Scripture readings for today's Mass are here which include Psalm 67.
Here's John Rutter's beautiful prayer hymn based on this Psalm.
To all I love and care for, and for all those I have never met too !!
Here's John Rutter's beautiful prayer hymn based on this Psalm.
To all I love and care for, and for all those I have never met too !!
Pope Francis New Year Angelus Greetings Of Peace, to the tens of thousands of pilgrims gathered in St.
Peter’s Square at the
start of 2014 from here.
The Pope said his wishes for the new year are “those of the Church:” Christian wishes that put Jesus Christ at the center of history and at its end: “the Kingdom of God, Kingdom of peace, justice, liberty in love.” And the Holy Spirit, the Holy Father said, is the force which propels us towards that end.
Recalling that on January first, the Church celebrates the feast of Mary, the Holy Mother of God as well as World Day of Peace, Pope Francis referred to his Message of Peace for the Day: ‘Fraternity: the Foundation and Pathway to Peace’ saying it stems from the conviction that we are “all children of one God and are part of the same human family,” sharing a common destiny.
We all have a responsibility, the Pope stressed, to build a world which “becomes a community of brothers who respect each other, accept each other’s differences, and take care of each other.”
We are also called to acknowledge “the violence and injustices present in many places around the world” and we cannot allow ourselves to be “indifferent and immobile,” the Pope said. Everyone must work to build a society of solidarity and “truly more just.”
Here, Pope Francis departed from his prepared remarks to say he was moved by a letter he recently received from a man touched by personal tragedy and who asked him why so many terrible things are happening in today’s world: ‘What has happened to the hearts of men?’ the man wrote. The Pope repeated the question, asking the faithful: “what has happened in the hearts of men, in the heart of humanity? It is time to stop!! It is time to stop!”
Today, believers around the world pray to the Lord for the gift of peace and the ability to spread it everywhere the Pope said. May the Lord lead us down the path of justice and peace “more decisively,” the Pope prayed, invoking the Holy Spirit to “loosen” the fastenings and hardening of hearts so that they will open up to “the tenderness and weakness of the Child Jesus.” “Peace,” he said, “requires the force of meekness, the force of nonviolence of truth and of love.”
To “Mary, Mother of the Redeemer,” Pope Francis entrusted the “cries for peace of populations oppressed by war and violence so that the courage of dialogue and reconciliation prevails over temptations of revenge, of arrogance (it: prepotenza), of corruption.” Pope Francis prayed that “the Gospel of fraternity announced and witnessed by the Church will speak to every conscience and break down the walls that prevent enemies from recognizing each other as brothers.”
The Pope concluded his remarks by welcoming the many initiatives taken up around the globe for the World Day of Peace.
Pope Francis also welcomed the new year Wednesday with a solemn morning mass in St. Peter’s Basilica, calling the faithful to look to Mary as a Mother to all and messenger of hope.
In his homily for this, the Solemnity of the Mother of God, Pope Francis said “there is no more meaningful time than the beginning of a new year” to hear God’s blessing “The Lord bless you and keep you…. The Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace.”
These "words of strength, courage and hope" "will accompany our journey through the year opening up before us,” the Pope said.
But, the Pope warned, this is not “an illusory hope based on human frail promises, or a naïve hope which presumes that the future will be better simply because it is the future.” Rather, he reminded the faithful, it is a hope based on God’s blessing, containing the “greatest message of good wishes there can be and this is the message which the Church brings to each of us.”
The message of hope in God’s blessing, the Pope stressed, “was fully realized in a woman, Mary, who was destined to become the Mother of God.”
“Mother of God is the first and most important title of Our Lady,” Pope Francis said, noting that in their devotion to her from early times, the faithful had understood this “from the beginning.”
Pope Francis recalled the ancient Council of Ephesus which “authoritatively defined” the divine motherhood of the Virgin Mary and later “the first Marian shrine in Rome and the entire West” which was erected in devotion to her in the Basilica of Saint Mary Major.
Mary is our Mother too, the Pope reminded us, “ever since Jesus, dying on the Cross, gave her to us as our Mother, saying ‘Behold your Mother!’”
Through the most difficult and trying times, Mary’s “sorrowing heart was enlarged to make room for all men and women, whether good or bad,” the Pope said, and she communicates “her maternal affection to each and every person… a source of hope and true joy.”
Inviting the faithful to entrust to her “the journey of faith, the desires of our heart, our needs and the needs of the whole world, especially of those who hunger and thirst for justice and peace," Pope Francis said by Mary’s “example of humility and openness to God’s will she helps us to transmit our faith in a joyful proclamation of the Gospel to all, without reservation.” And turning towards the statue of Our Lady near the high altar, Pope Francis invoked her three times, repeating forcefully: “Holy Mother of God!”
Below is the official English translation of Pope Francis’ Homily.
In the first reading we find the ancient prayer of blessing which God gave to Moses to hand on to Aaron and his sons: “The Lord bless you and keep you. The Lord make his face to shine upon you, and be gracious to you. The Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace” (Num 6:24-26).
There is no more meaningful time than the beginning of a new year to hear these words of blessing: they will accompany our journey through the year opening up before us.
They are words of strength, courage and hope. Not an illusory hope, based on frail human promises, or a naïve hope which presumes that the future will be better simply because it is the future.
Rather, it is a hope that has its foundation precisely in God’s blessing, a blessing which contains the greatest message of good wishes there can be; and this is the message which the Church brings to each of us, filled with the Lord’s loving care and providential help.
The message of hope contained in this blessing was fully realized in a woman, Mary, who was destined to become the Mother of God, and it was fulfilled in her before any other creature.
The Mother of God! This is the first and most important title of Our Lady. It refers to a quality, a role which the faith of the Christian people, in its tender and genuine devotion to our heavenly Mother, has understood from the beginning.
We recall that great moment in the history of the ancient Church, the Council of Ephesus, in which the divine motherhood of the Virgin Mary was authoritatively defined. The truth of her divine maternity found an echo in Rome where, a little later, the Basilica of Saint Mary Major was built, the first Marian shrine in Rome and in the entire West, in which the image of the Mother of God – the Theotokos – is venerated under the title of Salus Populi Romani. It is said that the residents of Ephesus used to gather at the gates of the basilica where the bishops were meeting and shout, “Mother of God!”. The faithful, by asking them to officially define this title of Our Lady, showed that they acknowledged her divine motherhood. Theirs was the spontaneous and sincere reaction of children who know their Mother well, for they love her with immense tenderness.
Mary has always been present in the hearts, the piety and above all the pilgrimage of faith of the Christian people. “The Church journeys through time… and on this journey she proceeds along the path already trodden by the Virgin Mary” (Redemptoris Mater, 2). Our journey of faith is the same as that of Mary, and so we feel that she is particularly close to us. As far as faith, the hinge of the Christian life, is concerned, the Mother of God shared our condition. She had to take the same path as ourselves, a path which is sometimes difficult and obscure. She had to advance in the “pilgrimage of faith” (Lumen Gentium, 58).
Our pilgrimage of faith has been inseparably linked to Mary ever since Jesus, dying on the Cross, gave her to us as our Mother, saying: “Behold your Mother!” (Jn 19:27). These words serve as a testament, bequeathing to the world a Mother. From that moment on, the Mother of God also became our Mother! When the faith of the disciples was most tested by difficulties and uncertainties, Jesus entrusted them to Mary, who was the first to believe, and whose faith would never fail.
The “woman” became our Mother when she lost her divine Son. Her sorrowing heart was enlarged to make room for all men and women, whether good or bad, and she loves them as she loved Jesus. The woman who at the wedding at Cana in Galilee gave her faith-filled cooperation so that the wonders of God could be displayed in the world, at Calvary kept alive the flame of faith in the resurrection of her Son, and she communicates this with maternal affection to each and every person. Mary becomes in this way a source of hope and true joy!
The Mother of the Redeemer goes before us and continually strengthens us in faith, in our vocation and in our mission. By her example of humility and openness to God’s will she helps us to transmit our faith in a joyful proclamation of the Gospel to all, without reservation. In this way our mission will be fruitful, because it is modelled on the motherhood of Mary.
To her let us entrust our journey of faith, the desires of our heart, our needs and the needs of the whole world, especially of those who hunger and thirst for justice and peace. Let us then together invoke her: Holy Mother of God!
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