Bishop of Melipilla, Monsignor Cristian Contreras Villaroel
By Agenzia Fides
May 18 2023
MELIPILLA, Chile – “Celebrating Mother’s Day must also mean a willingness on the part of those responsible for work, health, business and housing programs, so that women can fulfill their mission of motherhood welcomed by all. God’s wisdom contrasts with the ‘politics’ and many demographic ‘programs’ of this world. The manger is a prophetic cry from God in favor of motherhood and life”. This is a passage from the message that the Bishop of Melipilla, Monsignor Cristian Contreras Villaroel, released yesterday on the occasion of ‘Mother’s Day’.
Emphasizing that few festivities get such wide adherence from Chileans as Mother’s Day, the Bishop recalls that it is a family celebration: “Children, young people and adults celebrate or remember those who gave us life, took care of our development and passed on to us the great gift of faith… They also taught us that the Virgin Mary is the mother who defends and protects us from heaven”.
Monsignor Contreras Villaroel writes that the Blessed Virgin Mary “knows the joys and sorrows of our human life”: for Mary and Joseph there was no room in the inn and Jesus was born in a manger, adored by the shepherds; he had to flee to Egypt because the tyrant of the time, Herod, had all the children killed; Jesus of Nazareth was not “accepted” by most…The family of Mary, Joseph and Jesus certainly does not reflect the canons of happiness that consumerist propaganda proposes to us, reflects the Bishop. In the televised representation there is no old age, poverty, illness, no children without families or single women, but only prosperity and healthy, happy people. “This is not reality,” he emphasises, “There are no perfect families. Mary, Joseph and the Child Jesus are the denunciation of the falsehood of consumer society and tyrannies against unborn children”.
“This Sunday, as a civil society, we celebrate mothers with joy and also with nostalgia when they are dead. This is my case. And in a context of so much violence against women, of exploitation of the most vulnerable, of murders of women, most often without punishment for the vile aggressors, it is good to pay tribute to every woman”. The Bishop then underlines that in Melpilla, the figure of the mother is loved and venerated, yet “many societies do not seem to care much about motherhood and convince many women that a child is an obstacle. In reality, everything is required of the family, but it has few allies. When it comes to helping families with financial aid, children are called ‘family burdens’.”
In the conclusion of the message, the Bishop quotes Saint John Paul II who denounced the discrimination against women in the American continent, sexual abuse and male arrogance, sterilization sometimes planned to obtain economic aid at an international level… (Ecclesia in America, 45). “Defending and promoting life, so that it is accepted and harmoniously developed in society is everyone’s responsibility”, reiterates Monsignor Contreras Villaroel, who wishes “strength in the Lord and in the Holy Virgin” to all the women and mothers of the diocese, as well as to the girls mothers, single women, abandoned women and many women who were unable to be mothers. Finally, he invites us not to forget the religious and consecrated lay women, “who exercise a precious spiritual motherhood”. – Agenzia Fides
