Pope offers usual Christmas message of hope while lamenting ‘the little Jesuses of today’ lost to war, migration and abortion

Pope offers usual Christmas message of hope while lamenting ‘the little Jesuses of today’ lost to war, migration and abortion 

At the end of a year marked by the outbreak of fresh wars and by various personal health crises, Pope Francis at Christmas offered a message of hope, saying Jesus’s birth brings light to a dark world and his littleness shows the path of salvation, through humility and love.  

Though he also took to task those who profit from and “move the puppet-strings of war”, singling out the global arms industry for particular condemnation, while also calling out the “deafening silence” that greets so much of the violence and death happening throughout the world.

Despite cancelling a scheduled Dec. 1-3 trip to Dubai for a United Nations climate summit due to his second pulmonary infection of the year, Pope Francis in his Christmas liturgies seemed recovered, appearing in good form to preside over Christmas Eve Mass and his Christmas day blessing as usual, and reciting his prepared remarks without any problems. 

At the close of a year which saw the outbreak of the war in Gaza, several papal health scares and more outspoken criticism from some of Pope Francis’s most prominent opponents, Francis said the birth of Jesus is a reminder that God has not forgotten his people. 

In his homily during Christmas Eve Mass, the pope focused on the littleness of Jesus, as opposed to the image of a strong and powerful messiah that many had expected. 

Noting that King Herod had ordered a census in the months prior to Jesus’s birth, Francis said that Herod did this out of pride, and wanted to know how powerful he was, but that the infant Jesus offered a different kind of power. 

Jesus, he said: “is not the god of accomplishment, but the God of Incarnation. He does not eliminate injustice from above by a show of power, but from below, by a show of love. He does not burst on the scene with limitless power, but descends to the narrow confines of our lives.”

Jesus is also not a “god of commerce” who pledges to give everything all at once, but rather, he “draws near us, in order to change our world from within”.

Through his incarnation, Jesus “revolutionizes history by becoming a part of history. The God who so respects us as to allow us to reject him; who takes away sin by taking it upon himself; who does not eliminate pain but transforms it; who does not remove problems from our lives but grants us a hope that is greater than all our problems. 

“If you look to your own heart, and think of your own inadequacies and this world that is so judgmental and unforgiving, you may feel it difficult to celebrate this Christmas. You may think things are going badly, or feel dissatisfied with your limitations, failings and problems,” Francis said. 

However, he added that it is important at Christmas to “let Jesus take the initiative,” because Jesus is not looking for perfection or for a list of accomplishments, but “for your open and trusting heart”.

On Christmas day, Pope Francis appeared on the central balcony of St. Peter’s Basilica as usual to offer his traditional Urbi et Orbi blessing “to the city and to the world”. It is a special universal blessing typically offered only on the feasts of Christmas and Easter. 

In his address, which is usually dedicated to peace, the pope focused his message on hope, saying Christians after witnessing Jesus’s birth “are full of hope and trust as we realize that the Lord has been born for us”.

Jesus’s birth, he said, is a time of joy for everyone, despite any faults or shortcomings, because in embracing Jesus, believers “embrace the sure promise of an unprecedented gift: the hope of being born for heaven”.

“Yes, Jesus our brother has come to make his Father our Father; a small child, he reveals to us the tender love of God, and much more…This is the joy that consoles hearts, renews hope and bestows peace,” he said. 

With Jesus’s birth, the world’s darkness has been overcome by God’s light, Francis said, urging those who feel lost or who have abandoned hope to be confident in God’s love, because “God offers you his outstretched hand”.

“He does not point a finger at you, but offers you his little baby hand, in order to set you free from your fears, to relieve you of your burdens and to show you that, in his eyes, you are more valuable than anything else,” he said. 

Pope Francis noted that Jesus’s birth is preceded by darkness, including the slaughter of the innocents, and lamented that many innocent people currently lose their lives “in their mothers’ wombs”, or due to war or perilous migration routes taken “in desperation and in search of hope”.

These people “are the little Jesuses of today”, he said, and again issued a searing condemnation of the global arms trade. 

Embracing Jesus as the “Prince of Peace,” he said, means rejecting war and “the very mindset of war, an aimless voyage, a defeat without victors, an inexcusable folly”.

“To say ‘no’ to war means saying ‘no’ to weaponry,” the pope said, noting how the “human heart is weak and impulsive; if we find instruments of death in our hands, sooner or later we will use them. And how can we even speak of peace, when arms production, sales and trade are on the rise?” 

Just as in the time of King Herod, in the modern world, “the evil that opposes God’s light hatches its plots in the shadows of hypocrisy and concealment,” he said, noting that much of the violence and death throughout the world “takes place amid deafening silence, unbeknownst to many!” 

“People, who desire not weapons but bread, who struggle to make ends meet and desire only peace, have no idea how many public funds are being spent on arms. Yet that is something they ought to know!” he said, saying this point “should be talked about and written about, so as to bring to light the interests and the profits that move the puppet-strings of war”.

He prayed for peace in various conflict-ridden countries throughout the world, including Israel and Palestine, and especially the people of Gaza, saying: “my heart grieves for the victims of the abominable attack of 7 October last, and I reiterate my urgent appeal for the liberation of those still being held hostage.”

Pope Francis made an appeal for an end to military operations in Gaza “with their appalling harvest of innocent civilian victims”, and he called for an immediate solution “to the desperate humanitarian situation by an opening to the provision of humanitarian aid”. 

“May there be an end to the fueling of violence and hatred. And may the Palestinian question come to be resolved through sincere and persevering dialogue between the parties, sustained by strong political will and the support of the international community,” he said. 

Francis prayed for peace in Syria, Lebanon, Yemen and Ukraine, as well as in Armenia and Azerbaijan, South Sudan and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. He also prayed for reconciliation between North and South Korea and for an end to poverty and social problems in the Americas.

With the 2025 Jubilee of Hope rapidly approaching, Pope Francis prayed that the coming year would be a time of preparation and “an opportunity for the conversion of hearts, for the rejection of war”.

He prayed that the next year would also be an opportunity “for the embrace of peace, and for joyfully responding to the Lord’s call, in the words of Isaiah’s prophecy, ‘to bring good news to the oppressed, to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and release to the prisoners’”.

In his Angelus address on 26 December, the day on which the feast of Saint Stephen, recognised as the church’s first martyr, is commemorated, Pope Francis focused on the relationship between Stephen and the architect of his execution, a man named Saul, the future Saint Paul, who was known for his persecution of Christians. 

While there seem to be a wall of differences between the men, Francis insisted that “beyond appearances, there is something stronger that unites them: indeed, through Stephen’s witness, the Lord is already preparing in Saul’s heart, unbeknownst to him, the conversion that will lead him to be the great Apostle Paul”.

Yet two thousand years later, Christians are still being persecuted, the Pope said, noting that many people continue to suffer and die bearing witness to Jesus. 

There are also “those who are penalized at various levels for the fact of acting in a way consistent with the Gospel, and those who strive every day to be faithful, without ado, to their good duties, while the world jeers and preaches otherwise,” he said. 

Despite appearing to be failures in the eyes of the world, Francis said this is not the case, and that their efforts bear much fruit, “because God, through them, continues to work miracles”.

He closed his address again praying for Christians who face discrimination and persecution, and for those enduring war, saying he is close to “the Christian communities that suffer discrimination and I urge them to persevere in charity toward all, fighting peacefully for justice and religious freedom”.

He also invoked Saint Stephen’s intercession in praying for all those living in war, saying “the media show us what war produces: we have seen Syria, we see Gaza”.

“Let us think of the martyred Ukraine. A desert of dead. Is this what is desired? The people want peace,” he said, adding, “let us pray for peace, let us fight for peace.”

Pope Francis will close out the year with a special Vespers service in St. Peter’s Basilica before inaugurating the New Year with a Mass on 1 January 2024, to mark the solemnity of Mary, Mother of God. 

He will close his holiday liturgies with a 6 January Mass in the basilica for the feast of the Epiphany, and a 7 January Mass in the Sistine Chapel for the feast of the Baptism of the Lord, during which he will baptise infants born to Vatican employees throughout the previous year. 

Photo: Pope Francis stands at the balcony of St. Peter’s Basilica to deliver the Christmas Urbi et Orbi blessing in St. Peter’s Square at The Vatican, 25 December 2023. (Photo by Tiziana FABI / AFP) (Photo by TIZIANA FABI/AFP via Getty Images.)