Make Christ’s ‘logic’ of compassionate encounter your own, Pope preaches at Vespers

January 02, 2017

In his last public act of 2016, Pope Francis presided at Vespers, the chanting of the Te Deum, and exposition and benediction of the Blessed Sacrament at St. Peter’s Basilica on the evening of December 31.

Referring to “the smallness and vulnerability” of the infant Christ, the Pope preached that “in Christ, God did not put on a human mask; instead he became man and shared completely in our human condition … The manger invites us to make this divine ‘logic’ our own.”

He continued:

It is not a logic centered on privilege, exemptions or favors but one of encounter and closeness. The manger invites us to break with the logic of exceptions for some and exclusion for others. God himself comes to shatter the chains of privilege that always cause exclusion, in order to introduce the caress of compassion that brings inclusion, that makes the dignity of each person shine forth, the dignity for which he or she was created.

The Pope also reflected on the place of youth in contemporary society.

“We have created a culture that idolizes youth and seeks to make it eternal,” he said.Yet at the same time, paradoxically, we have condemned our young people to have no place in society, because we have slowly pushed them to the margins of public life, forcing them to migrate or to beg for jobs that no longer exist or fail to promise them a future … We are asked to be something other than the innkeeper in Bethlehem who told the young couple: there is no room here.”

 

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Further information:

• 2016.12.31 Celebration of the Vespers and the Te Deum (YouTube Vatican)
• Celebrazione dei primi Vespri della Solennità di Maria Santissima Madre di Dio e “Te Deum” di ringraziamento per l’anno trascorso, 31.12.2016 (Holy See Press Office)
• Booklet for the Celebration (Office for the Liturgical Celebrations of the Supreme Pontiff)