Pope: “We were not born to kill, but to make peoples grow”
The pontiff spoke this morning at the end of the Wednesday general audience, despite a bronchitis. “May paths of peace be found,” he said, in Ukraine, Palestine, Myanmar, South Sudan and in the “many countries that are at war”. The catechesis, read by a Vatican official, focused on the visit by the “malodorous” shepherds to the manger, men who “practice the occupation by which God himself makes himself known to his people.”
Vatican City (AsiaNews) – Pope Francis, despite a persistent bronchitis, appealed for peace in today’s General Audience in the Paul VI Hall in the Vatican.
"We were not born to kill, but to make peoples grow,” the pontiff said towards the end of the meeting. "May paths of peace be found. Please, in your daily prayer, ask for peace," he said after leaving the reading of the catechesis to Father Pierluigi Giroli, an official with the Secretariat of State who also lent his voice last week.
“My thoughts go to so many countries that are at war," Francis said. “Sisters, brothers, let us pray for peace. Let us do everything for peace. Do not forget that war is a defeat. Always".
The pontiff cited some of the nations embroiled in raging wars. "The martyred Ukraine, how much she suffers ...” His sad list also includes: " Palestine, Israel, Myanmar, North Kivu, South Sudan.”
Pope Francis also spoke about peace last night in a video message sent to the Sanremo Music Festival in Italy, broadcast worldwide. “Music is beauty, it is a tool for peace,” he said, while “Wars destroy children”.
Yesterday he also turned his thoughts to the little ones, for those "who cannot sing, cannot sing about life, and cry and suffer from the many injustices in the world, for the many wars, and situations of conflict.”
Father Giroli read the catechesis, on the birth of Jesus and the shepherds’ visit, which is part of the cycle of Jubilee teachings titled "Jesus Christ our hope”.
Francis began to read it after the Gospel passage about the angel's announcement to the shepherds (Lk 2:10-12) was read in various languages; but after a while, he gave the floor to the official. "With my bronchitis I can't yet [read]," he explained.
Today’s catechesis focused on the birth of Jesus in Bethlehem, which means "house of bread”, where he arrived after having wandered from Nazareth to his cousin Elizabeth’s house to register with Mary and Joseph following a decree by Caesar Augustus.
“The Son of God enters history as our travelling companion, and begins to travel while still in His mother's womb,” Father Giroli said. Thus, “God, who comes into history, does not dismantle the structures of the world, but wants to illuminate them and recreate them from within.”
Indeed, Jesus comes into the world where Mary's days of childbirth were fulfilled in a way “entirely unprecedented for a king”. The Son of God is not born in a royal palace, but at the back of a house, in the space where the animals are kept. In short, “he begins his journey in humility,” without "noise" nor “resounding proclamations”.
For this reason, some shepherds were the first witnesses of his historic birth, “men of little culture, malodorous from constant contact with the animals,” who “live on the margins of society. And yet they practice the occupation by which God himself makes himself known to his people.”
As the Evangelist Luke tells it, an angel comes to them to announce a "great joy" (v. 10), and so they go to the manger. Here they “learn that in a very humble place, reserved to the animals, the long-awaited Messiah is born, and he is born for them, to be their Saviour, their shepherd.”
“This news opens their hearts to wonder, praise and joyful proclamation.” Hence, “let us, too, ask for the grace of being, like the shepherds, capable of wonder and praise before God, and capable of cherishing what He has entrusted to us,” namely the ability “to discern in weakness the extraordinary strength of the Child God”.
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