ANGELUS TODAY
The Holy Father led the noontime Angelus at St. Peter's Square today looking well after the Christmas Eve assault in St. Peter's Basilica by a 25-year-old Swiss-Italian woman with psychiatric problems.
He spoke about St. Stephen whose feast is celebrated today. Here is what he said in English:
As we continue our celebration of this joyful Christmas season, I warmly greet all the English-speaking visitors and pilgrims gathered here in Saint Peter’s Square.
Together with Christians across the globe, we rejoice at the birth of our Saviour, Prince of Peace and light of the world.
Today we honour the Church’s first martyr, Saint Stephen, who was fearless in bearing witness to Christ and who shed his blood for love of him.
We pray for those Christians who suffer persecution today. And we commend to the intercession of their heavenly patron, Saint Stephen, all deacons and altar servers. May God bless all of you!
Here is a full translation of the Pope's words today:
Dear brothers and sisters,
With ort spirits still full of wonder and inundated by the light that shone forth from the cave in Bethlehem, where with Mary, Joseph and the shepherds, we adored our Savior, today we remember the deacon St. Stephen, the first Christian martyr.
His example helps us to better penetrate the mystery of the Nativity and testifies to the wonderful grandeur of the birth of the Baby in whom the grace of God is manifest, bearing salvation for all men (cfr Tt 2,11).
The baby wailing in the manger is indeed the Son of God made man, who asks us to bear witness to his Gospel with courage, as St. Stephen did, who, filled with the Holy Spirit, did not hesitate to give his life for love of his Lord.
Like his Master, he died forgiving his persecutors, and makes us understand that the entry of the Son of God into the world gave birth to a new civilization, the civilization of love, which does not yield in the face of evil and violence, and brings down the barrers between men, making them brothers in the great family of the children of God.
Stephen was also the first deacon of the Church, who, by making himself the servant of the poor for love of Christ, entered progressively into full harmony with him and followed him up to the final gift of himself.
Stephen's testimony, like that of all the Christian martyrs, shows contemporary men, often distracted and disoriented, in whom to place our trust in order to give sense to life.
The martyr is, in fact, one who dies in the certainty that he is loved by God, and without placing anything ahead of Christ's love, knows he has made the better choice.
By configuring himself fully to the death of Christ, he is aware that he is a fertile seed of life who opens paths of peace and hope for the world.
Today, by presenting the deacon St. Stephen as a model for us, the Church also shows us, among other things, that caring and love for the poor is one of the privileged ways to live the Gospel and bear witness credibly to men of the coming Kingdom of God.
The feast of St. Stephen also reminds us of so many believers in many parts of the world who are undergoing trials and suffering because of their faith.
Entrusting them to his celestial protection, let us also commit ourselves to sustaining them with prayers, and never to fall short of our Christian calling, always placing Jesus Christ in the center of our life, whom we contemplate these days in the simplicity and humility of the manger.
For this, let us ask the intercession of Mary, Mother of the Redeemer and Queen of Martyrs, as we pray the Angelus.
I went back to bring up the photos of Benedict XVI leading his first Angelus on May 1, 2005 -
and enlarged as best as I could two of the frames
and they might as well have been taken today!
[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 26/12/2009 17:22]