Spiritual orphans ~ corrosive disease ~ Pope Francis (1 January 2017)

Just like all mothers of the world, Mary, Mother of God, “protects us from the corrosive disease of being ‘spiritual orphans,'” that is when the soul feels “motherless and lacking the tenderness of God, when the sense of belonging to a family, a people, a land, to our God, grows dim.” “This attitude of spiritual orphanhood is a cancer that silently eats away at and debases the soul,” which soon “forgets that life is a gift we have received and owe to others a gift we are called to share in this common home,” said the holy Father. ...... Remembering that Jesus handed his Mother over to us “makes us smile once more as we realise that we are a people, that we belong” and can grow, that we are not just mere objects to “consume and be consumed”, that we are not “merchandise” to be exchanged or inert receptacles for information. “We are children, we are family, we are God’s people.”