Vatican City, Jan 4, 2010 / 10:28 am
Pope Benedict XVI delivered a stirring message from the window of his apartment in the Vatican Palace above a packed St. Peter’s Square on Sunday. Before reciting the Angelus, he welcomed the New Year with an invitation to hope and a reminder that the faithful have a responsibility to collaborate with God.
The Pope began by saying that despite problems in the Church, the world and our family lives, we can always trust in God to be our hope, a hope that does not rely on “improbable prognostications” or “economic forecasts.” This is also not a hope in a “generic religiosity, or in a fatalism feigned as faith.”
“We trust in the God that revealed completely and definitively in Jesus Christ His will to be with man, to share his story, to guide us all to His kingdom of love and life,” continued the Holy Father.
The Pontiff referred to the three biblical readings from Sunday’s Eucharistic liturgy as being “of extraordinary wealth” in illuminating this revelation. “These texts,” he explained, “affirm that God is not only creator of the universe – an aspect also in common to other religions – but that He is the Father… .”