Pope’s ‘Angelus’ on Christ the King Sunday

(November 23, 2009) Choosing Christ does not guarantee success according to the criteria of today’s world, but ensures the peace and joy that come only from Him. This is shown, in every age, through the experience of many men and women who, in Christ's name, in the name of truth and justice, have been able to resist the lure of earthly powers, with their different forms, until their fidelity was sealed with martyrdom. Pope Benedict XVI said this on Sunday, the last Sunday of the liturgical year that marks the feast of Christ the King. Speaking to a large crowd before reciting the weekly midday ‘Angelus’ prayer, the Pope said the power of Christ the King is not that of the kings and great of this world, it is the divine power to give eternal life to free us from evil, to defeat the dominion of death. It is the power of love, which knows how to derive good from evil, soften a hardened heart, bring peace to the bitterest conflict, turn the thickest darkness into hope. Commenting on Christ’s response to Pilate regarding His kingship and the truth He bore witness to, the Pope said every conscience is faced with a choice between God and the devil, between truth and falsehood. Choosing Christ, the Pope explained, does not guarantee success according to the criteria of this world, but ensures that peace and joy that only He can give.
After the “Angelus”, Pope Benedict expressed his participation in Sunday’s celebration of the beatification of a Palestinian nun in the Holy Land. Thousands of faithful gathered in the biblical town of Nazareth to attend the beatification of Mother Maria Alfonsina Danil Ghattas, who helped found the Sisters of the Most Holy Rosary of Jerusalem in the 1880s. The order, highly regarded in Palestinian communities, runs schools for Palestinian girls in Israel, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. The Holy Father noted that "Mother Ghattas" has "the merit" of having founded "a congregation formed solely of women of the region, with the purpose of religious instruction, to overcome illiteracy and improve the conditions of the women of that time in the land where Jesus himself exalted their dignity." "The beatification of this very significant figure of a woman,” he said, “is of special comfort to the Catholic community in the Holy Land and it is an invitation to always trust, with firm hope, in Divine Providence and Mary's maternal protection." Blessed Ghattas was born in 1843, in Jerusalem, and died in Jerusalem in 1927 at the age of 83. Archbishop Angelo Amato, the prefect of the Vatican’s Congregation for the Causes of Saints was the Pope’s special envoy to the event in the Basilica of the Annunciation in Nazareth.
At Sunday's ‘Angelus’, the Pope also appealed for support for all those who dedicate themselves to a life of contemplation in cloistered monasteries. The appeal came a day after Saturday’s feast of the Presentation of the Blessed Virgin Mary in the Temple, which is observed as "Pro Orantibus" Day, when the Church prays in a special way for religious living contemplative life. While calling for support for these religious in their needs, the Holy Father thanked the nuns of the cloister that Pope John Paul II began in the Vatican. Currently the nuns of the Visitation of Mary are in the cloister, succeeding the Poor Clares, the Carmelites and the Benedictines. "Your prayer, Dear Sisters, is very precious to my ministry," the Pontiff affirmed.