Pope Francis: Don’t forget the real meaning of Christmas

December 5, 2019 CNA Daily News News Briefs 1 Print

Vatican City, Dec 5, 2019 / 10:40 am (CNA).- Ahead of the Vatican Christmas tree lighting Dec. 5, Pope Francis expressed hope that the nativity scene in St. Peter’s Square will serve as a reminder of what Christmas is truly about.

A nativity scene “is a genuine way of communicating the Gospel, in a world that sometimes seems to be afraid of remembering what Christmas really is, and blots out the Christian signs to only keep those of a banal, commercial imagination,” Pope Francis told an Italian delegation at the Vatican for the Christmas tree lighting ceremony Dec. 5.

This year’s Vatican Christmas tree comes from the northern Italian region of Vicenza, which was greatly damaged by storms in October 2018. The red spruce in St. Peter’s Square is a little over 85 feet tall.

The Christmas tree lighting ceremony also revealed a life-size nativity scene carved out of wood with tree trunks from Vicenza placed in the background in memory of the storm.

“The wooden trunks, coming from the areas hit by the storms, which form the backdrop to the landscape, underline the precariousness in which the Holy Family was found on that night in Bethlehem,” Pope Francis said.

Pope Francis met with delegations from the Italian diocese of Trento, Padua and Vittorio Venetoin at the Vatican’s apostolic palace Dec. 5 before the Christmas tree and nativity scene were presented.

“Today's meeting offers me the opportunity to renew my encouragement to your people, who last year suffered a devastating natural disaster, with the demolition of entire wooded areas,” Pope Francis told the delegation.

“I was pleased to learn that, replacing the plants removed, 40 fir trees will be replanted to replenish the woods severely damaged by the storm of 2018,” he said.

The Vatican Christmas tree is illuminated by energy-saving Christmas lights from the German multinational OSRAM, to reduce the environmental impact of the display.

Cardinal Giuseppe Bertello and Bishop Fernando Vérgez Alzaga chaired the Vatican Christmas lighting ceremony. The nativity scene and Christmas tree will remain on display in St. Peter’s Square until January 12, 2020, the feast of Christ’s Baptism.

Pope Francis began Advent with a trip to the Italian town of Greccio, where St. Francis of Assisi created the first nativity scene in 1223. In Greccio, Pope Francis signed the apostolic letter, Admirabile signum, on the meaning and importance of nativity scenes.

“All those present experienced a new and indescribable joy in the presence of the Christmas scene. The priest then solemnly celebrated the Eucharist over the manger, showing the bond between the Incarnation of the Son of God and the Eucharist,” Pope Francis wrote in the letter describing the St. Francis’ first nativity.

“As we contemplate the Christmas story, we are invited to set out on a spiritual journey, drawn by the humility of the God who became man in order to encounter every man and woman. We come to realize that so great is his love for us that he became one of us, so that we in turn might become one with him,” Pope Francis said.

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Bishop Barron at Synod of Bishops: Young people are ‘hungry for mission’

October 12, 2018 CNA Daily News 2

Vatican City, Oct 12, 2018 / 10:17 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Young people are “hungry for mission,” Bishop Robert Barron said Friday during the 2018 Synod of Bishops, convened to discuss young people, the faith, and vocational discernment

“They’re hungry for involvement in the life of the Church, and to be out in the field declaring the Lord,” Barron said at an Oct. 12 Vatican press conference.

Barron, the auxiliary bishop of Los Angeles, is a delegate to the bishops’ synod. He has advocated in conversations in and around the synod that young people should be challenged intellectually and morally.

In his four-minute intervention at the Synod of Bishops, he called for greater intellectual faith formation of young people, particularly catechesis and apologetics.
“Why has it been the case, over the past several decades, that young people in our own Catholic secondary schools have read Shakespeare in literature class, Homer in Latin class, Einstein in physics class, but, far too often, superficial texts in religion?” Barron asked the synod.

Barron also said that acceptance and outreach to young people needs to be accompanied by a call to holiness and conversion, in response to a question about outreach to same-sex attracted young people.

“As always, the church’s first move in regard to everybody, in regard to gay and lesbians, is to reach out and say …  ‘You are a beloved child of God,” Barron responded to reporters in Rome. “It is under that rubric that the Church does its work.”

“Now, having said that, the Church also calls people to conversion. So Jesus calls, but then he always moves people to fullness of life, and so the Church also has a set of moral demands to everybody, and it calls them to conversion,” Barron continued.

“My hesitation is that ‘inclusion’ is more of a secular term. I would use the word ‘love,’” he said.

“The Church reaches out in love, and love is ‘willing the good of the other,’ and sometimes that means calling people to a change of life.”

“I think that is where the Church’s attitude is situated is included in both those moments. Of course outreach in love, but acceptance and inclusion doesn’t mean that we don’t call to conversion. So that’s again to speak about it in a more general term.”

Barron also touched on the idea that many young people will be called to holiness through a generous family life, connecting it to Pope Paul VI’s upcoming canonization Oct. 14.

The canonization on Sunday will be “a moment to celebrate some of that prophetic quality of Humanae Vitae,” said Barron.

“We certainly have talked about marriage and family life in the small groups,” he added, speaking about the synod discussions.

Youth delegates are auditing the 2018 Synod of Bishops and participate in the discussions in the synod hall in a historic first.

“Pope Francis told the young people present in the synod hall to ‘continue making noise,’” Barron shared.

At the Oct. 12 press conference, one bishop from the Netherlands said that a youth testimony in the synod hall motivated him to work with young Catholics to aid persecuted Christians.

Bishop Everard de Jong, auxiliary bishop of Roermond, Netherlands said he was very moved by the testimony from an Iraqi young man in the synod hall.

“At that moment, I realized, ‘what am I doing in my diocese for these Christians there?’” Bishop Jong  reflected.

He said that in his experience Christian refugees from Iraq have brought “a lot of faith into our Catholic communities that are getting grey, getting older, dying.”

Jong concluded that it will be good for all involved to stress the importance of learning about issues of Christian persecution all around the world in the youth pastoral care in his diocese.

“This global solidarity for our church would be very good because it is also for our faith,” Jong said.

[…]

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