With the coming of the New Year and the Solemnity of Mary, the Mother of God, we always have the peace message written by the Pope. This year, the year of the Jubilee of Hope, Pope Francis wrote his peace message on the theme: Forgive us our trespasses: grant us your peace.
We all need God’s peace. Without that peace we cannot live. Hence, his peace is destined to go out from Heaven and reach us here, on this earth, where we are. God’s peace is not an utopia or an ideology. It is not enclosed on itself. On the contrary it reaches us and leaves its unimaginable healing effects not just in the soul but also through actions that reflect its saving power.
The context for such a saving power is essential. Let us not forget that we all stand in debt to God. We all have offended and keep, unfortunately, offending him. Thank God that, as Mary sang in her Canticle, his mercy is on those who fear him from generation to generation (Luke 1:50). God’s mercy is visible in those who fear him. Regarding this, the Holy Father’s peace message for 2025 is filled with structural initiatives that reflect reverent fear of the Lord.
For instance, a sound peaceful initiative is that of listening to the plea of an endangered humanity. This attitude is so pivotal because it pushes forward a new structural order which is imbued with solidarity. The Pope writes: At the beginning of this year, then, we desire to heed the plea of suffering humankind in order to feel called, together and as individuals, to break the bonds of injustice and to proclaim God’s justice. Sporadic acts of philanthropy are not enough. Cultural and structural changes are necessary, so that enduring change may come about (no.4).
With the inhuman treatment cruelly inflicted on migrants and “the confusion willfully created by disinformation, the refusal to engage in any form of dialogue, and the immense resources spent on the industry of war (no.4), each of us must feel in some way responsible for the devastation to which the earth, our common home, has been subjected, beginning with those actions that, albeit only indirectly, fuel the conflicts that presently plague our human family (no.4).
In order to combat these oppressive structures of sin where the few simply get richer and the vast majority gets poorer, it is so important, in Pope Francis’ view, to acknowledge that the resources of the earth are God’s gift to all humanity and they should be shared with everyone. In his message Pope Francis talks about the forgiving of foreign debt. He said:
I have repeatedly stated that foreign debt has become a means of control whereby certain governments and private financial institutions of the richer countries unscrupulously and indiscriminately exploit the human and natural resources of poorer countries, simply to satisfy the demands of their own markets. In addition, different peoples, already burdened by international debt, find themselves also forced to bear the burden of the “ecological debt” incurred by the more developed countries. Foreign debt and ecological debt are two sides of the same coin, namely the mindset of exploitation that has culminated in the debt crisis. In the spirit of this Jubilee Year, I urge the international community to work towards forgiving foreign debt in recognition of the ecological debt existing between the North and the South of this world. This is an appeal for solidarity, but above all for justice (no.7).
While admitting that in the journey to hope there needs to be much-needed changes (no.9) which show that we are children of hope. Obviously what Pope Francis intends by hope is a hope [which] overflows in generosity; it is free of calculation, makes no hidden demands, is unconcerned with gain, but aims at one thing alone: to raise up those who have fallen, to heal hearts that are broken and to set us free from every kind of bondage (no. 10). It is this kind of hope what would, in the Holy Father’s words, restor[e] dignity to the lives of entire peoples and enabling them to set them out anew on the journey of hope (no.11). The three necessary changes, according to Pope Francis, so that real hope emerges and changes us all are: (1) reducing substantially, if not cancelling outright, the international debt which seriously threatens the future of many nations (no.11); (2) a firm commitment to respect for the dignity of human life from conception to natural death, so that each person can cherish his or her own life and all may look with hope to a future of prosperity and happiness for themselves and for their children … the elimination of the death penalty in all nations (no.11); and (3) In this time marked by wars, let us use at least a fixed percentage of the money earmarked for armaments to establish a global Fund to eradicate hunger and facilitate in the poorer countries educational activities aimed at promoting sustainable development and combating climate change (no.11).
Hoping that this scenario of debt crisis is overcome and thereby we all can realize that we are debtors whose debts have been forgiven (no.11), let us pray with Pope Francis the subsequent prayer for peace:
Forgive us our trespasses, Lord,
as we forgive those who trespass against us.
In this cycle of forgiveness, grant us your peace,
the peace that you alone can give
to those who let themselves be disarmed in heart,
to those who choose in hope to forgive the debts of their brothers and sisters,
to those who are unafraid to confess their debt to you,
and to those who do not close their ears to the cry of the poor.
