Pope Francis’ Christmas Mass: ‘God comes into the world in littleness’

In his Christmas homily, Pope Francis asked Christians to contemplate that God did not choose to come into the world in grandeur, but as a humble child born into poverty.

“Brothers and sisters, standing before the crib, we contemplate what is central, beyond all the lights and decorations ... We contemplate the child. In his littleness, God is completely present,” Pope Francis said on Dec. 24.

“Let us be amazed by this scandalous truth. The One who embraces the universe needs to be held in another’s arms. … Infinite love has a miniscule heart that beats softly,” the pope said.

Pope Francis offered Mass for the Nativity of the Lord in St. Peter’s Basilica on Christmas Eve.

The Mass began with a cantor chanting the traditional Kalenda Proclamation of the Birth of Christ from the Roman Martyrology. The pope then bowed to kiss a figure of the Christ child as bells rang out from the basilica.

Pope Francis urged people to stop pining for grandeur and to put aside complaints and greed this Christmas.

“This is what we should ask Jesus for at Christmas: the grace of littleness,” he said. “Lord, teach us to love littleness. Help us to understand that littleness is the way to authentic greatness.”

The pope said that “God desires to come into the little things of our life.”

“Amid our ordinary lived experience, he wants to do extraordinary things. His is a message of immense hope. Jesus asks us to rediscover and value the little things in life,” he said. “If he is present there, what else do we need?”

And Jesus does not only want to come in the little details of our lives, but also into our experience of weakness and inadequacy, the pope said.

“Dear sister or brother, if, as in Bethlehem, the darkness of night overwhelms you, if you feel surrounded by cold indifference, if the hurt you carry inside cries out, ‘You are of little account; you are worthless; you will never be loved the way you want,’ tonight God answers back,” Francis said.