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The Solemnity of Mary, Mother of God.
36th World Day of Peace.
St. Colman’s Cathedral, Cobh.
1st January 2003.
Homily
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“ The shepherds went back glorifying and praising God
For all they had heard and seen; it was exactly as they had been told”
( Lk. 2:20).
We are brought back to the Manger again
today, my dear People, to contemplate with the Shepherds the scene of the Birth
of the Saviour, Jesus, the Son of God and of Mary. We find the Mother and the
Foster-Father with the Child and we find the shepherds overcome with joy because
what they were witnessing was “exactly as they had been told” by the Angels.
All was in order. There was no disorder. And so today we celebrate with them and
indeed with the whole Church the great reality of the Mother of Jesus, Mary, and
we praise God for having called Her into the role of Motherhood in the
Incarnation of His Son, Jesus.
Today we also celebrate the 36th
World Day of Peace, a celebration established some 36 years ago by the venerated
Pontiff, Pope Paul VI and continued under the Pontificate of the present Pope.
John Paul II. Each year the Pope chooses a Theme for this celebration and this
year Pope John Paul II chose to recall that some 40 years ago, his venerated
predecessor, Blessed John XXIII published his well known Encyclical Letter Pacem
in Terris. The theme of this
year’s celebration of the World Day of Peace is: Pacem
in Terris: A Permanent Commitment. The Pope recalls the very first sentence
of that Encyclical: “ Peace on earth, which all men of every era have most
eagerly yearned for, can be firmly established and sustained only if the order
laid down by God be dutifully observed”.
Blessed John XXIII was addressing a world that was torn and divided, a world where suspicion and a lack of trust among regimes and nations was rampant, where the newly built Berlin Wall was indicative of the depths to which humankind had sunk after the Second World War. And yet, Pope John was confident that peace was possible. He “identified the essential conditions for peace in four precise requirements of the human spirit: truth, justice, love and freedom. Truth, he said, will build peace if every individual sincerely acknowledges not only his rights but also his own duties towards others. Justice will build peace if in practice everyone respects the rights of others and actually fulfils his duties towards them. Love will build peace if people feel the needs of others as their own and share what they have with others, especially the values of mind and spirit which they possess. Freedom will build peace and make it thrive if, in the choice of means to that end, people act according to reason and assume responsibility for their own actions”.
Pope John XXIII was a person who had a
prophetic vision of the future. He sincerely believed in the human person, loved
and redeemed by Christ, and he believed in the necessity of guaranteeing for
every human person basic human rights within the world family while at the same
time upholding the universal common good. Peace and order would be guaranteed if
the fine balance between the individual human rights and duties on the one hand
and the necessity to respect the universal common good of all on the other be
maintained. Pope John taught that “ the road to peace lay in the defence and
promotion of basic human rights, which every human being enjoys, not as a
benefit given by a different social class or conceded by the State, but simply
because of our humanity”. He welcomed the establishment of the United Nations
Organisation in 1945 and the subsequent publishing in 1948 the Universal
Declaration of Human Rights.
Despite all the initiatives taken, the guarantees given and the significant progress made over the forty years towards the implementation of Pope John’s noble vision, the present Holy Father, Pope John Paul II, in his Message for this World Day of Peace, looks realistically at the world of today and states: “ That there is a serious disorder in world affairs is obvious. Thus the question to be faced remains: What kind of order can replace this disorder, so that men and women can live in freedom, justice and security? And since”, he continues, “ the world, amid its disorder, continues nevertheless to be ‘ordered’ and organized in various ways - economic, cultural, even political - there arises another equally urgent question: On what principles are these new forms of world order unfolding?”. His Holiness asserts that the “ problem of peace rightly understood cannot be separated from issues of moral principle” and he challenges the world with the question: “ Is this not the time for all to work together for a new constitutional organization of the human family, truly capable of ensuring peace and harmony between peoples, as well as their integral development?”. Such an organization would work towards respect for the fundamental rights of the human person at all levels, the right to life, the right to full employment and a just wage, the right to freedom of the practice of religion and of expression and many others which would make up a Charter of Rights and Duties incumbent on the whole human family to respect and promote. Promises given and not respected are a violation of truth, whether at the individual level or at the communal or international levels. The Holy Father insists that there is an unbreakable bond between the work of peace and respect for truth. Only in this way can the very oxygen of peace be created by the establishment of genuine trust among peoples and nations. He expresses his deep concern for the dramatic situation in the Middle East and particularly in the Land of Jesus, the Holy Land. Only by genuine trust and dialogue can such situations be brought under the mantle of respect, justice and peace
The Holy Father calls on all to build a
‘ culture of peace’ and he recommends that this be done by making genuine
gestures of peace. “ Gestures of
peace”, he states, “ spring from the lives of people who foster peace first of all in their own hearts. They are the work of
the heart and of reason in those who are peacemakers( cf. Mt. 5:9). Gestures
of peace”, he continues, “ are possible when people appreciate
fully the community dimension of their lives, so that they grasp the meaning
and consequences of events in their own communities and in the world. Gestures
of peace”, he affirms, “create a tradition and a culture of peace”. In
the context of building peace and nourishing it with genuine gestures of peace,
the Holy Father writes in his Message: “ Religion
has a vital role in fostering gestures of peace and in consolidating conditions
for peace. It exercises this role all the more effectively if it
concentrates on what is proper to it: attention to God, the fostering of
universal brotherhood and the spreading of a culture of human solidarity”.
In concluding his Message for this 36th
World Day of Peace, Pope John Paul II recalls us to that vision expressed by
Blessed John XXIII in his Encyclical Pacem
in Terris, a vision based on his trust in Divine Providence, that peace is
possible. The Holy Father states: “ On this World Day of Peace 2003, let us
all resolve to have his same outlook: trust in the merciful and compassionate
God who calls us to brotherhood, and confidence in the men and women of our time
because, like those of every other time, they bear the image of God in their
souls. It is on this basis that we can hope to build a world of peace on
earth”. And he prays: “ I accompany this hope with a prayer to Almighty God,
the source of all our good. May he who calls us from oppression and conflict to
freedom and cooperation for the good of all help people everywhere to build a
world of peace ever more solidly established on the four pillars indicated by
Blessed Pope John XXIII in his historic Encyclical: truth, justice, love, freedom”.
My dear
people, let us all endeavour to build and order our lives on these four pillars
so that in our relationships with one another, in the home and family, in
society at large and internationally, we may ensure that the disorder that
continues to disturb our world may be dispelled by the Presence of the Saviour
in our lives. May His Light dispel the darkness, may His Grace overcome sin, may
His love change hearts and may the order which He wishes to have established in
our world become a reality under the Mantle of the Virgin Mother, so that truly,
with the shepherds, we can glorify and praise God for it will be just as He has
told us: “ Peace I bequeath to you, my own peace I give you, a peace the world
cannot give, this is my gift to you” ( Jn. 14:27).
May you all have a most blessed and happy New Year and may you always walk in trust with Jesus and Mary.
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