Saturday Vespers and Te Deum

(December 31.12.2011) Young generations have an especially keen sense of the present disorientation, magnified by the crisis in economic affairs which is also a crisis of values, and so they in particular need to recognize in Jesus Christ “the key, the centre and the purpose of the whole of human history”, said Pope Benedict XVI in his homily at the celebration of First Vespers of the Solemnity of Mary, Mother of God, and to give thanks to the Lord at the end of the year by singing the Te Deum together, at the Vatican Basilica. Present at the service was the Mayor of Rome, Gianni Alemanno who gifted the Pope the traditional chalice. The Pope noted how the close of the civic year, underlined the shortness of life. From within the fabric of humanity, rent asunder by so much injustice, wickedness and violence, he continued, there bursts forth in an unforeseen way the joyful and liberating novelty of Christ our Saviour, who leads us to contemplate the goodness and tenderness of God through the mystery of his Incarnation and Birth. He posed again the deeply personal question: why do I believe? And exhorted the faithful to give primacy to truth, seeing the combination of faith and reason as two wings with which the human spirit can rise to the contemplation of the Truth The pope expressed appreciation of the programme of the Diocese of Rome to explore more deeply the meaning of Christian initiation and the joy of bringing new Christians into the faith. At the same time he stressed that Parents were the first educators in faith of their children, starting from a most tender age, and families must therefore be supported in their educational mission by appropriate initiatives. The service wound up with the solemn hymn Te Deum laudamus, to thank God for all the blessings of the past year. After the service the Holy Father paid a visit to the crib set up in St Peter’s square.