Yes, the Pope’s Speech Monday Is Pretty Awesome

It’s also very typical of him. Give or take a few details, it’s a great guide to an examination of conscience for anyone.

(More thoughts here.)

As Greg Erlandson puts it in a column in Our Sunday Visitor reflecting on the North Korean Sony hacking (of all things!):

As Catholics, we know that none of our sins stay hidden. No matter how sincerely we lie, how cleverly we obscure, God knows all. We believe there to be a final accounting, and that all will be made known — the good and the bad.

And jeepers am I guilty of “Martha-ism” so far this week.

According to the Vatican radio write-up, Pope Francis also said, in another talk:

“transform this Holy Nativity into a true opportunity to heal every wound and every lack”, he urged those present to take care of their spiritual life, their relationship with God, and to look after their family life and relationships with others. This means caring about one’s way of speaking, purifying language of offensive words; healing the wounds of the heart with the oil of forgiveness; caring for one’s work, performing it with enthusiasm, humility and passion; curing oneself of envy, lust, hatred and the negative feelings that devour our inner peace and transform us into destroyed and destructive people; curing oneself of the rancour that leads us to revenge and the idleness that leads to existential euthanasia. Caring for the poorest, the elderly, the sick, the hungry, the homeless and foreigners, and making sure that the Holy Nativity never becomes a celebration of commercial consumerism, appearances and pointless gifts, or superfluous waste, but rather of the joy of welcoming the Lord into the creche of the heart”.
“Imagine how our world would change if each one of us began straight away”, he remarked. “This is the true Nativity: the feast of the poverty of the God Who annihilated Himself, assuming the nature of a slave; of God Who served at the table; of God Who hid Himself from the intelligent and the wise and instead revealed Himself to the smallest, the simple and the poor. It is above all the feast of Peace brought to earth by the baby Jesus, … the peace the Angels sang”. He continued, “Peace needs our enthusiasm, our care, to warm our frozen hearts, to encourage distrusting souls and to brighten jaded eyes with the light of Jesus’ face”.

Let us see and help the light of the Christ Child‘s face be seen! That’s work to get on straight away. And can only be done in encounter with Jesus Himself. Let’s go to Him and stay with Him. Nothing is more important.