Association for Defending Victims of Terrorirsm – In remarks following the Angelus on New Year’s Day, Pope Francis shared his “sorrow and concern” at the further escalation of violence in Yemen, “which is causing numerous innocent victims.” He prayed “that efforts will be made to find solutions that will allow peace to return to those tormented peoples.”
“Brothers and sisters,” he exclaimed, “let us think of the children of Yemen! Without education, medicine, hungry… Let us pray together for Yemen.”
“The reassuring and comforting gaze of the Holy Virgin is an encouragement to make sure that this time, granted us by the Lord, might be spent for our human and spiritual growth,” the pope said Jan. 1, the Solemnity of Mary, Mother of God.
“That it be a time in which hatred and division are resolved, and there are many, that it be a time to experience ourselves as brothers and sisters, a time to build and not to destroy, to take care of each other and of creation,” he continued. “A time to make things grow a time of peace.”
“May each one of us make sure that [2021] be for everyone a year of fraternal solidarity and peace, a year filled with expectant trust and hope, which we entrust to the heavenly protection of Mary, Mother of God and our Mother,” he said, before praying the Angelus for the Marian feast day.
This is the attitude which leads to peace, he stated, adding that “each of us, men and women of this time, is called to make peace happen, each one of us, we are not indifferent to this. We are called to make peace happen each day and in every place we live…”
Francis added that this peace must begin with us; we must be “at peace inside, in our hearts — and with ourselves, and with those who are near us.”
