{"id":2901,"date":"2007-02-18T12:20:48","date_gmt":"2007-02-18T12:20:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/viamedia\/2007\/02\/happy-new-year.html"},"modified":"2007-02-18T12:20:48","modified_gmt":"2007-02-18T12:20:48","slug":"happy-new-year","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2007\/02\/happy-new-year.html","title":{"rendered":"Happy New Year!"},"content":{"rendered":"

Benedict, in today’s Angelus message:<\/a><\/p>\n

\n
\n

In his greeting to the faithful, the pope also had something to say about China, confirming the country to be one of the matters occupying his mind. After reciting the Marian prayer, as he recalled that \u201cin various countries of the East the Lunar New Year is being celebrated with joy and in the intimacy of the family\u201d, Benedict XVI sent \u201cto all those great peoples\u201d best wishes of \u201cserenity and prosperity\u201d. <\/p>\n

China and its neighbouring countries celebrating the New Year \u2013 the biggest feast of the whole year \u2013 were not the only places far from Rome that the Pope referred to. Benedict XVI said he was close to the hardships facing the people of Guinea and also mentioned the Polish clergy. Talking about Guinea, he said: \u201cThe bishops of that nation expressed to me their apprehension about the situation of social paralysis with general strikes and violent reactions, which has claimed many victims. In calling for respect for human and civil rights, I assure of my prayers so that the common good and recourse to the way of dialogue may lead to overcoming of the crisis.\u201d As for Poland, the pope greeted believers from that country and implicitly referred to difficulties facing some members of the clergy due to accusations of collaboration with the Communist regime. The pope said that \u201cas per an initiative of the bishops, this coming Ash Wednesday in Poland will be a day of \u2018prayer and penitence for all the Polish clergy\u2019. May the prayer for the holiness of priests fill all the faithful with a spirit of forgiveness, reconciliation and mutual trust.\u201d<\/p>\n

Before the Marian prayer, Benedict XVI talked about \u201cone of the most typical and strongest excerpts of the preaching of Jesus. \u2018Love<\/em> your enemies\u2019<\/em> (Lk 6:27).\u201d He asked: \u201cBut what is the meaning of these words of his? Why does Jesus ask us to love our enemies, that is, a love that surpasses human capacity? In reality, the suggestion of Christ is realistic because it takes into account that there is too much<\/em> violence, too much<\/em> injustice in the world and therefore the situation cannot be overcome unless it is countered by more<\/em> love and more<\/em> goodness. This \u2018more\u2019<\/em> comes from God: it is his mercy, which became flesh in Jesus and alone can \u2018turn the balance\u2019 of the world away from evil towards good, starting from that small and decisive \u2018world\u2019 that is the heart of man.\u201d<\/p>\n

The pope continued: \u201cThis gospel page is rightly considered to be the magna carta<\/em> of Christian nonviolence, which consists not of giving in to evil \u2013 according to a false interpretation of \u2018turning the other cheek\u2019 (cfr Lk 6:29) \u2013 but in responding to evil with good (cfr Rm 12: 17-21), thus breaking the chains of injustice. Then it is understood that for Christians, nonviolence is not merely tactical behaviour but rather a personal way of being, the attitude of one who is so convinced of the love and strength of God<\/em> that he is not afraid to face evil armed with just the weapons of love and truth. Loving one\u2019s enemy constitutes the nucleus of the \u2018Christian revolution\u2019, a revolution based not on strategies of economic, political or mediating power. The revolution of love, a love that ultimately does not depend on human resources but is a gift of God that is obtained by trusting uniquely and without reservations in his merciful goodness. This is the news of the Gospel, which changes the world without making any noise about it. This is the heroism of the \u2018little ones\u2019 who believe in the love of God and spread it even at the cost of their life\u201d. <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Benedict, in today’s Angelus message: In his greeting to the faithful, the pope also had something to say about China, confirming the country to be one of the matters occupying his mind. After reciting the Marian prayer, as he recalled that \u201cin various countries of the East the Lunar New Year is being celebrated with…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":180,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2901","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"yoast_head":"\nHappy New Year! - Via Media<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2007\/02\/happy-new-year.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Happy New Year! - Via Media\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Benedict, in today’s Angelus message: In his greeting to the faithful, the pope also had something to say about China, confirming the country to be one of the matters occupying his mind. 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The Catholicism comes from her side. Amy grew up in a number of places - Indiana - Washington, DC - Lubbock Texas - Arlington, Virginia - DeKalb, Illinois - Lawrence, Kansas - and Knoxville, Tennessee, where the family settled in 1973. She attended Knoxville Catholic High School, then the University of Tennessee where she majored in history. She received an MA in Church History from Vanderbilt University, where she wrote a thesis on the changing role of women in 19th century American Protestantism, and the ways Scripture was used to justify those changes. She worked as as a teacher in Catholic high schools and a Parish Director of Religious Education and started writing for the diocesan press - the Florida Catholic - in 1988. Amy has written columns for Our Sunday Visitor and Catholic News Service at times over the past twenty years. Her articles have been published in venues ranging from Our Sunday Visitor to the New York Times to Commonweal. She has written 17 books. 18, if you included the as yet tragically unpublished novel. Amy has five children, ranging in age from 26 to 4 and was married to Michael Dubruiel, who died unexpectedly in February 2009. She lives in Birmingham, Alabama.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/author\/awelborn"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2901","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/180"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2901"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2901\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2901"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2901"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2901"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}