As we come to the end of another year, let us look back in gratitude for all the wonders that God has wrought in our lives. Although our country and our world are in a sorry state, let’s not be despondent. Instead, let us thank God for His many mercies over the past year and reflect now on what our Church is asking us to do in 2013, during the Year of Faith, to transform our world.
The year 2013 offers us an opportunity for renewal and rebirth in our Faith; to revitalise our Catholic culture and identity. The life-giving Holy Spirit will teach us how to live truly Christian lives. Jesus’ words to his disciples apply to us also: “…the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you everything…” (John 14:26).
Read Pope Benedict XVI’s message for the 46th World Day of Peace, January 1, 2013. The Holy Father has chosen the theme: Blessed are the peacemakers. See CCSJ’s website – our January Newsletter.
In a statement, the Vatican said that “in the complexity of the present time, the Message will encourage everyone to take responsibility with regard to peacebuilding” and will embrace “the fullness and diversity of the concept of peace starting from the human being: inner peace and outer peace; then, highlighting the anthropological emergency, the nature and incidence of nihilism; and, at the same time, fundamental rights, in the first place freedom of conscience, freedom of expression, freedom of religion.
“The Message will offer, as well, an ethical reflection on some measures the world is going to take to contain the financial and economic crisis, the educational crisis, the crisis of the institutions and politics, which is also – in many cases – a worrying crisis of democracy.”
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“The Message will also look at the 50th Anniversary of the Second Vatican Council and of the encyclical letter by Pope John XXIII, Pacem in Terris, according to which the primacy is always for the human dignity and its freedom, for the building of an earthly city to the service of every person, without any discrimination, and directed to the common good which is based on justice and true peace.”
The Director of the Press Office of the Holy See, Fr Federico Lombardi, SJ, urges us to read the Peace Message objectively, particularly as “many voices within the Italian media, in particular, have presented it in an extremely partial and distorted way. This has happened because the Pope, in a short passage, returns to the vision of marriage between a man and a woman as profoundly different from radically other forms of union, and states that this difference is recognisable by human reason. Along with other fundamental principles of a correct view of person and society, primarily the dignity of all human life, we need to defend the institution of marriage if we would build peace on solid foundations and seek the good of human society with foresight. This is the view that the Church never tires of stressing, at a time when this point is being challenged and even attacked from several quarters in many different countries… such a reaction is meant to obscure many of the aspects of the Papal Message, which are of an extraordinary relevance and strength.”
Cardinal Peter Turkson, president of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace (PCJP), says that the message “states a fact – the existence, in the midst of conflicts, tension and violence, of numerous peacemakers; in the explanation of the Gospel beatitude it explains that this is a promise that is guaranteed, in that it is made by God and does not refer merely to the future but already finds fulfillment in this life.
The Message “clearly indicates the duties of peacemakers: they must promote life in its fullest expression, in its entirety and therefore in all the dimensions of the human person, and draws attention to urgent problems issues such as the correct vision of marriage, the right to conscientious objection, religious freedom, the issues of work and unemployment, the food crisis, the financial crisis, and the role of the family in education.” He says the Pope calls for “responsibility on the part of the various educational institutions that must form capable leaders and propose new economic and financial models.”
I end with the words of Bishop Mario Toso, secretary of the PCJP, who said that the Pope’s Message is “an invitation to become peacemakers…Peace is a common goal to be pursued as a community, to the full benefit of every human being and population.”
