(Vatican Radio) Pope Benedict celebrated mass in St Peter’s Basilica on New Year’s
Day, marking the feast of Mary and the Church’s World Day of Peace. In his homily
the Pope urged people to look to God and to his son Jesus for true peace in a world
fraught with problems, darkness and anxieties.
Listen to the report by Susy
Hodges:
Below,
please find the English translation of the text of Pope Benedict's homily: Dear
Brothers and Sisters, “May God bless us and make his face to shine upon us.”
We proclaimed these words from Psalm 66 after hearing in the first reading the ancient
priestly blessing upon the people of the covenant. It is especially significant
that at the start of every new year God sheds upon us, his people, the light of his
Holy Name, the Name pronounced three times in the solemn form of biblical blessing.
Nor is it less significant that to the Word of God – who “became flesh and dwelt among
us” (Jn 1:14) as “the true light that enlightens every man” (1:9) – is given, as today’s
Gospel tells us, the Name of Jesus eight days after his birth (cf. Lk 2:21). It
is in this Name that we are gathered here today. I cordially greet all present, beginning
with the Ambassadors of the Diplomatic Corps accredited to the Holy See. I greet
with affection Cardinal Bertone, my Secretary of State, and Cardinal Turkson, with
all the officials of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace; I am particularly
grateful to them for their effort to spread the Message for the World Day of Peace,
which this year has as its theme “Blessed are the Peacemakers”. Although the
world is sadly marked by “hotbeds of tension and conflict caused by growing instances
of inequality between rich and poor, by the prevalence of a selfish and individualistic
mindset which also finds expression in an unregulated financial capitalism,” as well
as by various forms of terrorism and crime, I am convinced that “the many different
efforts at peacemaking which abound in our world testify to mankind’s innate vocation
to peace. In every person the desire for peace is an essential aspiration which coincides
in a certain way with the desire for a full, happy and successful human life. In
other words, the desire for peace corresponds to a fundamental moral principle, namely,
the duty and right to an integral social and communitarian development, which is
part of God’s plan for mankind. Man is made for the peace which is God’s gift. All
of this led me to draw inspiration for this Message from the words of Jesus Christ:
‘Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God’ (Mt 5:9)” (Message,
1). This beatitude “tells us that peace is both a messianic gift and the fruit of
human effort … It is peace with God through a life lived according to his will.
It is interior peace with oneself, and exterior peace with our neighbours and all
creation” (ibid., 2, 3). Indeed, peace is the supreme good to ask as a gift from
God and, at the same time, that which is to be built with our every effort. We
may ask ourselves: what is the basis, the origin, the root of peace? How can we experience
that peace within ourselves, in spite of problems, darkness and anxieties? The reply
is given to us by the readings of today’s liturgy. The biblical texts, especially
the one just read from the Gospel of Luke, ask us to contemplate the interior peace
of Mary, the Mother of Jesus. During the days in which “she gave birth to her first-born
son” (Lk 2:7), many unexpected things occurred: not only the birth of the Son but,
even before, the tiring journey from Nazareth to Bethlehem, not finding room at the
inn, the search for a chance place to stay for the night; then the song of the angels
and the unexpected visit of the shepherds. In all this, however, Mary remains even
tempered, she does not get agitated, she is not overcome by events greater than herself;
in silence she considers what happens, keeping it in her mind and heart, and pondering
it calmly and serenely. This is the interior peace which we ought to have amid
the sometimes tumultuous and confusing events of history, events whose meaning we
often do not grasp and which disconcert us. The Gospel passage finishes with a
mention of the circumcision of Jesus. According to the Law of Moses, eight days after
birth, baby boys were to be circumcised and then given their name. Through his messenger,
God himself had said to Mary – as well as to Joseph – that the Name to be given to
the child was “Jesus” (cf. Mt 1:21; Lk 1:31); and so it came to be. The Name which
God had already chosen, even before the child had been conceived, is now officially
conferred upon him at the moment of circumcision. This also changes Mary’s identity
once and for all: she becomes “the mother of Jesus”, that is the mother of the Saviour,
of Christ, of the Lord. Jesus is not a man like any other, but the Word of God, one
of the Divine Persons, the Son of God: therefore the Church has given Mary the title
Theotokos or Mother of God. The first reading reminds us that peace is a gift
from God and is linked to the splendour of the face of God, according to the text
from the Book of Numbers, which hands down the blessing used by the priests of the
People of Israel in their liturgical assemblies. This blessing repeats three times
the Holy Name of God, a Name not to be spoken, and each time it is linked to two words
indicating an action in favour of man: “The Lord bless you and keep you: the Lord
make his face to shine upon you: the Lord lift up his countenance upon you, and give
you peace” (6:24-26). So peace is the summit of these six actions of God in our favour,
in which he turns towards us the splendour of his face. For sacred Scripture,
contemplating the face of God is the greatest happiness: “You gladden him with the
joy of your face” (Ps 21:7). From the contemplation of the face of God are born joy,
security and peace. But what does it mean concretely to contemplate the face of the
Lord, as understood in the New Testament? It means knowing him directly, in so far
as is possible in this life, through Jesus Christ in whom he is revealed. To rejoice
in the splendour of God’s face means penetrating the mystery of his Name made known
to us in Jesus, understanding something of his interior life and of his will, so that
we can live according to his plan of love for humanity. In the second reading, taken
from the Letter to the Galatians (4:4-7), Saint Paul says as much as he describes
the Spirit who, in our inmost hearts, cries: “Abba! Father!” It is the cry that
rises from the contemplation of the true face of God, from the revelation of the mystery
of his Name. Jesus declares, “I have manifested thy name to men” (Jn 17:6). God’s
Son made man has let us know the Father, he has let us know the hidden face of the
Father through his visible human face; by the gift of the Holy Spirit poured into
our hearts, he has led us to understand that, in him, we too are children of God,
as Saint Paul says in the passage we have just heard: “The proof that you are sons
is that God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts: the Spirit that cries,
‘Abba, Father’” (Gal 4:6). Here, dear brothers and sisters, is the foundation
of our peace: the certainty of contemplating in Jesus Christ the splendour of the
face of God the Father, of being sons in the Son, and thus of having, on life’s journey,
the same security that a child feels in the arms of a loving and all-powerful Father.
The splendour of the face of God, shining upon us and granting us peace, is the manifestation
of his fatherhood: the Lord turns his face to us, he reveals himself as our Father
and grants us peace. Here is the principle of that profound peace – “peace with God”
– which is firmly linked to faith and grace, as Saint Paul tells the Christians of
Rome (cf. Rom 5:2). Nothing can take this peace from believers, not even the difficulties
and sufferings of life. Indeed, sufferings, trials and darkness do not undermine
but build up our hope, a hope which does not deceive because “God’s love has been
poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit which has been given to us” (5:5).
May the Virgin Mary, whom today we venerate with the title of Mother of God,
help us to contemplate the face of Jesus, the Prince of Peace. May she sustain us
and accompany us in this New Year: and may she obtain for us and for the whole world
the gift of peace. Amen!