“The task of missionary animation must continue to be a serious, consistent duty of every baptized person and of every ecclesial community. “Dear Brothers and Sisters,
1. From the beginning, I wished to place my pontificate under Mary’s special protection. Further, I have often asked the entire community of believers to relive the experience of the Upper Room, where the disciples “devoted themselves to prayer, together with … Mary, the Mother of Jesus” (Acts 1,14). Already in my first Encyclical Redemptor hominis, I wrote that only in an atmosphere of fervent prayer are we able “to receive the Holy Spirit coming upon us and thus become Christ’s witnesses ‘to the ends of the earth’, like those who went forth from the Upper Room in Jerusalem on the day of Pentecost” (n. 22).
The Church becomes more conscious that she is “mother” as Mary is. As I pointed out in the Bull Incarnationis mysterium, on the occasion of the Great Jubilee of the Year 2000, the Church is “the cradle in which Mary places Jesus and entrusts him to the adoration and contemplation of all peoples” (n. 11). The Church intends to continue on this spiritual and missionary path, accompanied by the Blessed Virgin, Star of the New vangelization, radiant dawn and sure guide for our steps (cf. Novo Millennio ineunte, n. 58).
