Advent: The Pope Guest Blogs

Ok, not technically, but I’ve been known to subscribe to the Vatican Information Service listserv.  In last week’s edition, the Pope shared his three Christmas wishes and I thought they were worth sharing.  Trust me, if the Pope really does guest blog, you can catch me hovering over the moon!

B16, take it away…

“My first wish, therefore, is that our gaze, that of our minds and our  hearts, not rest only on the horizon of this world, on its material things,  but that it in some way, like this tree that tends upward, be directed toward  God. God never forgets us but He also asks that we don’t forget Him”.

“The Gospel recounts that, on the holy night of Christ’s birth, a light  enveloped the shepherds, announcing a great joy to them: the birth of Jesus,  the one who brings us light, or better, the One who is the true light that  illuminates all. The great tree that I will light up shortly overlooks the  city of Gubbio and will illuminate the darkness of the night with its  light”.

“My second wish is that we recall that we also need a light to illumine  the path of our lives and to give us hope, especially in this time in which  we feel so greatly the weight of difficulties, of problems, of suffering, and  it seems that we are enshrouded in a veil of darkness. But what light can  truly illuminate our hearts and give us a firm and sure hope? It is the Child  whom we contemplate on Christmas, in a poor and humble manger, because He is  the Lord who draws near to each of us and asks that we reeceive Him anew in  our lives, asks us to want Him, to trust in Him, to feel His presence, that  He is accompanying us, sustaining us, and helping us”.

“But this great tree is formed of many lights. My final wish is that  each of us contribute something of that light to the spheres in which we  live: our families, our jobs, our neighbourhoods, towns, and cities. That  each of us be a light for those who are at our sides; that we leave aside the  selfishness that, so often, closes our hearts and leads us to think only of  ourselves; that we may pay greater attention to others, that we may love them  more. Any small gesture of goodness is like one of the lights of this great  tree: together with other lights it illuminates the darkness of the night,  even of the darkest night”.

emphasis added by me