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Pope Francis celebrated Christmas Mass in St. Peter’s Basilica, in the Vatican, concelebrated by cardinals and with a small number of faithful. The Italian government decreed a closure on these holidays. In his homily he recalled that the manger in Bethlehem, poor in everything and rich in love, teaches that the food of life is to let oneself be loved by God and by others.
Bianca Fraccalvieri – Vatican City
We were given a son: Pope Francis’ homily on Christmas Eve was developed around this phrase taken from Isaiah’s prophecy.
This is Christmas, said the Pontiff, the birth of Jesus is the novelty that allows us to be reborn within each year, finding in Him the strength to face all trials. “Yes, because Jesus was born for us”: for each one of us.
Let mercy transform our miseries
God comes into the world as a child to become children of God: we are beloved children, despite our mistakes and failures. And God’s love for us does not and will never depend on us: it is gratuitous love, pure grace. The indestructible heart of our hope is to recognize ourselves as children of God, Francis recalled.
However,r the question of whether the Lord has done well to give us so much. But it is made like this, the Pope said: he cannot stop loving us, so different from us. He loves us with a concrete love to the point of touching our worst misery, putting all our salvation in a stable manger, without fearing our poverty.
“Let your mercy transform our miseries!” Urged the Pontiff.
Manger of vanity
But how many times, Francis found, hungry for fun, success and worldliness, do we feed life with food that does not satiate and leaves the emptiness within.
In this endless satiety of having, “we throw ourselves into the mangers of vanity, forgetting the manger in Bethlehem.”
That manger, poor in everything and rich in love, teaches that the food of life is to let oneself be loved by God and by others. Jesus gives us the example: He, the Word of God, is an infant; does not speak, but offers life. “We, on the other hand, talk a lot, but we are often illiterate with kindness.”
God, the Pope continued, was born a child to urge us to care for others. “His disarmed and disarmed love reminds us that the time we have is not enough to cry, but to comfort the tears of those who suffer.” At the service of the poor, we love God.
The Holy Father concluded with this prayer:
