley, 5^th October 2007,