ADDRESSES, DISCOURSES, MESSAGES

On the last day of 2007, the Holy Father presided at Vespers and other ceremonies at St. Peter's Basilica, during which he delivered the homily translated here. Vespers was followed by a Te Deum to give thanks for the past year, the exposition and adoration of the Blessed Sacrament, and the Pope's Eucharistic Benediction.


Dear brothers and sisters!

As this year closes, we are gathered again at the Vatican Basilica to celebrate the First Vespers of the Solemnity of Mary, the Most Blessed Mother of God. The liturgy makes this significant Marian feast coincide with the end and beginning of the solar year.

To our contemplation of the mystery of the divine maternity, we also unite our song of gratitude for 2007 which is departing and for 2008 which we are about to greet.

Time passes, and its inexorable flow leads us to turn our look of intimate acknowledgment to Him who is eternal, to the Lord of time. Let us thank him together, dear brothers and sisters, in the name of the entire diocesan community of Rome.

I greet each of you - first of all, the Cardinal Vicar, the auxiliary bishops, the priests, consecrated persons and so many lay faithful who are gathered here today.

I great the Mayor and other authorities present and extend my thoughts to the entire population of Rome, and in a special way, to those who are in difficulty and trouble. I assure everyone of my heartfelt closeness, and constant remembrance in my prayers.

In the brief reading which we heard earlier, taken from the Letter to the Galatians, St. Paul, speaking of the liberation of man worked by God through the mystery of the Incarnation, refers very discreetly to her through whom the Son of God entered the world: ":When the fullness of time came," he wrote, "God sent his son, born of a woman" (Gal 4,4).

In that 'woman', the Church sees the lineaments of Mary of Nazareth, a singular woman who she was chosen to realize a mission that placed her in the closest relationship to Christ - an absolutely unique relationship, because Mary is the Mother of the Savior.

But on the same evidence, we can and should affirm that she is our mother, too, because in living her most singular maternal relationship with her Son, she shared in the mission for us and for the salvation of all men.

In contemplating her, the Church sees itself: Mary lived in faith and charity; Mary is a creature who was saved herself by the only Savior; Mary collaborates in the initiative of salvation for all mankind. That is how Mary constitutes for the Church her own true image: she in whom the church community must continue discovering the authentic sense of its vocation and its own mystery.

This short but dense Pauline passage proceeds by showing how the fact that the Son had assumed human nature opens the perspective to a radical change in man's very condition. It says that "God sent his son....to ransom those under the law, so that we might receive adoption" (Gal 4,5).

The Word incarnate internally transforms human existence, making us take part in his being as the Son of God. He made himself like us so we may become like him: Children in the Son, therefore men released from the law of sin.

Is this not a fundamental reason for us to raise to God our gratitude? A gratitude which can only be even more motivated at the end of the year, considering the many benefits of his constant assistance that we experienced in the past twelve months.

That is why every Christian community tonight gathers to sing the Te Deum, traditional hymn of praise and thanksgiving to the Most Holy Trinity. This we will do ourselves, at the end of this our liturgical encounter, before the Blessed Sacrament.

Singing, we will pray: "Te ergo, quaesumus, tuis famulis subveni, quos pretioso sanguine redemisti" – Help, we pray to you, your children, Lord, whom you have redeemed with your precious blood.

This is our prayer tonight: Help, Lord, with your mercy, the residents of our city, in whom, among other things, grave deficiencies and poverty weigh on the life of persons and families, preventing them from looking at the future with confidence; not a few, above all young people, are attracted by a false exaltation, or better, a profanation of the body, and the banalization of sexuality. How to even enumerate the multiple challenges linked to consumerism and secularism which face believers and men of goodwill?

In short, even in Rome, one notes that deficit of hope and trust in life which constitutes the 'hidden' evil of modern Western society.

But if the deficiencies are evident, there is no lack of bright points and causes for hope about which to ask for special divine blessing. Precisely in this perspective, in singing the Te Deum, we will pray: "Salvum fac populum tuum, Domine, et benedic hereditati tuae" - Save your [people, Lord, guard and protect, in particular, the diocesan community, committed with growing vigor on the frontiers of education, to respond to that great 'educational emergency' of which I spoke last July to the participants of the diocesan convention - the difficulty that one notes in transmitting to the new generations the base values for existence and of correct behavior (cfr L'Osservatore Romano, 13 June 2007, p. 4).

Without great noise, with patient trust, we are seeking to cope with such an emergency, especially where the family is concerned, and it is comforting to note that the work that has been undertaken in these past few years by the parishes, by movements and associations for family ministry continues to develop and to bear fruit.

Also protect, Lord, the missionary initiatives which involve the world of the youth: they are growing, and we are now seeing a very relevant number of young people assuming firsthand the responsibility and the joy of announcing and bearing witness to the Gospel.

In this context, how can we not thank God for the precious pastoral service offered to the world by the Roman universities? It is right that something analogous should happen, although with not a few difficulties, even in the schools.

Bless, Lord, the many young people and adults who in the last decades have consecrated themselves to the priesthood in the Diocese of Rome. Right now, 28 deacons are awaiting priestly ordination this April. This way, the median age of the clergy is getting younger, and it will be possible to face the expansion if pastoral needs as well as to help other dioceses.

The need is increasing, especially in the peripheries, for new parochial facilities, eight of which are under construction. I myself had the pleasure of consecrating the last one completed: the parish church of Santa Maria del Rosario at Martiri Portuensi. It is beautiful to experience firsthand the joy and the gratitude of the residents of a district when they enter their new church for the first time.

"In te, Domine, speravi: non confundar in aeternum" – Lord, you are our hope, and we will not be confused in eternity. The majestic hymn of the Te Deum ends with this cry of faith, of total trust in God, with this solemn proclamation of our hope.

Christ is our 'reliable' hope, to which theme I dedicated the recent encyclical Spe salvi. But our hope is always essentially hope for others as well, and only thus is it truly hope for each of us (cfr No. 48).

Dear brothers and sisters of the Church of Rome, let us ask the Lord to make of each of us a true ferment of hope in various fields so that we may construct a better future for our city. This is my wish for everybody on the eve of a new year, a wish which I entrust to the maternal intercession of Mary, Mother of God and Star of Hope. Amen!