Pope Leo XIV, at Christmas Mass during the Night, said Christ’s birth brings light into the world’s darkness — and where the human person is welcomed, God is welcomed too.
“To enlighten our blindness, the Lord chose to reveal himself as a man to man, his true image, according to a plan of love that began with the creation of the world,” the pope said in his homily in St. Peter’s Basilica Dec. 24.
“As long as the night of error obscures this providential truth, then ‘there is no room for others either, for children, for the poor, for the stranger,’” he added, quoting Pope Benedict XIV’s homily at Christmas Mass on Dec. 24, 2012.
“These words of Pope Benedict XVI remain a timely reminder that on earth, there is no room for God if there is no room for the human person,” the pontiff said.
Leo celebrated the Christmas Mass, also known as Midnight Mass, for a packed Vatican basilica at 10 p.m. The Vatican said an estimated 6,000 people were inside the basilica for the Mass, while another 5,000 people followed the papal Mass via jumbo screens in St. Peter’s Square.
In a surprise before the Mass, the pope stepped outside St. Peter’s Basilica to greet those who were forced to stay in the rainy square, because there was no more room inside.
“The basilica of St. Peter’s is very large, but unfortunately it is not large enough to receive all of you,” Leo said, thanking everyone for their presence, wishing them a merry Christmas, and bestowing his apostolic blessing.
The preparatory readings and the sung Proclamation of the Birth of Christ — also called the Kalenda Proclamation — preceded the Mass. The pontiff removed a cloth to reveal a wooden sculpture of the Christ Child, placed in front of the main altar of the basilica, after the chanting of the Kalenda Proclamation. A group of 10 children dressed in traditional clothing from different parts of the world brought flowers to the figure of Baby Jesus.
In his homily, the pope recalled that, “for millennia, across the earth, peoples have gazed up at the sky” attempting to read the future in the stars.
Yet, they remained lost and in the dark, he said. “On this night, however, ‘the people who walked in darkness have seen a great light’ (Isaiah 9:2).”
“Born in the night is the One who redeems us from the night,” Leo said. “The hint of the dawning day is no longer to be sought in the distant reaches of the cosmos, but by bending low, in the stable nearby.
Pope Leo invited Christians to marvel at the wisdom of Christmas, through which “God gives the world a new life: his own, offered for all.”
“He does not give us a clever solution to every problem, but a love story that draws us in. In response to the expectations of peoples, he sends a child to be a word of hope. In the face of the suffering of the poor, he sends one who is defenseless to be the strength to rise again. Before violence and oppression, he kindles a gentle light that illumines with salvation all the children of this world,” he said.
The pontiff quoted a sermon of St. Augustine, who said, “human pride weighed you down so heavily that only divine humility could raise you up again.”
“While a distorted economy leads us to treat human beings as mere merchandise, God becomes like us, revealing the infinite dignity of every person,” Leo said. “While humanity seeks to become ‘god’ in order to dominate others, God chooses to become man in order to free us from every form of slavery. Will this love be enough to change our history?”
This story was originally published on CNA.
