Millions of people around the world join Pope Francis practically for the “night mass” of Christmas, celebrated on Thursday in St. Peter’s Basilica.
By the Vatican News staff writer
With Italy under a new closing for the holidays, Pope Francis celebrated Christmas Mass “overnight” in an almost empty St. Peter’s Basilica Thursday evening. Millions of people were able to follow the ceremony through radio, television and various social media.
In his homily, Pope Francis said: “The birth of Jesus is the ‘novelty’ that allows us to be reborn every year and find in Him the strength to face every test.”
Jesus is born “for us”
The birth of Jesus, the Pope said, is per We; and pointed out how often the word “for” appears “on this holy night.”
“But what do these words really mean, ‘for us’?” he asked. “They signify that the Son of God, who by nature is holy, has come to make us holy by grace to us, children of God.” This is a “magnificent gift,” he said, a gift that is “pure grace,” which does not depend on anything we can do, but only on God’s love for us.
“To us” is given a Son
The gift God gives us for Christmas is not just a thing or an object. Instead, Pope Francis said, God gave his only begotten son, “Who is all his joy.”
Still, the Pope continued, “our own ingratitude to God and our injustice to so many brothers and sisters” may lead us to wonder if God was right in giving us this gift of his Son. In fact, nothing we can do can make us worthy of this gift.
Rather, it is only because of God’s “infallible love” for us, His “immutable love that changes us” that God leads us to give us His Son.
A love that reaches our poverty
It is because of God’s infinite love for us that Jesus was born, not in a palace, but in the manger of a stable. Jesus “came into the world as every child enters the world, weak and vulnerable, so that we can learn to accept our weaknesses with tender love … God loves to work wonders through our poverty,” he said. Dad, father.
This is a sign, he continued, of “guiding us through life.” In Bethlehem, “God lies in a manger, as if to remind us that we need him to live, like the bread we eat. We must be full of his free, infallible and concrete love ”.
Pope Francis insisted that “the manger, poor in everything but rich in love, teaches us that true food comes from letting us love God and loving others in turn.”
Teaching us to love
God came to us at Christmas as a weak and vulnerable child to teach us to love, the Pope said. “God came among us in poverty and need, to tell us that by serving the poor, we will show our love for Him.”
Pope Francis concluded his homily with a prayer to the newborn Savior: “Jesus, you are the Child who makes me a son. You love me the way I am, not the way I imagine. In embracing you, Child of the manger, embrace my life once more. In welcoming you, the bread of life, I also want to give my life. You, my Savior, teach me to serve. You who did not leave me alone, help me to comfort your brothers and sisters, since, as of tonight, they are all my brothers ”.