HOMILY OF HIS
HOLINESS POPE FRANCIS
Vatican
Basilica
Friday, 1st January 2016
Friday, 1st January 2016
XLIX WORLD DAY OF PEACE
HOLY MASS WITH THE PRESENCE OF THE PUERI CANTORES
FOR THE CLOSING OF THEIR XL INTERNATIONAL CONGRESS
HOLY MASS WITH THE PRESENCE OF THE PUERI CANTORES
FOR THE CLOSING OF THEIR XL INTERNATIONAL CONGRESS
We have heard the words of the Apostle Paul: “When the
fullness of time had come, God sent his Son, born of a woman” (Gal4:4).
What does it mean to say that Jesus was born in “the
fullness of time”? If we consider that particular moment of history, we might
quickly be deluded. Rome had subjugated a great part of the known world by her
military might. The Emperor Augustus had come to power after five civil wars.
Israel itself had been conquered by the Roman Empire and the Chosen People had
lost their freedom. For Jesus’ contemporaries, it was certainly not the best of
times. To define the fullness of time, then, we should not look to the
geopolitical sphere.
Another interpretation is needed, one which views that
fullness from God’s standpoint. It is when God decided that the
time had come to fulfil his promise, that the fullness of time came for
humanity. History does not determine the birth of Christ; rather, his
coming into the world enables history to attain its fullness. For this
reason, the birth of the Son of God inaugurates a new era, a new computation of
time, the era which witnesses the fulfilment of the ancient promise. As the
author of the Letter to the Hebrews writes: “God spoke to our ancestors in many
and various ways by the prophets, but in these last days he has spoken to us by
a Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, through whom he also created the
world. He is the reflection of God’s glory and the exact imprint of God’s very
being, and he sustains all things by his powerful word” (1:1-3). The fullness
of time, then, is the presence of God himself in our history. Now we can see
his glory, which shines forth in the poverty of a stable; we can be encouraged
and sustained by his Word, made “little” in a baby. Thanks to him, our time can
find its fullness. The use of our personal time can also find its fullness in
the encounter with Jesus Christ, God made man.
Nonetheless, this mystery constantly clashes with the
dramatic experience of human history. Each day, as we seek to be sustained
by the signs of God’s presence, we encounter new signs to the contrary,
negative signs which tend to make us think instead that he is absent. The
fullness of time seems to fade before the countless forms of injustice and
violence which daily wound our human family. Sometimes we ask ourselves how it
is possible that human injustice persists unabated, and that the arrogance of
the powerful continues to demean the weak, relegating them to the most squalid
outskirts of our world. We ask how long human evil will continue to sow
violence and hatred in our world, reaping innocent victims. How can the
fullness of time have come when we are witnessing hordes of men, women and
children fleeing war, hunger and persecution, ready to risk their lives simply
to encounter respect for their fundamental rights? A torrent of misery, swollen
by sin, seems to contradict the fullness of time brought by Christ. Remember,
dear pueri cantores, this was the third question you asked me
yesterday: how do we explain this… even children are aware of this.
And yet this swollen torrent is powerless before the ocean
of mercy which floods our world. All of us are called to immerse
ourselves in this ocean, to let ourselves be reborn, to overcome the
indifference which blocks solidarity, and to leave behind the false neutrality
which prevents sharing. The grace of Christ, which brings our hope of salvation
to fulfilment, leads us to cooperate with him in building an ever more just and
fraternal world, a world in which every person and every creature can dwell in
peace, in the harmony of God’s original creation.
At the beginning of a new year, the Church invites us
to contemplate Mary’s divine maternity as an icon of peace. The ancient promise
finds fulfilment in her person. She believed in the words of the angel,
conceived her Son and thus became the Mother of the Lord. Through her, through
her “yes”, the fullness of time came about. The Gospel we have just heard tells
us that the Virgin Mary “treasured all these words and pondered them in her
heart” (Lk 2:19). She appears to us as a vessel filled to the brim
with the memory of Jesus, as the Seat of Wisdom to whom we can have recourse to
understand his teaching aright. Today Mary makes it possible for us to grasp
the meaning of events which affect us personally, events which also affect our
families, our countries and the entire world. Where philosophical reason and
political negotiation cannot arrive, there the power of faith, which brings the
grace of Christ’s Gospel, can arrive, opening ever new pathways to reason and
to negotiation.
Blessed are you, Mary, for you gave the Son of God to
our world. But even more blessed are you for having believed in him. Full of
faith, you conceived Jesus first in your heart and then in your womb, and thus
became the Mother of all believers (cf. Saint Augustine, Sermo 215,4).
Send us, O Mother, your blessing on this day consecrated to your honour. Show
us the face of Jesus your Son, who bestows upon the entire world mercy and
peace. Amen.
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