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Starts at 11:50 AM - Pope Francis gives his traditional Christmas message and the Apostolic Blessing "Urbi et Orbi" to the faithful gathered in St. Peter's Square and to those listening to him on radio and television.
Jesus is the salvation for every person and
every people
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Urbi et Orbi Message of Pope Francis
Thursday 25 December 2014
Thursday 25 December 2014
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2014-12-25 Vatican
Radio
Urbi et Orbi Message of Pope Francis
Thursday 25 December 2014
Thursday 25 December 2014
Dear Brothers and
Sisters, Happy Christmas!
Jesus, the Son of
God, the Saviour of the world, is born for us, born in Bethlehem of a Virgin,
fulfilling the ancient prophecies. The Virgin’s name is Mary, the wife of
Joseph.
Humble people, full
of hope in the goodness of God, are those who welcome Jesus and recognize
him. And so the Holy Spirit enlightened the shepherds of Bethlehem, who
hastened to the grotto and adored the Child. Then the Spirit led the
elderly and humble couple Simeon and Anna into the temple of Jerusalem, and
they recognized in Jesus the Messiah. “My eyes have seen your salvation”,
Simeon exclaimed, “the salvation prepared by God in the sight of all peoples”
(Lk 2:30).
Yes, brothers and
sisters, Jesus is the salvation for every person and for every people!
Today I ask him,
the Saviour of the world, to look upon our brothers and sisters in Iraq and
Syria, who for too long now have suffered the effects of ongoing conflict, and
who, together with those belonging to other ethnic and religious groups, are
suffering a brutal persecution. May Christmas bring them hope, as indeed
also to the many displaced persons, exiles and refugees, children, adults and
elderly, from this region and from the whole world. May indifference be
changed into closeness and rejection into hospitality, so that all who now are
suffering may receive the necessary humanitarian help to overcome the rigours
of winter, return to their countries and live with dignity. May the Lord
open hearts to trust, and may he bestow his peace upon the whole Middle East,
beginning with the land blessed by his birth, thereby sustaining the efforts of
those committed effectively to dialogue between Israelis and Palestinians.
May Jesus, Saviour
of the world, protect all who suffer in Ukraine, and grant that their beloved
land may overcome tensions, conquer hatred and violence, and set out on a new
journey of fraternity and reconciliation.
May Christ the
Saviour give peace to Nigeria, where [even in these hours] more blood is being
shed and too many people are unjustly deprived of their possessions, held as
hostages or killed. I invoke peace also on the other parts of the African
continent, thinking especially of Libya, South Sudan, the Central African
Republic, and various regions of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. I
beseech all who have political responsibility to commit themselves through
dialogue to overcoming differences and to building a lasting, fraternal coexistence.
May Jesus save the
vast numbers of children who are victims of violence, made objects of trade and
trafficking, or forced to become soldiers; children, so many abused
children. May he give comfort to the families of the children killed in
Pakistan last week. May he be close to all who suffer from illness,
especially the victims of the Ebola epidemic, above all in Liberia, in Sierra
Leone and in Guinea. As I thank all who are courageously dedicated to
assisting the sick and their family members, I once more make an urgent appeal
that the necessary assistance and treatment be provided.
The Child
Jesus. My thoughts turn to all those children today who are killed and
ill-treated, be they infants killed in the womb, deprived of that generous love
of their parents and then buried in the egoism of a culture that does not love
life; be they children displaced due to war and persecution, abused and taken
advantage of before our very eyes and our complicit silence. I think also of
those infants massacred in bomb attacks, also those where the Son of God was
born. Even today, their impotent silence cries out under the sword of so
many Herods. On their blood stands the shadow of contemporary Herods.
Truly there are so many tears this Christmas, together with the tears of the
Infant Jesus.
Dear brothers and
sisters, may the Holy Spirit today enlighten our hearts, that we may recognize
in the Infant Jesus, born in Bethlehem of the Virgin Mary, the salvation given
by God to each one of us, to each man and woman and to all the peoples of the
earth. May the power of Christ, which brings freedom and service, be felt
in so many hearts afflicted by war, persecution and slavery. May this
divine power, by its meekness, take away the hardness of heart of so many men
and women immersed in worldliness and indifference, the globalization of
indifference. May his redeeming strength transform arms into
ploughshares, destruction into creativity, hatred into love and
tenderness. Then we will be able to cry out with joy: “Our eyes have seen
your salvation”.
With these thoughts
I wish you all a Happy Christmas!
Midnight Mass - Solemnity of the Nativity of the
Lord - Homily of Pope Francis
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“The people who walked in darkness have seen a
great light; those who dwelt in a land of deep darkness, on them has light
shined” ( Is 9:1). “An angel of the Lord appeared to [the
shepherds] and the glory of the Lord shone around them” (Lk 2:9).
This is how the liturgy of this holy Christmas night presents to us the birth
of the Saviour: as the light which pierces and dispels the deepest darkness.
The presence of the Lord in the midst of his people cancels the sorrow of
defeat and the misery of slavery, and ushers in joy and happiness.
We too, in this
blessed night, have come to the house of God. We have passed through the
darkness which envelops the earth, guided by the flame of faith which
illuminates our steps, and enlivened by the hope of finding the “great light”.
By opening our hearts, we also can contemplate the miracle of that child-sun
who, arising from on high, illuminates the horizon.
The origin of the
darkness which envelops the world is lost in the night of the ages. Let us
think back to that dark moment when the first crime of humanity was committed,
when the hand of Cain, blinded by envy, killed his brother Abel (cf. Gen 4:8).
As a result, the unfolding of the centuries has been marked by violence, wars,
hatred and oppression. But God, who placed a sense of expectation within man
made in his image and likeness, was waiting. God was waiting. He waited for so
long that perhaps at a certain point it seemed he should have given up. But he
could not give up because he could not deny himself (cf. 2 Tim 2:13).
Therefore he continued to wait patiently in the face of the corruption of man
and peoples. The patience of God. How difficult it is to comprehend this: God’s
patience towards us.
Through the course
of history, the light that shatters the darkness reveals to us that God is
Father and that his patient fidelity is stronger than darkness and corruption.
This is the message of Christmas night. God does not know outbursts of anger or
impatience; he is always there, like the father in the parable of the prodigal
son, waiting to catch from afar a glimpse of the lost son as he returns; and
every day, with patience. The patience of God.
Isaiah’s prophecy
announces the rising of a great light which breaks through the night. This
light is born in Bethlehem and is welcomed by the loving arms of Mary, by the
love of Joseph, by the wonder of the shepherds. When the angels announced the
birth of the Redeemer to the shepherds, they did so with these words: “This
will be a sign for you: you will find a baby wrapped in swaddling clothes and
lying in a manger” ( Lk 2:12). The “sign” is in fact the
humility of God, the humility of God taken to the extreme; it is the love with
which, that night, he assumed our frailty, our suffering, our anxieties, our
desires and our limitations. The message that everyone was expecting, that
everyone was searching for in the depths of their souls, was none other than
the tenderness of God: God who looks upon us with eyes full of love, who
accepts our poverty, God who is in love with our smallness.
On this holy night,
while we contemplate the Infant Jesus just born and placed in the manger, we
are invited to reflect. How do we welcome the tenderness of God? Do I allow
myself to be taken up by God, to be embraced by him, or do I prevent him from
drawing close? “But I am searching for the Lord” – we could respond.
Nevertheless, what is most important is not seeking him, but rather allowing
him to seek me, find me and caress me with tenderness. The question put to us
simply by the Infant’s presence is: do I allow God to love me?
More so, do we have
the courage to welcome with tenderness the difficulties and problems of those
who are near to us, or do we prefer impersonal solutions, perhaps effective but
devoid of the warmth of the Gospel? How much the world needs tenderness today!
The patience of God, the closeness of God, the tenderness of God.
The Christian
response cannot be different from God’s response to our smallness. Life must be
met with goodness, with meekness. When we realize that God is in love with our
smallness, that he made himself small in order to better encounter us, we
cannot help but open our hearts to him, and beseech him: “Lord, help me to be
like you, give me the grace of tenderness in the most difficult circumstances
of life, give me the grace of closeness in the face of every need, of meekness
in every conflict”.
Dear brothers and
sisters, on this holy night we contemplate the Nativity scene: there “the
people who walked in darkness have seen a great light” ( Is9:1).
People who were unassuming, people open to receiving the gift of God, were the
ones who saw this light. This light was not seen, however, by the arrogant, the
proud, by those who made laws according to their own personal measures, who
were closed off to others. Let us look to the crib and pray, asking the Blessed
Mother: “O Mary, show us Jesus!”.
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