A very Happy New Year to everyone. The first day of January each year is always a World Day of Prayer for Peace. Pope Francis gave a very straight-forward message about peace at the Angelus in St Peter’s Square today – the Square being packed, as usual, with 90,000 people.

“I want to give each one of you here present a greeting for peace and for every good thing in your lives. This is the Church’s wish for all people, the wish of a Christian; it is not linked to magic dates or thinking of a new cycle of life. History has a centre, and that is the person of Jesus Christ who was born, died and rose again and who lives among us today. There is an aim to achieve for all creation: a Kingdom of peace, of justice and of freedom in love. There is power to reach that aim and that power or force is the Holy Spirit. All of us have the Holy Spirit that we received at our Baptism, and he pushes us forward on the journey of the Christian life to reach the Kingdom of Heaven. This force is the Spirit of Love that filled the womb of the Virgin Mary and is the same that animates all who are peace-makers. Wherever there is a man, or woman, who is a builder of peace, then there is the Holy Spirit helping that person and pushing them to achieve peace. We are all brothers and sisters, and if we want to be peace-makers, then it must begin at home. From there it will spread out to others, and to the whole world.”

 The World as seen from Space

We religious, diocesan priests and many laity frequently recite the quite wonderful canticle in the letter to the Ephesians (Chapter 1, vv 3-10). We did so yesterday, the first day of January.

After praising and blessing God: “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places”, the canticle goes on to explain how we who belong to Jesus, in baptism, have been chosen before the foundation of the world, to be the sons and daughters of God, in Jesus Christ. Jesus has redeemed each of us in his precious blood, but then the canticle goes on to say even more: “He has made known to us in all wisdom and insight the mystery of his will, … His purpose he set forth in Christ as a plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth”. The plan is the same as that of Peace Sunday: for where all things are united in him, there is peace and universal fraternity. There could be no more war, because we will know that to harm, or kill, another is to harm, or kill, our own brother or sister.

There is a clear purpose in life: it is to live for unity, within myself, in my family, in my work place, within divided Churches, that could be divided, in themselves or among the Churches, with people of other faiths, with people who have no faith. It is an ideal that gives life a purpose. There is a reason to wake up, and get out of bed, each morning! In his Apostolic Exhortation, ‘The Joy of the Gospel’, Pope Francis writes about rejecting, “sterile pessimism”.

[84.] The joy of the Gospel is such that it cannot be taken away from us by anyone or anything (cf. Jn 16:22). The evils of our world – and those of the Church – must not be excuses for diminishing our commitment and our fervour. Let us look upon them as challenges which can help us to grow. With the eyes of faith, we can see the light which the Holy Spirit always radiates in the midst of darkness, never forgetting that “where sin increased, grace has abounded all the more” (Rom 5:20). 

He then quotes from Pope John XXIII, who spoke prophetic words at the opening of the Vatican Council, 11 October 1962:

  Pope John XXXIII at the Vatican Council

“At times we have to listen, much to our regret, to the voices of people who, though burning with zeal, lack a sense of discretion and measure. In this modern age they can see nothing but prevarication and ruin … We feel that we must disagree with those prophets of doom who are always forecasting disaster, as though the end of the world were at hand. In our times, divine Providence is leading us to a new order of human relations which, by human effort and even beyond all expectations, are directed to the fulfilment of God’s superior and inscrutable designs, in which everything, even human setbacks, leads to the greater good of the Church”.

 Pope Francis is even stronger as he goes on in “The Joy of the Gospel”, that Christian Joy can overcome that feeling of being left ‘deserted’.

[86.] In some places a spiritual “desertification” has evidently come about, as the result of attempts by some societies to build without God or to eliminate their Christian roots. In those places “the Christian world is becoming sterile, and it is depleting itself like an overexploited ground, which transforms into a desert”. [66] In other countries, violent opposition to Christianity forces Christians to hide their faith in their own beloved homeland. This is another painful kind of desert. But family and the workplace can also be a parched place where faith nonetheless has to be preserved and communicated.  

(Pope Francis then quotes Pope Benedict XVI, at his homily, 11 October 2012, at the opening of the Year of Faith):

“… it is starting from the experience of this desert, from this void, that we can again discover the joy of believing, its vital importance for us, men and women. In the desert we rediscover the value of what is essential for living; thus in today’s world there are innumerable signs, often expressed implicitly or negatively, of the thirst for God, for the ultimate meaning of life. And in the desert people of faith are needed who, by the example of their own lives, point out the way to the Promised Land and keep hope alive”.  

In these situations we are called to be living sources of water from which others can drink. At times, this becomes a heavy cross, but it was from the cross, from his pierced side, that our Lord gave himself to us as a source of living water. Let us not allow ourselves to be robbed of hope!” 

It would be the subject of another reflection, to consider how joy overcomes pessimism, a pessimism that is very deep in some Christians. Let us trust that it can be done!

Father Jonathan