“May 2025 be a year in which peace flourishes! A true and lasting peace that goes beyond quibbling over the details of agreements and human compromises. May we seek the true peace that is granted by God to hearts disarmed: hearts not set on calculating what is mine and what is yours; hearts that turn selfishness into readiness to reach out to others; hearts that see themselves as indebted to God and thus prepared to forgive the debts that oppress others; hearts that replace anxiety about the future with the hope that every individual can be a resource for the building of a better world” (Pope Francis, “Message” 13).
When Francis, like his predecessors, speaks of “building…a better world,” he is not referring to a vague secularist humanitarianism, but to the work of fraternal charity, the work of hearts that communicate the integral love of the Heart of Jesus for human persons, communities, societies, and nations, the collaboration with Jesus in spreading the first fruits—the “foretaste”—of His Father’s Kingdom wherein we are destined to share His glory, and be definitively fulfilled as His brothers and sisters, and therefore brothers and sisters of one another. The Pope addresses the whole world because he knows that whoever seeks true peace—in justice, mercy, freedom, love, and solidarity—seeks God’s Kingdom whether they are explicitly aware of it or not.
