Put into practice, with God’s help, the commitment undertaken at new year’s to “Overcome Indifference and Win Peace”. This was Pope Francis’ exhortation at the Angelus on 3 January, as he evoked the theme of the 2016 World Day of Peace. Renewing “to everyone wishes of peace and good in the Lord”, the Pope recited the Marian prayer with the faithful present in St Peter’s Square at midday on the first Sunday of the year.

Earlier, in the liturgy of the day centred on the Prologue of the Gospel according to John, the Pontiff explained that the Word “came upon the earth so that we should hear it and we could know and touch by hand the Father’s love”. Yet, he noted, “the Evangelist does not hide the dramatic nature of the Incarnation of the Son of God, emphasizing how the gift of God’s love corresponds to mankind’s failure to receive him”.

In this regard the Pope called attention to “the mystery of the evil one who undermines our life too”, requiring “vigilance and attention on our part in order that he not prevail. Woe to us” – the Pontiff admonished – “lest he would close our door to anyone else”. We are called instead “to open wide the door of our heart to the Word of God, to Jesus, in order to thereby become his children”. Indeed, Pope Francis added, it is only in listening to “the invitation of the holy Mother Church to welcome this Word of salvation, this mystery of light” that “we will grow in the knowledge and the love of the Lord”, learning to be “merciful as he is”. He then recommended, “particularly in this Holy Year of Mercy”, that we “allow the Gospel to become ever more incarnate in our lives”, because approaching, contemplating, and embodying the Gospel “in daily life is the best way to know Jesus and to bring him to others”. In fact, “the vocation and the joy of every baptized person” is “to reveal and give Jesus to others; but in order to do this we must know him and have him within us, as the Lord of our life. He protects us”, Francis concluded, “from the devil, who is always couching at our door, at our heart, and wants to get in”.