New Year blessings by His Holiness Abune Mathias
All Ethiopians;
“Remember the days of old, consider the years of many generations: ask thy father, and he will show thee; thy elders, and they will tell thee.” Deut 32:7
Time is among the invisible and colorless things God created. It is something which manifests itself through events, and no one can deny its existence. It has been calculated using units such as minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, years, and so on.since time is the moment when events take place, people describe it as ‘good’ or ‘bad’ depending on the nature of the events that occurred at that particular time. What matters, however, is that we realize the benefits of time and that we do our best to make the most out of it.
Time came into existence with the creation of the world, and is meant to be used by humans living in this world. The heavenly world lies outside the bounds of time. (Gen.1:14). Without time, human beings wouldn’t have been able to lead orderly and planned lives. So, time is a resource that humans need to make their existence in this world worthwhile.
In addition to this, since people can learn from time and what happened in it, God tells us to remember the past and take lessons from it. Hence we should make good use of this valuable resource and refrain from wasting it.
All of you, our dear children in the Holy Spirit;
Our country Ethiopia is a beautiful land endowed with diverse resources. We should all work together and stop talking about poverty while living in this earthly paradise. We have to find out the root causes of our poverty, and work hard to achieve sustainable development.
If truth be told, the key to end poverty lies in developing a good work ethic and initiation, and striving hard to change our situation at home. Especially, the young generation should develop such working culture and improve their lives. When we understand this and take practical measures, we will be able to eradicate poverty.
We know that, in today’s world, there are many countries that prospered through hard work though they are not endowed with diverse natural resources such as fertile land, clean water and suitable weather condition, all of which Ethiopia has.
As we welcome the New Year, we call on the public, and especially the youth, to align their plans with the country’s development ambitions and act accordingly to achieve remarkable growth and realize our renaissance.