BENEDict XVI

The Face of God as Guarantee for the Depth of the Human Face
HOMILY OF HIS HOLINESS
Vatican Basilica, January 1, 2010

On the first day of the New Year, we have the joy and the grace of celebrating the Most Holy Mother of God and, at the same time, the World Day of Peace. In both these events we are celebrating Christ, Son of God, born of the Virgin Mary, and our true peace! […] Today, I wish to develop precisely the theme of the Face and of faces, in the light of the word of God, the Face of God, and human faces–a theme that also gives us a key to the interpretation of the problem of peace in the world. […]
One may interpret the whole biblical narrative as the gradual revelation of the Face of God, until it reaches His full manifestation in Jesus Christ. “When the time had fully come,” the Apostle Paul has reminded us today, too, “God sent forth His Son,” (Gal 4:4) immediately adding, “born of woman, born under the law.” God’s Face took on a human face, letting itself be seen and recognized in the Son of the Virgin Mary, who for this reason we venerate with the loftiest title of “Mother of God.” She, who had preserved in her heart the secret of the divine motherhood, was the first to see the face of God made man in the small fruit of her womb. The Mother had a very special, unique, and, in a certain way, exclusive relationship with the newborn Son. The first face a child sees is that of his mother and this gaze is crucial for his relationship with life, with himself, with others, and with God; it is also crucial if he is to become a “son of peace” (Lk 10:6). Among the many typologies of icons of the Virgin Mary in the Byzantine tradition is the one called “of tenderness” that portrays the Child Jesus with His face resting, cheek to cheek, against His Mother’s. The Child gazes at the Mother and she is looking at us, almost as if to mirror for those who are observing and praying, the tenderness of God who came down to her from Heaven and was incarnate in the Son of man, whom she holds in her arms. We can contemplate in this Marian image something of God Himself: a sign of the ineffable love that impelled him “to give His Only Son” (cf. Jn 3:16). But that same icon also shows us, in Mary, the face of the Church which reflects Christ’s light upon us and upon the whole world, the Church through which the Good News reaches every person: “You are no longer a slave but a son” (Gal 4:7), as once again we read in St. Paul.

Brothers in the Episcopate and in the Priesthood, Mr. Ambassadors, dear friends, meditating on the mystery of the Face of God and on the human face is a privileged path that leads to peace. It starts, in fact, with a respectful look that recognizes a person in the face of the other, whatever the color of his skin, whatever his nationality, language, or religion. But who, other than God, can guarantee, so to speak, the “depth” of the human face? In fact, only if we have God in our hearts are we able to perceive in the face of the other a brother in humanity, not a means but an end, not a rival or enemy but another self, another facet of the infinite mystery of the human being. Our perception of the world and, in particular, of our fellows, depends essentially on the presence within us of God’s Spirit. It is a sort of “resonance”: those whose hearts are empty only perceive flat images lacking in depth. On the other hand, the more we are inhabited by God the more we are sensitive to His presence in our surroundings: in all creatures and especially in other human beings, although the human face, in turn marked by the trials of life and by evil, may be difficult to appreciate and accept as an epiphany of God. With all the more reason then, to recognize and respect each other as we really are, in other words as brothers and sisters, we need to refer to the Face of a common Father who loves us all despite our limitations and failings.
It is important to be taught respect for others, even when they are different from us, from an early age. Increasingly today, classes in schools consist of children of various nationalities but even when this is not the case their faces are a prophecy of the humanity we are called to form: a family of families and peoples. The smaller these children are, the more they awaken in us tenderness and joy at an innocence and brotherhood that seem obvious to us despite their differences–, they cry and laugh in the same way, they have the same needs, they communicate spontaneously, they play together.... Children’s faces are like a reflection of God’s gaze on the world. So why extinguish their smiles? Why poison their hearts? Unfortunately, the icon of the Mother of the God of Tenderness finds its tragic opposite in the sorrowful images of so many children and their mothers at the mercy of war and violence, refugees, asylum seekers, and forced migrants. Faces hollowed by hunger and disease, faces disfigured by suffering and desperation and the faces of little innocents are a silent appeal to our responsibility: before their helpless plight, all the false justifications of war and violence fall away. We must simply convert to projects of peace, lay down every kind of weapon and strive all together to build a world that is worthier of the human being.

My Message for today’s 43rd World Day of Peace, “If You Want to Cultivate Peace, Protect Creation,” fits within the perspective of God’s Face and of human faces. Indeed, we can say that the human being is capable of respecting creatures insofar as he bears in his mind a full sense of life, otherwise he will be inclined to despise himself and all that surrounds him, to have no respect for the environment in which he lives and no respect for Creation. Those who can recognize in the cosmos the reflections of the Creator’s invisible face, tend to have greater love for creatures and greater sensitivity to their symbolic value. […]