Bring Mary’s gratitude and hope into the new year, pope says

[Michie]

VATICAN CITY (CNS) — On New Year’s Eve, believers and non-believers alike give thanks for all they have received in the last 12 months and express their hopes for the coming year, but Christians are called to cultivate their gratitude and hope following the example of Mary, Pope Francis said.

“Faith enables us to live this hour in a way different than that of a worldly mindset,” the pope said during an evening prayer service in St. Peter’s Basilica Dec. 31. “Faith in Jesus Christ, the incarnated God, born of the Virgin Mary, gives a new way of feeling time and life.”

Pope Francis said that while many people express thanks and hope on New Year’s Eve, in reality, they often “lack the essential dimension which is that of relationship with the Other and with others, with God and with brothers and sisters.”

With a worldly mentality, gratitude and hope are “flattened onto the self, onto one’s interests,” he said. “They don’t go beyond satisfaction and optimism.”

Look to the example of Mary​

Continued below.

Bring Mary's gratitude and hope into the new year, pope says

While many people express thanks and hope on New Year's Eve, in reality, they often "lack the essential dimension," said Pope Francis.

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