ANGELUS TODAY
The Holy Father spoke about Jesus's words from today's Gospel on his words 'which will not pass away'. After the prayers, he acknowledged the work last week of the European Bishops' Commission for the Media on how the Church can best avail of the new information technologies.
However, his emphasis was different in his greeting to English-speaking pilgrims:
During this month of November, we remember especially the Holy Souls in Purgatory. In recent days we prayed for those who lost their lives in war, and on this World Day of Remembrance for Road Traffic Victims, we pray for all who have been killed or injured in road accidents.
As we commend their souls to the loving mercy of Almighty God, we also invoke his consolation upon their families and loved ones.
For those of you who have travelled long distances to be here today, I pray that you may have a safe homeward journey. May God bless all of you, and your families and friends.
Here is a translation of the Pope's words at Angelus today:
Dear brothers and sisters:
We have reached the last two weeks of the liturgical year. Let us thank the Lord that he has allowed us to complete once more this path of faith - ancient and ever new - in the Church's great spiritual family.
It is an invaluable gift that allows us to live in history the mystery of Christ, receiving into the furrows of our personal and communitarian life the seed of the Word of God, the seed of eternity which transforms this world from within and opens it to the Kingdom of the heavens.
In our itinerary through Sunday Biblical readings, we have been accompanied by the Gospel of St. Mark, which presents us today with part of Jesus's discourse on the end of times.
There is a sentence in it that strikes us for its synthesizing clarity: "Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away" (Mk 13,31). Let us stop to reflect on this prophecy of Christ.
The expression 'heaven and earth' is used often in the Bible to indicate all of the universe, the entire cosmos. Jesus says that all this is destined to 'pass away'. Not just the earth, but also heaven, which is understood here in the cosmic sense and not as a synonym for God.
Sacred Scripture does not have ambiguities: all creation is marked by finitude, including elements that were divinized in ancient mythologies. There is no confusion whatsoever between Creation and the Creator, but a clear difference.
With such clear distinction, Jesus states that his words 'will not pass away", that is, they are from God and therefore are eternal. Although pronounced in the concreteness of his human existence, they are words of prophecy par excellence, as Jesus says elsewhere when addressing the heavenly Father: "The words you gave to me I have given to them, and they accepted them and truly understood that I came from you, and they have believed that you sent me" (Jn 17,8).
In a famous parable, Christ likens himself to a sower and explains that the seed is the Word of God (cfr Mk 4,14): those who heed it, accept it and bear fruit (cfr Mk 4,20), are part of the Kingdom of God, that is, they live under his lordship. They remain in the world but are no longer of the world - they carry in themselves a seed of eternity, a principle of transformation that is manifested even today in a good life, inspired by charity, and will in the end result in the resurrection of teh body. And that is the power of the Word of Christ.
Dear friends, the Virgin Mary is the living sign of this truth. Her heart was 'good earth' which received the Word of God with full disposition, so that her whole existence, transformed by the image of the Son, was introduced to eternity, body and soul, anticipating the eternal calling of every human being.
How, in prayer, let us make ours her response to the Angel: "Be it done to me according to your Word" (Lk 1,38), so that in following Christ on the Way of the Cross, we too may reach the glory of resurrection.
After the prayers, he had these special messages:
I wish first of all to address a special greeting to the participants of the Plenary Assembly of the European Bishops' Commission for Media, who met this week at the Vatican.
Dearest ones, you confronted the culture of the Internet and communications within the Church. I thank you for your well-qualified contribution to this topic of great relevance.
I also wish to point out that today, Ivrea in the Piedmont region is observing Thanksgiving Day. I gladly join spiritually all those who are grateful to the Lord for the fruits of the earth and man's labor, renewing my urgent appeal for respect of the natural environment, a precious resource that is entrusted to our responsibility.
To Polish pilgrims, he said:
Today is the World Day in memory of victims of road accidents. I entrust the victims to God's mercy, and I encourage all who drive around the world to prudence, to a sense of responsibility for the gift of good health and of one's own life and that of others.
May the Lord protect all who travel and bless them all.
At the end, he said this in Italian:
Also present today in St. Peter's Square are Cardinal Adrianus Simonis with some prelates, civilian authorities and faithful from the Netherlands, who, in celebrating these days their Patron Saint Willibrord, have marked their visit to Rome in the national church of Saints Michael and Magnus of the Frisians.
I call on everyone to always be the living stones of the Church of Christ, and to intensify the bonds of communion with the See of Peter.
[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 15/11/2009 22:17]