Cartoon by Derkaoui Abdellah

Pope Prays Christmas Will Bring Yearning for Peace

Before giving his Christmas blessing to the city of Rome and to the world, Pope Francis drew attention to the many places around the globe and within human hearts in need of Jesus, the prince of peace.

“In the cold of the night, he stretches out his tiny arms toward us: He is in need of everything, yet he comes to give us everything,” the pope told people gathered in a rain-washed St. Peter’s Square.

“On this festive day, let us implore him to stir up in the hearts of everyone a yearning for reconciliation and fraternity,” Pope Francis said Dec. 25 before giving his blessing “urbi et orbi” (to the city and the world).

Cardinal Renato Martino, 89, the protodeacon of the College of Cardinals, announced that the solemn blessing included a plenary indulgence for the people in the square, everyone watching on television, listening by radio or following on their computers.

Jesus came into the world “like a whisper, like the murmur of a gentle breeze, to fill with wonder the heart of every man and woman who is open to this mystery,” the pope said in his Christmas message.

“The Word became flesh in order to dialogue with us,” he insisted. “God does not desire to carry on a monologue, but a dialogue. For God himself—Father, Son and Holy Spirit—is dialogue, an eternal and infinite communion of love and life.”

All too often in too many places, dialogue is precisely what is missing, he said, as he offered specific prayers for people struggling to survive amid war or the threat of war, violence, oppression or crushing poverty in Syria, the Holy Land, Yemen, South Sudan, Ukraine, Myanmar and Ethiopia.

The impact of the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic on health care and the economy, but also on the way individuals live and interact was part of the pope’s prayer as well.

With the pandemic, the pope said, “our capacity for social relationships is sorely tried; there is a growing tendency to withdraw, to do it all by ourselves, to stop making an effort to encounter others and do things together.”

“On the international level too, there is the risk of avoiding dialogue, the risk that this complex crisis will lead to taking shortcuts rather than setting out on the longer paths of dialogue,” he said. “Yet only those paths can lead to the resolution of conflicts and to lasting benefits for all.”

Pope Francis said he knows people get weary watching or reading the news, but attention is needed or “we risk not hearing the cry of pain and distress of so many of our brothers and sisters.” >>>