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   LORD MAKE YOUR PROMISE TRUE: OF PEACE THERE WILL BE NO END   
      
   VATICAN CITY, 24 DEC 2010 (VIS) - The Pope tonight celebrated Midnight Mass in   
   the Vatican Basilica for the Solemnity of the Nativity of the Lord.   
      
   In the course of the Eucharistic celebration, following the reading of the   
   Gospel, the Holy Father delivered his homily.   
      
   "'You are my son, this day I have begotten you'. With this passage from Psalm 2   
   the Church begins the liturgy of this holy night. She knows that this passage   
   originally formed part of the coronation rite of the kings of Israel. The king,   
   who in himself is a man like others, becomes the 'Son of God' through being   
   called and installed in his office. It is a kind of adoption by God, a decisive   
   act by which He grants a new existence to this man, drawing him into His own   
   being".   
      
   "Installation in the office of king is like a second birth. As one newly born   
   through God's personal choice, as a child born of God, the king embodies hope.   
   On his shoulders the future rests. He is the bearer of the promise of peace. On   
   that night in Bethlehem this prophetic saying came true. ... Yes indeed, now it   
   really is a child on whose shoulders government is laid. In Him the new   
   kingship appears that God establishes in the world. ... In the weakness of   
   infancy, He is the mighty God and He shows us God's own might in contrast to   
   the self-asserting powers of this world.   
      
   "Truly, the words of Israel's coronation rite were only ever rites of hope   
   which looked ahead to a distant future that God would bestow. None of the kings   
   who were greeted in this way lived up to the sublime content of these words.   
   ... Thus the fulfilment of the prophecy, which began that night in Bethlehem,   
   is both infinitely greater and in worldly terms smaller than the prophecy   
   itself might lead one to imagine. ... The infinite distance between God and man   
   is overcome. ... He has truly 'come down', He has come into the world, He has   
   become one of us, in order to draw all of us to Himself. ... He has truly built   
   islands of peace in the world-encompassing breadth of the holy Eucharist.   
   Wherever it is celebrated, an island of peace arises, of God's own peace. This   
   Child has ignited the light of goodness in men and has given them strength to   
   overcome the tyranny of might. This child builds His kingdom in every   
   generation from within, from the heart.   
      
   "But at the same time it is true that the 'rod of his oppressor' is not yet   
   broken, the boots of warriors continue to tramp and the 'garment rolled in   
   blood' still remains. So part of this night is simply joy at God's closeness.   
   We are grateful that God gives Himself into our hands as a Child, begging as it   
   were for our love, implanting His peace in our hearts. But this joy is also a   
   prayer: Lord, make your promise come fully true. Break the rods of the   
   oppressors. Burn the tramping boots. Let the time of the garments rolled in   
   blood come to an end. Fulfil the prophecy that 'of peace there will be no end'.   
   We thank you for your goodness, but we also ask you to show forth your power.   
   Establish the dominion of your truth and your love in the world, the 'kingdom   
   of righteousness, love and peace'.   
      
   "'Mary gave birth to her first-born son'. ... In the language which developed   
   within the sacred Scripture of the Old Covenant, 'first-born' does not mean the   
   first of a series of children. The word 'first-born' is a title of honour,   
   quite independently of whether other brothers and sisters follow. ... The   
   first-born belongs to God in a special way, and is as it were destined for   
   sacrifice. In Jesus' sacrifice on the Cross this destiny of the first-born is   
   fulfilled in a unique way. In His person He brings humanity before God and   
   unites man with God in such a way that God becomes all in all. ... Man can be   
   the image of God because Jesus is both God and man, the true image of God and   
   of man". Furthermore, "He is the first-born from the dead. In the resurrection   
   He has broken down the wall of death for all of us. He has opened up to man the   
   dimension of eternal life in fellowship with God. ... Now He really is the   
   first of a series of brothers and sisters: the first, that is, who opens up for   
   us the possibility of communing with God. He creates true brotherhood - not the   
   kind defiled by sin as in the case of Cain and Abel, or Romulus and Remus - but   
   the new brotherhood in which we are God's own family".   
      
   "At the end of the Christmas Gospel, we are told that a great heavenly host of   
   angels praised God and said: 'Glory to God in the highest and on earth peace   
   among men with whom he is pleased!'. The Church has extended this song of   
   praise, which the angels sang in response to the event of the holy night, into   
   a hymn of joy at God's glory. ... The appearing of beauty, of the beautiful,   
   makes us happy without our having to ask what use it can serve. ... But the   
   angels' message on that holy night also spoke of men: 'Peace among men with   
   whom he is pleased'. The Latin translation of the angels' song that we use in   
   the liturgy, taken from St. Jerome, is slightly different: 'peace to men of   
   good will'. ... It would be a false interpretation to see this exclusively as   
   the action of God, as if He had not called man to a free response of love. But   
   it would be equally mistaken to adopt a moralising interpretation as if man   
   were so to speak able to redeem himself by his good will. Both elements belong   
   together: grace and freedom, God's prior love for us, without which we could   
   not love Him, and the response that He awaits from us. We cannot divide up into   
   independent entities the interplay of grace and freedom, or the interplay of   
   call and response. The two are inseparably woven together".   
      
   "St. Luke does not say that the angels sang. He states quite soberly: the   
   heavenly host praised God and said: 'Glory to God in the highest'. But men have   
   always known that the speech of angels is different from human speech, and that   
   above all on this night of joyful proclamation it was in song that they   
   extolled God's heavenly glory. ... At this hour, full of thankfulness, we join   
   in the singing of all the centuries, singing that unites heaven and earth,   
   angels and men".   
   HML/VIS 20101228 (1150)   
      
   SUMMARY   
      
   --- MPost/386 v1.21   
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