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Pope Benedict XVI- Homilies |
"The Natural Family … Is a Cradle of Life and Love"
Homily
on World Day of Peace
H.H. Benedict XVI
January 1, 2008
www.zenit.org
Dear Brothers and Sisters,
Today, we are beginning a new year and Christian hope takes us
by the hand; let us begin it by invoking divine Blessings upon
it and imploring, through the intercession of Mary, Mother of
God, the gift of peace: for our families, for our cities, for
the whole world. With this hope, I greet all of you present
here, starting with the distinguished Ambassadors of the
Diplomatic Corps accredited to the Holy See who have gathered at
this celebration on the occasion of the World Day of Peace. I
greet Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, my Secretary of State, and
Cardinal Renato Raffaele Martino and all members of the
Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace. I am particularly
grateful to them for their commitment to spread the Message for
the World Day of Peace whose theme this year is: "The human
family, a community of peace".
Peace. In the First Reading from the Book of Numbers we heard
the invocation: "The Lord... give you peace" (6:26); may the
Lord grant peace to each one of you, to your families and to the
whole world.We all aspire to live in peace but true peace, the
peace proclaimed by the Angels on Christmas night, is not merely
a human triumph or the fruit of political agreements; it is
first and foremost a divine gift to be ceaselessly implored, and
at the same time a commitment to be carried forward patiently,
always remaining docile to the Lord's commands.
Inspired by family values
This year, in my Message for today's World Day of Peace, I
wanted to highlight the close relationship that exists between
the family and building peace in the world. The natural family,
founded on the marriage of a man and a woman, is "a "cradle of
life and love'" and "the first and indispensable teacher of
peace". For this very reason the family is "the primary "agency'
of peace", and "the denial or even the restriction of the rights
of the family, by obscuring the truth about man, threatens the
very foundations of peace" (cf. Nos. 1-5).
Since humanity is a
"great family", if it wants to live in peace it cannot fail to
draw inspiration from those values on which the family community
is based and stands. The providential coincidence of various
recurrences spur us this year to make an even greater effort to
achieve peace in the world.
Sixty years ago, in 1948, the General Assembly of the United
Nations published the "Universal Declaration of Human Rights";
40 years ago my venerable Predecessor Paul VI celebrated the
first World Day of Peace; this year, in addition, we will be
commemorating the 25th anniversary of the Holy See's adoption of
the "Charter of the Rights of the Family". "In the light of
these significant anniversaries" -- I am repeating here what I
wrote precisely at the end of the Message -- "I invite every man
and woman to have a more lively sense of belonging to the one
human family, and to strive to make human coexistence
increasingly reflect this conviction, which is essential for the
establishment of true and lasting peace" [No. 15].
Our thoughts
now turn spontaneously to Our Lady, whom we invoke today as the
Mother of God.
It was Pope Paul VI who moved to 1 January the
Feast of the Divine Motherhood of Mary, which was formerly
celebrated on 11 October.
Indeed, even before the liturgical reform that followed the
Second Vatican Council, the memorial of the circumcision of
Jesus on the eighth day after his birth -- as a sign of
submission to the law, his official insertion in the Chosen
People -- used to be celebrated on the first day of the year and
the Feast of the Name of Jesus was celebrated the following
Sunday.
We perceive a few traces of these celebrations in the
Gospel passage that has just been proclaimed, in which St Luke
says that eight days after his birth the Child was circumcised
and was given the name "Jesus", "the name given by the Angel
before he was conceived in [his Mother's] ... womb" (Luke 2:21).
Today's feast, therefore, as well as being a particularly
significant Marian feast, also preserves a strongly
Christological content because, we might say, before the Mother,
it concerns the Son, Jesus, true God and true Man.
Mary's immense privilege
The Apostle Paul refers to the mystery of the divine motherhood
of Mary, the "Theotokos," in his Letter to the Galatians. "When
the time had fully come", he writes, "God sent forth his Son,
born of woman, born under the law" (4:4).
We find the mystery of
the Incarnation of the Divine Word and the Divine Motherhood of
Mary summed up in a few words: the Virgin's great privilege is
precisely to be Mother of the Son who is God.
The most logical
and proper place for this Marian feast is therefore eight days
after Christmas. Indeed, in the night of Bethlehem, when "she
gave birth to her first-born son" (Luke 2:7), the prophesies
concerning the Messiah were fulfilled.
"The virgin shall be
with child and bear a son", Isaiah had foretold (7:14); "Behold,
you will conceive in your womb and bear a son", the Angel
Gabriel said to Mary (Luke 1:31); and again, an Angel of the
Lord, the Evangelist Matthew recounts, appeared to Joseph in a
dream to reassure him and said: "Do not fear to take Mary for
your wife, for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy
Spirit; she will bear a son" (Matthew 1:20-21).
The title "Mother of God", together with the title "Blessed
Virgin", is the oldest on which all the other titles with which
Our Lady was venerated are based, and it continues to be invoked
from generation to generation in the East and in the West. A
multitude of hymns and a wealth of prayers of the Christian
tradition refer to the mystery of her divine motherhood, such
as, for example, a Marian antiphon of the Christmas season,
"Alma Redemptoris mater," with which we pray in these words: "Tu
quae genuisti, natura mirante, tuum sanctum Genitorem, Virgo
prius ac posterius -- You, in the wonder of all creation, have
brought forth your Creator, Mother ever virgin".Dear brothers
and sisters, let us today contemplate Mary, ever-virgin Mother
of the Only-Begotten Son of the Father; let us learn from her to
welcome the Child who was born for us in Bethlehem. If we
recognize in the Child born of her the Eternal Son of God and
accept him as our one Saviour, we can be called and we really
are children of God: sons in the Son. The Apostle writes: "God
sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem
those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption
as sons" (Galatians 4:4).
Same but different Child
The Evangelist Luke repeats several times that Our Lady
meditated silently on these extraordinary events in which God
had involved her. We also heard this in the short Gospel passage
that the Liturgy presents to us today. "Mary kept all these
things, pondering them in her heart" (Luke 2:19).
The Greek
verb used, "sumbállousa," literally means "piecing together" and
makes us think of a great mystery to be discovered little by
little. Although the Child lying in a manger looks like all
children in the world, at the same time he is totally different:
he is the Son of God, he is God, true God and true man. This
mystery -- the Incarnation of the Word and the divine Motherhood
of Mary -- is great and certainly far from easy to understand
with the human mind alone. Yet, by learning from Mary, we can
understand with our hearts what our eyes and minds do not manage
to perceive or contain on their own. Indeed, this is such a
great gift that only through faith are we granted to accept it,
while not entirely understanding it.
And it is precisely on this journey of faith that Mary comes to
meet us as our support and guide.
She is mother because she
brought forth Jesus in the flesh; she is mother because she
adhered totally to the Father's will.
St Augustine wrote: "The
divine motherhood would have been of no value to her had Christ
not borne her in his heart, with a destiny more fortunate than
the moment when she conceived him in the flesh" ("De Sancta
Virginitate," 3, 3). And in her heart Mary continued to
treasure, to "piece together" the subsequent events of which she
was to be a witness and protagonist, even to the death on the
Cross and the Resurrection of her Son Jesus.
Dear brothers and sisters, it is only by pondering in the heart,
in other words, by piecing together and finding unity in all we
experience, that, following Mary, we can penetrate the mystery
of a God who was made man out of love and who calls us to follow
him on the path of love; a love to be expressed daily by
generous service to the brethren.
May the new year which we are confidently beginning today be a
time in which to advance in that knowledge of the heart, which
is the wisdom of saints. Let us pray, as we heard in the First
Reading, that the Lord may "make his face to shine" upon us,
"and be gracious" to us (cf. Numbers 6:24-7) and bless us. We
may be certain of it: If we never tire of seeking his Face, if
we never give in to the temptation of discouragement and doubt,
if also among the many difficulties we encounter we always
remain anchored to him, we will experience the power of his love
and his mercy. May the fragile Child who today the Virgin shows
to the world make us peacemakers, witnesses of him, the Prince
of Peace. Amen!
[Translation of the Italian original by L'Osservatore Romano]
Look
at the One they Pierced!
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