OUR LADY Pope Benedict XVI in recounting this Marian parable, aims to capture and bring to life the features of the person of Mary that can help us to live our faith in concrete daily experience. Mary is not presented as an abstract or distant figure, reconstructed through a scholarly exegesis of the Gospel passages that refer to her, but as a living person, who in listening to the Word, in the obedience of faith and in the purity of love, is always present to receive our prayer and intercede for us. The heart of the rich teaching of Benedict XVI was the theme of faith. Since the beginning of his ministry as the Successor of Peter, he several times insisted on the need to rediscover the journey of faith and above all the joy and excitement of being a Christian. ‘The Church as a whole and all her Pastors like Christ, must set out to lead people out of the desert, towards the place of life, towards friendship with the Son of God.’ (Homily 24 April 2005)