Francis Robert Prevost is celebrating his first Christmas as the church’s most senior pope, elected pope on March 8. If you turn this on 25 meter Christmas tree to build in St. Peter’s Square and inaugurate the nativity scene at the end of 2025, Leo XIV asked:Keep the Christmas tradition alive in a world that needs Desperately hold hope“.
“The nativity scene is an important sign: it reminds us that we are part of a wonderful adventure of redemption in which we are never alone,” he said at a ceremony with the organizers of a living nativity scene that will be performed this Saturday at the Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore in Rome.
He asked the believers, of whom there are many these days The Holy Jubilee Year 2025 reaches its climaxin St. Peter’s Square and in the Vatican Basilica remember that the first to depict the birth of Jesus was Saint Francis. in 1223.
“Since then, it has been customary to depict in various ways the birth of the Lord God, who comes without weapons and without strength to conquer the pride, violence and possessiveness of man.”
He recalled that God “leads us to our true identity, which has spread throughout the world,” citing a catechesis by Pope Ratzinger. “That’s exactly how it is in the grotto of Bethlehem, where Mary, Joseph and the child are It is disarming povertythat we set out once again to begin a new life in the footsteps of Christ,” he emphasized.
The Pope emphasized that “the nativity scene will remind the pilgrims from all over the world who will gather in St. Peter’s Square that God draws closer to humanity, that he becomes one of us and enters our history with the smallness of a child.”
The Vatican has published the calendar of liturgical celebrations for Christmas 2025, as is customary in St. Peter’s Basilica. The celebrations They start on Wednesday the 24th with Mass on the night of the Solemnity of the Nativity presided over by the Pope in the Papal Chapel.
On Christmas Day, December 25th, The Pope will lead the Holy Mass in St. Peter’s Basilica at 10 a.m. At noon he will give the traditional blessing from the central loggia of San Pedro Urbi and Orbi.
On December 31, at five o’clock in the afternoon, the Pope will preside over the first vespers of the Solemnity of the Blessed Virgin Mary, followed by traditional singing Te Deumwith which the Pope will give thanks for the calendar year that has just passed.
The New Year 2026 will open with Holy Mass on January 1st at 10:00 a.m., at which the Pope will preside in the Papal Chapel for the Solemnity of Mary Most Holy, Mother of God, within the Octave of Christmas.
The last big Christmas party It will be on January 6, 2026, on the Solemnity of the Epiphany. At 9:30 a.m. Pope Leo
The Pope recalled a few days ago that “Christmas reminds us that to manifest himself, God chooses a human action. He does not use an imposing setting, but reaches us in the middle of small stories,” he said when he received the organizers and artists of the Christmas concert that took place in the Reconciliation Auditorium.
The Pope recalled that it was necessary to “avoid shopping madness” and suggested instead: “Let us invite the poor and lonely people.” He also recalled the importance of a “civilization for peace.”
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