Pope on the Feast of the Baptism of Jesus: I think of the mothers of soldiers who died in the war

New Angelus appeal "for Ukrainian and Russian mothers" who pay the price of conflict. In the Sistine Chapel the pope baptises 13 children. The pontiff recommends parents and godparents to teach children from an early age to pray and to remember each year the date of their own baptism.

Vatican City (AsiaNews) - "Seeing Our Lady carrying the Child in the crib, breastfeeding Him, I think of the mothers of the victims of the war, those in Ukraine and and those in Russia who have lost their child soldiers: this is the price of war."

This was Pope Francis' reflection today at the end of the Angelus on the Feast of the Baptism of Jesus. He also urged the faithful once again not to forget the "so many Ukrainian brothers and sisters who suffer so much because of this Christmas at war, without light, without homes."

The pope's day had begun in the Sistine Chapel by administering baptism to 13 children, children of Vatican employees. In his brief homily delivered to the parents, the pontiff said that this day "is like a birthday, because Baptism makes us reborn to Christian life. That is why I advise you to teach your children the date of Baptism, like a new birthday: that every year they may remember and thank God for this grace of having become Christians."

He went on to extend this invitation to all the faithful during the Angelus.

Recalling the task that falls to parents and godparents in accompanying them on the path begun with Baptism, Francis invited them to teach them to pray "because prayer will be what will give them strength throughout their lives: in good times, to thank God, and in bad times, to find strength." Praying especially to Our Lady: "It is said that when someone is angry with the Lord, or has strayed, Our Lady is always close by to make a way for them to come back," he added.

Then addressing the crowd in St. Peter's Square before the Angelus at noon, he invited them to reflect on why Jesus mixed with sinners by going to John the Baptist to receive his baptism.

"On the banks of the Jordan," he commented, "Jesus reveals to us the meaning of His mission: He came to fulfill divine justice, which is to save sinners; He came to take on His own shoulders the sin of the world and descend into the waters of the abyss, of death, so as to retrieve us and not drown us. He shows us that God's true justice is the mercy that saves, the love that shares our human condition, becomes close, sympathetic to our pain, entering into our darkness to bring back the light."

Hence the invitation to also make this attitude of Jesus our own: "Do not divide, but share. Let us do as Jesus did: let us share, let us carry each other's burdens let us look at each other with compassion, let us help each other. Let us ask ourselves: am I a divider or a sharer?"

• Pope Francis
• Angelus
• Vatican
• baptism
• children
• war
• Ukraine
• Russia
• mothers