In the Gospel of Luke we hear our mother Mary’s song of God’s mercy that continues to rise up from our Holy Mother Church in the teachings of the 2nd Vatican Council. “The Almighty has done great things for me and holy is His name. He has mercy on those who fear Him in every generation.”

 

     The message of the 2nd Vatican Council was proclaimed from St Peter’s Square and extended out to the world through the great Collonade of Bernini, which he himself described as the “Motherly Arms of the Church.”

 

     Truly the Second Vatican Council extended the Motherly Arms of the Church to the whole world.  The Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World, “Gaudium et Spes,” expressed it thus, “this Second Vatican Council, having probed more profoundly into the mystery of the Church, now addresses itself without hesitation, not only to the sons of the Church and to all who invoke the name of Christ, but to the whole of humanity. For the council yearns to explain to everyone how it conceives of the presence and activity of the Church in the world of today.” (GS #2)

     

     Pope Benedict the 16th elaborated on this 50 years later saying, “The Second Vatican Council is a strong appeal to us to rediscover every day the beauty of our faith, to know it deeply for a more intense relationship with the Lord, in order to live our Christian vocation to the full.”

 

Now let us entrust ourselves to the motherly arms of Mary and the Motherly Arms of the Church as we reflect on the teachings of the Second Vatican Council.