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POPE-AUDIENCE Sep-28-2005 (370 words) With photos. xxxi
At audience, pope prays repeatedly for peace
By Carol Glatz
Catholic News Service
VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Pope Benedict XVI, speaking at his weekly audience, prayed repeatedly for peace.
"Oh Lord, let your face shine upon us today for the benefit of peace and, in these times, give us and all people on earth harmony and peace," he said Sept. 28.
God's "divine love becomes concrete and nearly observable in history with all its bitter and glorious events," he told some 30,000 people gathered in St. Peter's Square.
Today, God's redemptive and protective power "reaches us now in Christ," he said.
"Oh Lord, let your face shine on us for the benefit of peace, to protect us with your powerful hand and save us from every sin ... and rescue us from those who unjustly hate us," the pope said, quoting from the writings of Pope St. Clement I.
He said this first-century pope's prayer can be a prayer for the faithful today.
Pope Benedict asked God, who is "the only one capable of carrying out these works that are greater than us," to grant harmony and peace to all the people of the world.
At the end of his audience, the pope mentioned a group of Palestinians and Israelis who were to attend a peace seminar in Rome.
In his catechesis reflecting on Psalm 135, the pope said the psalm offers praise to God who "is greater than all gods" and does all that he wills "in heaven and on earth."
The psalm, he said, attributes the slaying of Israel's enemies and Israel's inheritance of the promised land to "the powerful intervention of God."
God intervened in history with his "awesome" and "wonderful works," showing "his face as redeemer of his people and sovereign of the world," said the pope.
"The liturgy has the task of making the divine gifts ever present and efficacious," he said, showing them to lead to "freedom and salvation."
After the audience, the pope returned to the Vatican to take up his residence in his newly renovated papal apartments.
It marked the official end to his vacation stay at the papal summer residence south of Rome, in Castel Gandolfo, where he had spent most of the summer months.
END
Copyright (c) 2005 Catholic News Service/USCCB. All rights reserved.
This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or otherwise distributed.
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