Pope Francis arrived in wheelchair to the Vatican Basilica to preside there Christmas fair. Seven thousand faithful attended the celebration, while many others followed the Mass from St. Peter’s Square on giant screens. The Christmas mass in St. Peter’s Basilica had not been so crowded since before the pandemic.
Referring to the manger where Jesus was born, the Pope stressed that “it is used to bring food close to the mouth and consume it faster. It can thus symbolize an aspect of humanity: the greed to consume. Because while the animals in the stall eat food, the people of the world who are greedy for power and money also eat their neighbors, their brothers. How many wars!” commented Pope Francis in the homily of the Christmas Eve Mass. “And in how many places, even today, dignity and liberty are trampled on! And the main victims of human greed are always the frail, the weak,” added the Pope.
The Pope also addressed his thoughts to children, especially those living at war. “Even this Christmas, a humanity insatiable for money, power and pleasure does not make room as it was for Jesus, for the little ones, for so many unborn, poor, forgotten children. I mostly think of Children devoured by wars, poverty and injustice. But Jesus comes right there, a child in the manger of waste and rejection. In him, child of Bethlehem, is every child. And it’s an invitation to look at life, politics and history through the eyes of children,” he said in his Christmas Eve sermon.
Pope Francis looks on Poverty in which Jesus chose to be born and warns that “it really isn’t Christmas without the poor”. “And the first person, the first riches, is Jesus, but do we want to be by his side? Do we approach him – asked the Pope – do we love his poverty? Or do we prefer to remain comfortable for our own sake? Do we primarily visit him where he is, that is, in the crèches of our world? There he is present. And we are called to be a church that worships poor Jesus and ministers to Jesus in the poor”. The Pope admits that “it is not easy to leave the warm warmth of the Church secularism embrace the sheer beauty of the Grotto in Bethlehem, but let’s remember that it really isn’t Christmas without the poor. Without them we celebrate Christmas, but not that of Jesus. Brothers, sisters, God is poor at Christmas: may love be reborn!” is the Pope’s appeal.