St. Francis de Sales Catholic Church and Divine Infant of Prague Mission

Church of St. Stephen in Jerusalem, Israel, Sept. 18, 2018. / Credit: Bukvoed, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

CNA Staff, Dec 26, 2025 / 04:00 am (CNA).

If “Good King Wenceslas” is one of the Christmas hymns you look forward to each year, you probably know which saint is celebrated today — St. Stephen, the first person to die for the risen Christ. Roman Catholics celebrate his feast on Dec. 26, while Eastern Catholics honor him one day later, on Dec. 27. 

Stephen was a Jew who likely became a follower of Jesus while he was still ministering on earth. He may have been among the 70 disciples whom Christ sent out as missionaries, who preached the coming of God’s kingdom while traveling with almost no possessions.

Famously, Stephen was stoned to death near the Damascus Gate in Jerusalem for proclaiming his faith in Jesus. Today, near the site of Stephen’s martyrdom, a grand Catholic church and convent have stood since the year 1900. A chapel of one form or another memorializing Stephen’s martyrdom has existed at the site since at least the fifth century.

Every year, the Church of St. Stephen (Saint-Étienne in French), a minor basilica, celebrates its patron with a Mass and a meal. The current Dominican priory was created in 1882 and the Dominicans today run the École Biblique et Archéologique Française de Jérusalem, a highly respected center of biblical study.

Who was Stephen?

In the Acts of the Apostles, Luke praises Stephen as “a man full of faith and the Holy Spirit” who “did great wonders and signs among the people” during the earliest days of the Church. He may have been among the 70 disciples whom Christ sent out as missionaries, who preached the coming of God’s kingdom while traveling with almost no possessions.

Stephen’s speech immediately before his martyrdom is the longest recorded in the Acts of the Apostles. In it, the saint describes Israel’s resistance to God’s grace in the past and accuses the present religious authorities of “opposing the Holy Spirit” and rejecting the Messiah.

Before he was put to death, Stephen had a vision of Christ in glory. “Look,” he told the Jewish court. “I see the heavens opened and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God!” He was dragged away and stoned to death. 

Stephen’s martyrdom was overseen by a Pharisee named Saul — later St. Paul  — who became a disciple after a dramatic vision of Christ and became a martyr himself.

Numerous popes have reflected over the years on the importance of St. Stephen in the life of the Church.

This story was first published on Dec. 26, 2023, and has been updated.

Breaking News / CNA

CNA Staff, Dec 25, 2025 / 22:08 pm (CNA).

With the support of the Nigerian government, U.S. President Donald Trump announced that the U.S. military has carried out strikes against elements of ISIS in Nigeria that “have been targeting and viciously killing, primarily, innocent Christians.”

“I have previously warned these terrorists that if they did not stop the slaughtering of Christians, there would be hell to pay, and tonight, there was,” said President Trump of the Dec. 25 action. 

Nigeria’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs confirmed that “precision hits on terrorist targets” in the country’s northwestern Sokoto state were carried out in cooperation with the United States.   

U.S. Secretary of War Pete Hegseth said he was “grateful for Nigerian government support and cooperation” in the counter-terrorism effort. 

Upon announcing the action, President Trump emphasized that “under my leadership, our country will not allow radical Islamic terrorism to prosper” and that further strikes will be carried out if the “slaughter of Christians” continues in Africa’s most populous country.

Applauding the action, Congressman Riley Moore, R-West Virginia, a Catholic who has championed the cause of persecuted Nigerian Christians in the U.S. House of Representatives, said that “tonight's strike in coordination with the Nigerian government is just the first step to ending the slaughter of Christians and the security crisis affecting all Nigerians.”

This is a developing story.

Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa is the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem / Credit: Courtesy of the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem

ACI Prensa Staff, Dec 25, 2025 / 16:07 pm (CNA).

At the Christmas Eve Mass celebrated in Bethlehem, the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa, affirmed that “one of the great messages of Christmas” is that God “does not wait for history to improve before entering into it,” but rather embraces human reality.

During his homily, the Cardinal explained that the birth of Jesus does not occur outside of time or apart from political events, but within concrete history. “God does not create a parallel history. He does not enter the world when everything is finally ordered and peaceful,” but rather “enters into real, concrete, sometimes harsh history.”

Commenting on the beginning of the Gospel of Saint Luke, which places the birth of Christ in the context of a decree by Emperor Augustus, the Patriarch indicated that this detail has profound theological significance. “The very history that claims to be self-sufficient becomes the place where God fulfills his promise,” he affirmed, adding that “no time is ever truly lost, and no situation is too dark for God to dwell in it.”

Cardinal Pizzaballa emphasized that, although the Emperor's decree seems to dominate the scene, “unbeknownst to him, it becomes an instrument of a greater plan.”  Faced with the logic of power that “counts, registers, and governs,” God responds with the logic of the gift, giving his Son in the fragility of “a child born without power.”

In this context, he recalled that Christmas is not an escape from the world's problems. “Christmas is not a refuge that removes us from the tension of the present time,” he warned, but rather “a school of responsibility,” because Christ “does not wait for circumstances to be favorable: he inhabits them and transforms them.”

The Patriarch also referred to the announcement of peace on the night of Jesus Christ’s birth in Bethlehem, clarifying that it is not a superficial peace.  “It is not a mere balance of power nor the result of fragile agreements,” he explained, but rather “the fruit of God's presence in history.” However, he added that this peace “is given, but also entrusted,” and only becomes real when it finds “hearts willing to receive it and hands ready to protect it.”

Speaking from the Holy Land, Cardinal Pizzaballa acknowledged that the current reality remains marked by deep wounds. “We come from years of great suffering, in which war, violence, hunger, and destruction have marked the lives of many, especially children,” he stated.  Nevertheless, he emphasized that it is precisely in this context that the Christmas message resonates most powerfully.

Finally, the Patriarch urged people not to remain neutral in the face of the complexities of history. “The darkness of the world may be profound, but it is not definitive,” he said, reminding everyone that “the light of Bethlehem does not blind, but illuminates the path,” and is transmitted “from heart to heart, through humble gestures, words of reconciliation, and daily decisions for peace.”

Fresco of the Holy Family in Dobling Carmelite Monastery in Vienna, Austria. The Church celebrates the feast of the Holy Family this year on Sunday, Dec. 28, 2025. / Credit: Renata Sedmakova/Shutterstock

Denver, Colorado, Dec 25, 2025 / 15:00 pm (CNA).

The Catholic calendar has several ways to divide the Christmas season. The Church’s Western liturgical tradition sees Christmas as an octave, an eight-day celebration of the birth of Jesus Christ.

The octave of Christmas begins on Christmas itself, the feast of the Nativity of the Lord. It ends on the solemnity of Mary, Mother of God, on Jan. 1, which this season falls on a Thursday in the new year of 2026.

The drama of this time of the Catholic liturgical calendar even includes changes to the liturgical vestments of the clergy.

During these eight days of Christmas, clergy wear white during the Mass.

But there are exceptions when clergy wear red, the symbol of martyrdom: the feast of St. Stephen, Dec. 26, and the feast of the Holy Innocents, Dec. 28.

As the Book of Acts recounts, St. Stephen was a deacon who was the first martyr after the resurrection of Jesus. He was killed for preaching Christ as the fulfillment of the Old Testament. One of the witnesses of his death was a man named Saul, the future St. Paul.

The Holy Innocents, too, are considered martyrs. They died in place of Jesus when Herod sought to kill all boys under 2 years old.

On Dec. 27 the Church marks the feast of St. John the Apostle, Jesus’ “beloved disciple.” John was a great evangelist and credited with authoring the Gospel of John and three letters of the New Testament. Many credit him with authoring the Book of Revelation.

The feast of the Holy Family continues the story of Jesus, Mary, and Joseph with the flight into Egypt. It usually falls on the Sunday after Christmas.

The solemnity of Mary, Mother of God, looks to the role of Mary in the incarnation of Jesus Christ. She is the “Theotokos,” literally the God-bearer. She does not simply carry Jesus’ human nature, nor is she a vessel for his divinity alone. Because Jesus’ divine and human natures are united, she is truly the Mother of God.

The Christmas octave is when so many people have time to rest from a busy year and to spend time with family. One fitting way to observe the octave is to attend daily Mass and prayerfully reflect on the Mass readings.

This story was first published on Dec. 25, 2022, and has been updated.

Pope Leo XIV delivers his Christmas "Urbi et Orbi" message at the Vatican on December 25, 2025. / Daniel Ibañez/ EWTN News

Vatican City, Dec 25, 2025 / 07:00 am (CNA).

In his first Christmas “Urbi et Orbi” message as pope, Leo XIV urged the world to embrace “responsibility” as the sure way to peace, while pointing in particular to the suffering of people in Gaza, Yemen, and those fleeing war and poverty as refugees and migrants.

Before an estimated 26,000 people gathered in St. Peter’s Square on Dec. 25, the pope appeared at the central balcony of St. Peter’s Basilica to deliver the traditional Christmas blessing “to the city and to the world,” eight months after his May 8 election.

In one of the most evocative passages of the message, the pope cited at length from “Wildpeace,” a poem by Israeli poet Yehuda Amichai, contrasting “the peace of a cease-fire” with a deeper peace that arrives unexpectedly — “like wildflowers” — after exhaustion and conflict.

“Responsibility is the sure way to peace,” Leo said. “If all of us, at every level, would stop accusing others and instead acknowledge our own faults, asking God for forgiveness, and if we would truly enter into the suffering of others and stand in solidarity with the weak and the oppressed, then the world would change.”

The pope framed his appeal around the Christian proclamation that Christ “is our peace,” adding: “Without a heart freed from sin, a heart that has been forgiven, we cannot be men and women of peace or builders of peace.”

Turning to concrete “faces” of contemporary pain, Leo said that in becoming man, Jesus “took upon himself our fragility, identifying with each one of us: with those who have nothing left and have lost everything, like the inhabitants of Gaza; with those who are prey to hunger and poverty, like the Yemeni people; with those who are fleeing their homeland to seek a future elsewhere, like the many refugees and migrants who cross the Mediterranean or traverse the American continent.”

He also named those who have lost jobs, underpaid workers who are exploited, and prisoners “who often live in inhumane conditions.”

Leo offered “a warm and fatherly greeting” to Christians, “especially those living in the Middle East,” recalling his recent trip to Turkey and Lebanon. “I listened to them as they expressed their fears and know well their sense of powerlessness before the power dynamics that overwhelm them,” he said.

“From God let us ask for justice, peace and stability for Lebanon, Palestine, Israel and Syria,” the pope continued, as he invoked Scripture on righteousness and peace.

He also prayed “in a particular way for the tormented people of Ukraine,” asking that “the clamor of weapons cease,” and that the parties involved — “with the support and commitment of the international community” — find “the courage to engage in sincere, direct and respectful dialogue.”

In a wider survey of global crises, the pope said: “From the Child of Bethlehem, we implore peace and consolation for the victims of all current wars in the world, especially those that are forgotten, and for those who suffer due to injustice, political instability, religious persecution and terrorism,” naming Sudan, South Sudan, Mali, Burkina Faso, and the Democratic Republic of Congo. He prayed as well for Haiti, asking that “all forms of violence in the country will cease,” and called for a future of reconciliation for Myanmar.

Leo also included a specific appeal for Latin America, asking that “the Child Jesus inspire those in Latin America who hold political responsibilities,” so that amid the region’s challenges “space may be given to dialogue for the common good, rather than to ideological and partisan prejudices.”

He concluded by urging the faithful to open their hearts to those in need: “On this holy day, let us open our hearts to our brothers and sisters who are in need or in pain,” before offering “heartfelt good wishes for a peaceful and holy Christmas!”

This story was first published by ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language news partner. It has been translated and adapted by CNA.

Pope Leo XIV blesses a baby on All Saints Day’ 2025. / Credit: Vatican Media

Vatican City, Dec 25, 2025 / 07:00 am (CNA).

Pope Leo XIV has welcomed and greeted a plethora of babies at the Vatican since his election on May 8. As Christians everywhere celebrate the birth of Jesus, who came into this world as a baby, it’s a perfect time to highlight many of these sweet “pontiff meets babies” moments.

Pope Leo XIV celebrates Mass in St. Peter's Basilica at the Vatican on December 25, 2025. / Daniel Ibañez/ EWTN News

Vatican City, Dec 25, 2025 / 06:35 am (CNA).

Pope Leo XIV on Christmas Day deplored the “falsehoods” used to justify wars that leave young people “forced to take up arms” and “sent to their deaths,” while also drawing attention to the humanitarian suffering of displaced people, including families living in tents in Gaza.

In his first Christmas as pope, Leo celebrated Christmas Day Mass in St. Peter’s Basilica, reviving a practice not seen since 1994 during the pontificate of St. John Paul II. Reflecting on the prologue of St. John’s Gospel, the pope said in his homily that the Christmas liturgy highlights a striking contrast: God’s Word, which acts with power, comes into the world in utter weakness.

“The ‘Word’ is a word that acts,” Leo said. Yet, he added, “the Word of God appears but cannot speak. He comes to us as a newborn baby who can only cry and babble.”

Leo said the mystery Christians celebrate at Christmas cannot be separated from the vulnerability of those whose dignity is assaulted by war, displacement, and poverty. He urged Catholics to let Christ’s birth pierce complacency and move them toward tenderness and solidarity.

“‘Flesh’ is the radical nakedness that, in Bethlehem as on Calvary, remains even without words – just as so many brothers and sisters, stripped of their dignity and reduced to silence, have no words today,” he said.

In one of the homily’s most striking passages, Leo connected the Gospel image of the Word “pitching” his tent among humanity with the reality faced by families living in makeshift shelters amid conflict.

“Dear brothers and sisters, since the Word was made flesh, humanity now speaks, crying out with God’s own desire to encounter us. The Word has pitched his fragile tent among us,” he said, before asking: “How, then, can we not think of the tents in Gaza, exposed for weeks to rain, wind and cold; and of those of so many other refugees and displaced persons on every continent; or of the makeshift shelters of thousands of homeless people in our own cities?”

The pope also described the toll of war in terms of both shattered communities and wounded consciences.

“Fragile is the flesh of defenseless populations, tried by so many wars, ongoing or concluded, leaving behind rubble and open wounds,” he said. “Fragile are the minds and lives of young people forced to take up arms, who on the front lines feel the senselessness of what is asked of them and the falsehoods that fill the pompous speeches of those who send them to their deaths.”

Leo framed Christmas as a proclamation that peace is not merely a hope for the future but a gift already present in Christ, even when few recognize it. Quoting Jesus’ words to the disciples, he said: “‘Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you’ (Jn 14:27).”

That peace, he said, begins not in rhetoric but in concrete compassion that listens, stays close, and responds to suffering.

“When the fragility of others penetrates our hearts, when their pain shatters our rigid certainties, then peace has already begun,” he said. “The peace of God is born from a newborn’s cry that is welcomed, from weeping that is heard. It is born amidst ruins that call out for new forms of solidarity.”

The pope warned that believers can bury what the Gospel calls “the power to become children of God” by keeping their distance from the vulnerable.

“Becoming children of God is a true power – one that remains buried so long as we keep our distance from the cry of children and the frailty of the elderly, from the helpless silence of victims and the resigned melancholy of those who do the evil they do not want,” he said.

This story was first published by ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language news partner. It has been translated and adapted by CNA.

The Shrine of Santa Maria della Consolazione in Deliceto, Italy, where St. Alphonsus Liguori was inspired to write and compose the famous Italian Christmas carol, “Tu Scendi dalle Stelle,” in 1744. / Credit: Gianpiero Passalia/EWTN News

Rome Newsroom, Dec 25, 2025 / 06:00 am (CNA).

If you spend any part of Christmas in Italy, you are sure to hear one of the country’s most beloved carols, “Tu Scendi Dalle Stelle” (“From Starry Skies Descending”).

The Christmas song, written and composed by St. Alphonsus Liguori in the mid-18th century, describes Christ, King and Creator, coming into the world as a poor baby.

The song was “born from the heart and pen of Alphonsus Maria Liguori — in love with Jesus, but passionate about humanity — and very close to ordinary people,” Father Luca Preziosi told Valentina Di Donato of EWTN News.

The saint, from Naples, “wanted to share a little of this beauty, of his knowledge of Jesus,” especially with the peasants of the time, who could not read or write, said Preziosi, the rector of the Shrine of Santa Maria della Consolazione in Deliceto, Italy.

St. Alphonsus Liguori was a Neapolitan lawyer who became a priest and later a bishop. He is founder of the Redemptorists, a religious congregation dedicated to missionary work. He was declared a doctor of the Church for his contribution to moral theology. 

In December 1744, Alphonsus was asked by his bishop to serve for a period near the town of Deliceto, in southern Italy, at the Convent of the Consolation, where he would eventually found the third Redemptorist house.

According to popular tradition, the priest was inspired by a grotto near the convent — hidden inside a small church — which recalled the humble birthplace of Jesus in Bethlehem. He began penning what would become “Tu Scendi Dalle Stelle.”

Alphonsus also borrowed heavily from the melody and lyrics of an earlier Christmas song he had written in Neapolitan dialect, “Quanno Nascette Ninno” (“When the Child Was Born”).

The Italian saint’s original title for the song, which has seven stanzas, was “Canzoncina a Gesù Bambino” (“Little Song to the Baby Jesus”).

The popular carol is part of the Italian “pastorale” musical style, and though several different arrangements exist, it is traditionally accompanied by an Italian bagpipe.

Italian singer Luciano Lamonarca has been working to popularize the song beyond Italy’s borders with a version of the carol in Italian, English, and Spanish.

“As a tenor, I of course wanted to promote the legacy of this song,” he told EWTN News. “So like Sergio Franchi and Luciano Pavarotti and Andrea Boccelli, who have recorded the song mostly in Italy, in Italian, I supported a project that would allow me to sing the song in all three languages and tell the story to the public at large, especially in America, where the song is not well known.” 

Lamonarca presented his project to share “Tu Scendi Dalle Stelle” around the world with Pope Leo XIV at the Vatican on Dec. 18. 

An English translation of the first two stanzas is:

From starry skies descending
Thou comest, the glorious King
A manger low Thy bed
In winter’s icy sting
A manger low Thy bed
In winter’s icy sting
O my dearest Child most holy
Shudd’ring, trembling in the cold!
Great God, Thou lovest me!
What suff’ring Thou didst bear
That I near Thee might be!
What suff’ring Thou didst bear
That I near Thee might be!

Thou art the world’s Creator
God’s own and true Word
Yet here no robe, no fire
For Thee, Divine Lord
Yet here no robe, no fire
For Thee, Divine Lord
Dearest, fairest, sweetest Infant
Dire this state of poverty
The more I care for Thee
Since Thou, O Love Divine
Will’st now so poor to be
Since Thou, O Love Divine
Will’st now so poor to be

Pope Leo XIV venerates a statue of the child Jesus during the celebration of Christmas Mass during the Night in St. Peter’s Basilica on Dec. 24, 2025. / Credit: Daniel Ibanez/CNA

Vatican City, Dec 24, 2025 / 17:31 pm (CNA).

Pope Leo XIV celebrated Christmas Mass during the Night in St. Peter’s Basilica on Wednesday. The Mass was attended by an estimated 6,000 people inside the basilica, while around 5,000 people gathered outside in St. Peter's Square, according to the Vatican.

Below is the full text of the pope’s Christmas night homily:

Dear brothers and sisters,

For millennia, across the earth, peoples have gazed up at the sky, giving names to the silent stars, and seeing images therein. In their imaginative yearning, they tried to read the future in the heavens, seeking on high for a truth that was absent below amidst their homes. Yet, as if grasping in the dark, they remained lost, confounded by their own oracles. On this night, however, “the people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who dwelt in a land of deep darkness, on them has light shined” (Is 9:2).

Behold the star that astonishes the world, a spark newly lit and blazing with life: “To you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is the Messiah, the Lord” (Lk 2:11). Into time and space — in our midst — comes the One without whom we would not exist. He who gives his life for us lives among us, illuminating the night with his light of salvation. There is no darkness that this star does not illumine, for by its light all humanity beholds the dawn of a new and eternal life.

It is the birth of Jesus, Emmanuel. In the Son made man, God gives us nothing less than his very self, in order to “redeem us from all iniquity and purify for himself a people of his own” (Titus 2:14). Born in the night is the One who redeems us from the night. The hint of the dawning day is no longer to be sought in the distant reaches of the cosmos, but by bending low, in the stable nearby.

The clear sign given to a darkened world is indeed “a child wrapped in bands of cloth and lying in a manger” (Lk 2:12). To find the Savior, one must not gaze upward, but look below: The omnipotence of God shines forth in the powerlessness of a newborn; the eloquence of the eternal Word resounds in an infant’s first cry; the holiness of the Spirit gleams in that small body, freshly washed and wrapped in swaddling clothes. The need for care and warmth becomes divine since the Son of the Father shares in history with all his brothers and sisters. The divine light radiating from this Child helps us to recognize humanity in every new life.

To heal our blindness, the Lord chooses to reveal himself in each human being, who reflect his true image, according to a plan of love begun at the creation of the world. As long as the night of error obscures this providential truth, then “there is no room for others either, for children, for the poor, for the stranger” (Benedict XVI, Homily, Christmas Mass during the Night, 24 December 2012).

These words of Pope Benedict XVI remain a timely reminder that on earth, there is no room for God if there is no room for the human person. To refuse one is to refuse the other. Yet, where there is room for the human person, there is room for God; even a stable can become more sacred than a temple, and the womb of the Virgin Mary become the Ark of the New Covenant.

Let us marvel, dear brothers and sisters, at the wisdom of Christmas. In the Child Jesus, God gives the world a new life: his own, offered for all. He does not give us a clever solution to every problem, but a love story that draws us in. In response to the expectations of peoples, he sends a child to be a word of hope. In the face of the suffering of the poor, he sends one who is defenseless to be the strength to rise again. Before violence and oppression, he kindles a gentle light that illumines with salvation all the children of this world. As St. Augustine observed, “human pride weighed you down so heavily that only divine humility could raise you up again” (St. Augustine, Sermon 188, III, 3). While a distorted economy leads us to treat human beings as mere merchandise, God becomes like us, revealing the infinite dignity of every person. While humanity seeks to become “god” in order to dominate others, God chooses to become man in order to free us from every form of slavery. Will this love be enough to change our history?

The answer will come as soon as we wake up from a deadly night into the light of new life, and, like the shepherds, contemplate the child Jesus. Above the stable of Bethlehem, where Mary and Joseph watch over the newborn Child with hearts full of wonder, the starry sky is transformed into “a multitude of the heavenly host” (Lk 2:13). These are unarmed and disarming hosts, for they sing of the glory of God, of which peace on earth is the true manifestation (cf. v. 14). Indeed, in the heart of Christ beats the bond of love that unites heaven and earth, Creator and creatures.

For this reason, exactly one year ago, Pope Francis affirmed that the Nativity of Jesus rekindles in us the “gift and task of bringing hope wherever hope has been lost,” because “with him, joy flourishes; with him, life changes; with him, hope does not disappoint” (Homily, Christmas Mass during the Night, 24 December 2024). With these words, the holy year began. Now, as the jubilee draws to a close, Christmas becomes for us a time of gratitude and mission; gratitude for the gift received, and mission to bear witness to it before the world. As the Psalmist sings: “Tell of his salvation from day to day. Declare his glory among the nations, his marvelous deeds among all the peoples” (Ps 96:2–3).

Brothers and sisters, contemplation of the Word made flesh awakens in the whole Church a new and true proclamation. Let us therefore announce the joy of Christmas, which is a feast of faith, charity, and hope. It is a feast of faith, because God becomes man, born of the Virgin. It is a feast of charity, because the gift of the redeeming Son is realized in fraternal self-giving. It is a feast of hope, because the child Jesus kindles it within us, making us messengers of peace. With these virtues in our hearts, unafraid of the night, we can go forth to meet the dawn of a new day.

Pope Leo XIV celebrates Christmas Mass during the Night in a packed St. Peter’s Basilica on Dec. 24, 2025. / Credit: Daniel Ibanez/CNA

Vatican City, Dec 24, 2025 / 17:30 pm (CNA).

Pope Leo XIV, at Christmas Mass during the Night, said Christ’s birth brings light into the world’s darkness — and where the human person is welcomed, God is welcomed too.

“To enlighten our blindness, the Lord chose to reveal himself as a man to man, his true image, according to a plan of love that began with the creation of the world,” the pope said in his homily in St. Peter’s Basilica on Dec. 24.

“As long as the night of error obscures this providential truth, then ‘there is no room for others either, for children, for the poor, for the stranger,’” he added, quoting Pope Benedict XVI’s homily at Christmas Mass on Dec. 24, 2012.

“These words of Pope Benedict XVI remain a timely reminder that on earth, there is no room for God if there is no room for the human person,” the pontiff said.

Leo celebrated the Christmas Mass, also known as midnight Mass, for a packed Vatican basilica at 10 p.m. The Vatican said an estimated 6,000 people were inside the basilica for the Mass, while another 5,000 people followed the papal Mass via jumbo screens in St. Peter’s Square.

In a surprise before the Mass, the pope stepped outside St. Peter’s Basilica to greet those who were forced to stay in the rainy square because there was no more room inside.

“The basilica of St. Peter’s is very large, but unfortunately it is not large enough to receive all of you,” Leo said, thanking everyone for their presence, wishing them a merry Christmas, and bestowing his apostolic blessing.

The preparatory readings and the sung Proclamation of the Birth of Christ — also called the Kalenda Proclamation — preceded the Mass. The pontiff removed a cloth to reveal a wooden sculpture of the Christ Child, placed in front of the main altar of the basilica, after the chanting of the Kalenda Proclamation. A group of 10 children dressed in traditional clothing from different parts of the world brought flowers to the figure of baby Jesus.

In his homily, the pope recalled that, “for millennia, across the earth, peoples have gazed up at the sky” attempting to read the future in the stars. 

Yet, they remained lost and in the dark, he said. “On this night, however, ‘the people who walked in darkness have seen a great light’ (Is 9:2).”

“Born in the night is the One who redeems us from the night,” Leo said. “The hint of the dawning day is no longer to be sought in the distant reaches of the cosmos, but by bending low, in the stable nearby.

Pope Leo invited Christians to marvel at the wisdom of Christmas, through which “God gives the world a new life: his own, offered for all.”

“He does not give us a clever solution to every problem but a love story that draws us in. In response to the expectations of peoples, he sends a child to be a word of hope. In the face of the suffering of the poor, he sends one who is defenseless to be the strength to rise again. Before violence and oppression, he kindles a gentle light that illumines with salvation all the children of this world,” he said.

The pontiff quoted a sermon of St. Augustine, who said “human pride weighed you down so heavily that only divine humility could raise you up again.”

“While a distorted economy leads us to treat human beings as mere merchandise, God becomes like us, revealing the infinite dignity of every person,” Leo said. “While humanity seeks to become ‘god’ in order to dominate others, God chooses to become man in order to free us from every form of slavery. Will this love be enough to change our history?”