The end of a old year and the beginning of a new is a time for prayer, a time for gratitude and hope. The Pope’s schedule during these days is a busy one.

Yesterday, he prayed Vespers at St. Peter’s and afterwards blessed the crib of the really big Nativity in St. Peter’s Square:

There are no official English translations anywhere, of course, but Teresa at PRF has been on the job.

Vespers:

On this evening of December 31, two different perspectives converge: one is the end of the calendar year, the other is the solemn liturgy of Mary, the Most Blessed Mother of God, which concludes the Octave of the Nativity. The first event is common to everyone, the second is for believers.

Their convergence gives these vesper celebrations a sungular character, a particular spiritual climate which invites us to reflection.

The first occasion, very suggestive, is linked to the dimension of time. In the final hours of the solar year, we assist at so many wordly ‘rites’ that are, in the present context, predominantly devoted to entertainment, and often lived as an escape from reality, almost as if to exorcise its negative aspects and to propitiate improbable good fortune.

How different should the attitude of the Christian community be!
The Church is called on to live these hours by taking on the sentiments of the Virgin Mary. Together with her, we are invited to look on the Baby Jesus – a new sun that has appeared on the horizon of humanity, and comforted by His light, urges us to present to Him ‘the joys and hopes, the sowrrows and anguish of men today, especially the poor and all who suffer." (Vat. Council II. Gaudium et spes,1).

Thus, two different valuations of the dimension ‘time’ confront each other – one quantitative, the other qualitative. On the one hand, the solar cycle, with its rhythms; on the other, that which St. Paul calls ‘the fullness of time'(Gal 4,4), that is, the culminating moment of the history of the universe and the human species, when the Son of God is born to the world.

The time of promises is fulfilled, and when Mary’s pregnancy reaches term, "earth," as a psalm says, "gave forth its fruit." (Ps 68,7).

The coming of the Messiah, pre-announced by the prophets, is the event that is qualitatively the most important in history, on whom it confers its ultimate and full sense.

The homily today, as reported by AsiaNews:

Benedict XVI stressed several issues in the homily he delivered today on the occasion of the solemnity of Mary, Mother of God, but also the 40th World Peace Day. During the 10 am mass, he spoke about peace as God’s gift that one can invoke through Mary, Mother of the Prince of Peace, but also as a commitment that human beings can make together, tirelessly and with courage. He made a painful appeal and offered an insistent prayer for

Bethlehem

and the land where Jesus was born so that “in this region the day of peace may finally arrive, the day in which the ongoing conflict that has lasted far too long may be finally resolved”. Above all he called for conversion in the way we look at the bases of human rights, which should not be seen as the outcome of human agreements but are rather vested in man’s own nature and “his inalienable dignity as a person created by God”.

The Italian text of today’s Angelus.

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