Angelus: for the pope, peace ‘is the responsibility of the entire human family’
Francis appealed again for peace at the Angelus: “let us all cooperate to build it with gestures of compassion and courage!” He also turned his thoughts to the people in East Asia and around the world set to celebrate lunar New Year on 10 February. May this feast “be an opportunity to experience relationships of affection” and “contribute to creating a society of solidarity and fraternity”. On the Day for Life promoted by the Italian Church, the pontiff expressed hope “that ideological visions can be overcome so as to rediscover that every human life [. . .] has an immense value”.
Vatican City (AsiaNews) – During today’s Angelus, the Fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time, the first of the month of February, Pope Francis issued another plea for peace.
“As I invoke the Lord’s blessing for everyone,” he said, “I invite you to pray for peace, for which the world longs so much and which, today more than ever, is endangered in many places.”
In his address, the pontiff also noted that peace “is not the responsibility of a few, but of the entire human family”.
This new appeal comes on the fifth anniversary of the signing in Abu Dhabi of the Document on Human Fraternity for World Peace and Living Together.
“[L]et us all cooperate to build it (peace) with gestures of compassion and courage!” Francis said, with thoughts for “the populations who suffer as a result of war, especially in Ukraine, Palestine and Israel.”
The Holy Father also mentioned the "millions of families" who, in East Asia and elsewhere in the world, will celebrate the Lunar New Year on 10 February, who are therefore getting ready to experience a time of self-examination and transition.
“I send them my warm greeting, with the hope that this feast may be an opportunity to experience relationships of affection and gestures of care, which contribute to creating a society of solidarity and fraternity”.
Indeed, for Francis, society ought to be a place where everyone is “recognized and welcomed in his or her inalienable dignity.”
The pontiff also turned his attention to the 46th National Day for Life, which is being celebrated today. From the window of the Apostolic Palace overlooking St Peter's Square, he spoke to members of pro-life groups and associations present on this sunny Sunday with spring weather.
“I join with the Italian bishops in hoping that ideological visions can be overcome so as to rediscover that every human life, even those most marked by limitations, has an immense value.” The means “giving something to others.”
Francis addressed a special greeting to the young people who came to Rome from many countries in the world for the Day of Prayer and Reflection against Trafficking in Persons, which falls on 8 February, in memory of Saint Josephine Bakhita, a Sudanese nun who died in Schio (Italy) in 1947.
The saint “was enslaved as a child”, the pope said, to highlight the tragedy that slavery remains a major social issue even now. “Today too,” he lamented, “many brothers and sisters are deceived with false promises and are then subjected to exploitation and abuse. Let us all join to counter the dramatic global phenomenon of human trafficking,” which he described in 2015 as “a shameful wound”.
Commenting on the Word of the day (Mk 1:29-39) before the recitation of the Angelus, Francis focused on the figure of Jesus, who is represented in “continual movement."
In Mark's account, Jesus performs a series of deeds. After leaving the synagogue, he went to the house of Simon Peter, where he healed the latter’s mother-in-law and other sick and possessed people. Then, in the morning, he retired to pray and later set out again "across Galilee".
In doing so, Jesus “goes towards wounded humanity”, showing “the face of the Father”. God is thus not “a detached master who speaks to us from on high,” but “a Father filled with love”, with three main traits – “closeness, compassion and tenderness”.
This “incessant walking” challenges all the faithful. The question for Pope Francis is whether the face of God that emerges from today's Gospel is the same as the one we encounter in life, or if “we believe and proclaim a cold God, a distant God”.
He asks, “Does faith instil in us the restlessness of journeying or is it an intimist consolation for us, that calms us?” For the Holy Father, we should look at the way Jesus moved, noting that the "first spiritual task " consists in abandoning the “God we think we know” to convert to the one shown in the Gospel, the “Father of love" and “compassion.”
When we meet the latter, “our faith matures: we no longer remain ‘sacristy Christians’, or ‘parlour Christians’,” instead, “we feel called to become bearers of God’s hope and healing."
At the end, as he does every Sunday, Francis concluded his address by asking the faithful to pray for him.
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