Vita gazette – Pope Francis said that vanity, greedy consumption and the politics of power and interest cause injustice, poverty, and wars. And he noted that along with lost human values, the meaning of Christmas is also forgotten.

The pope arrived at St. Peter’s in a wheelchair due to his known knee problems. There are 7 thousand faithful waiting for him inside the Basilica for the Christmas Mass. Many others followed the ceremony from the giant screens set up in the square. Never had so many people attended Mass since the beginning of the pandemic. The Pontiff dedicated his words to the poor, the little ones, wars, and consumerism.

 “How many wars, men hungry for power and money”

The Pope looks at the manger, where Jesus was born, and underlines that “it is used to bring food close to the mouth and to consume it more quickly. It can thus symbolize an aspect of humanity: the voracity in consuming. Because, while the animals in the stable consume food, men in the world, hungry for power and money, also consume their neighbors, their brothers. How many wars!” the Pontiff commented in his homily. “And in how many places, even today, dignity and freedom are trampled on! And always the main victims of human greed are the frail, the weak,” added the Pontiff.

“A humanity insatiable for money, power and pleasure”

“Two millennia after the birth of Jesus, after many Christmases celebrated with decorations and gifts, after so much consumerism that has wrapped up the mystery we celebrate, there is a risk: we know many things about Christmas, but we forget its meaning. Even this Christmas, a humanity insatiable with money, power and pleasure makes no room, as it was for Jesus, for the little ones, for so many unborn, poor, forgotten children. I think above all the 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, there is every child. And there is an invitation to look at life, politics, and history through the eyes of children”.

“Let charity be born again!”

“And the first person, the first wealth, is Jesus. But do we want to be by his side? Do we draw close to him, do we love his poverty? Or do we prefer to remain comfortable in our interests? Above all, do we visit him where he is, that is, in the poor mangers of our world? There He is present. And we are called to be a Church that adores the poor Jesus and serves Jesus in the poor”. The Pontiff admits that “it is not easy to leave the warm warmth of worldliness to embrace the bare beauty of the grotto of Bethlehem, but let us remember that it is not truly Christmas without the poor. Without them we celebrate Christmas, but not that of Jesus. Brothers, sisters, at Christmas God is poor: may charity be reborn!”

“God does not want appearance, but concreteness”

“God has embraced our condition and our poverty and he has not loved us in words, He has not loved us in jest! And therefore, He is not satisfied with appearances. He does not want only good intentions, He who became flesh. He who was born in the manger, seeks a concrete faith, made up of adoration and charity, not of gossip and outward appearances”, the Pope said again in his homily at Christmas Mass. “He, who lays naked in the manger and will naked on the cross, he asks us for the truth, to go to the bare reality of things, to lay excuses, justifications and hypocrisy at the foot of the manger. He, who was tenderly wrapped in swaddling clothes by Mary, wants us to clothe ourselves with love. God does not want appearance, but concreteness. Let us not let this Christmas go by without doing something good, in his name let us revive a little hope in those who have lost it”.