Pope Francis ushered in Christmas celebrations for the world’s 1.3 billion Catholics on Tuesday, delivering a message filled with love and warmth and the celebration of Jesus’s birth reminded humanity how “God continues to love us all, even the worst of us”.
The pontiff addressed the crowd gathered at the Vatican for his Christmas Eve Mass: “You may have mistaken ideas, you may have made a complete mess of things, but the Lord continues to love you.”
“Whoever hates his brother, writes the brother John, is in the darkness,” he said, “God’s grace has been revealed and has made salvation possible for the whole human race.” Francis explained that the first to notice Jesus’ birth, according to biblical accounts, were the shepherds.
“They were the first because they were among the last, the outcasts … They kept vigilant,” he said.
Francis has reportedly contacted gay Catholics who have written to him to complain of crises of faith, and he has tried to allay their worries. “If a person is gay and seeks God and has goodwill, who am I to judge?” he famously told reporters on visit to Brazil.
The messages from Pope were in true spirit to promote brotherhood, love and care for each other irrespective of what the person choses to be. To embrace uniqueness of every being and only chose to see the bright side.
Still, the Vatican maintains that it has not changed its official stance on homosexuality: that homosexual acts are sinful, not homosexual tendencies.
Every Year, pilgrims from around the world visit the holy place of Jesus Christ, Bethlehem to offer their prayers and take part in the festivities. The biblical town is all vibrant and positive.
The message conveyed by the Pope Francis reflects upon the very idea of unconditional love that God carries for us. This love is for all, we get this love at our best of behaviour and even at our worse. This means, that through this continuous light of love we are able to introspect and realise the goodness around and try to fight against the evil within us. This love, is most importantly working for us at our worst behaviour or during our bad times, giving us strength to be better and to be good to others. To be selfless and positive.
It is a very important message for all those who think that its too late for them to change, for those who struggle to fight against the odds and for all those who feel less loved.
The actual spirit of Christmas is not in a day’s celebration but it is in the idea of celebrating life, celebrating humanity and coexisting with fellow beautiful creations of God, peacefully and respectfully.
Here are two snippets from around the world that are in “True Spirit Of Christmas”.
Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan has welcomed 100 homeless people for a three-course meal at City Hall,London to celebrate Christmas Eve. The mayor of London has hailed the event as the “best day” in his job so far as he offered guests a Christmas meal along with haircuts and an appointment with an optician.
Saint John charity in Canada gives kids a tour of holiday light displays in the city. The Joshua Group is a faith-based charity in the Greater Saint John Region that aims to give at-risk youth a place to hang out with each other twice a week. The annual Christmas light tour sees those school buses full of kids hit the streets to take in the sights of the season.
This Christmas, we at Global Messenger its board of directors, board of editors, staff and management would like for you all to take a small step towards making this planet a better place to breathe, live and exist happily. Let’s celebrate the purpose of our existence by bringing joy for others, by planting more trees, wasting less of our natural resources and helping others in their upliftment.
Let’s make this World happier so that the newspapers every morning are less distressful, With lesser incidents of rapes, terrorism, pollution, warming, hunger and poverty, lynching, murders and hatred.
