To the City and the World

I said I would post a little of Papa's Urbi et Orbi message, and so here's an excerpt from Zenit:

"Men and women of today, humanity come of age yet often still so frail in mind and will, let the Child of Bethlehem take you by the hand! Do not fear; put your trust in him!" exhorted the Pontiff in a message in which he touched alternately on spirituality and burning current issues.

"The life-giving power of his light is an incentive for building a new world order based on just ethical and economic relationships," the Holy Father added.

May the love of God, incarnated at Christmas, "guide every people on earth and strengthen their common consciousness of being a 'family' called to foster relationships of trust and mutual support," he prayed.

Full article.

Here are a couple more pictures of the Urbi et Orbi:






Also check out his homily at Midnight Mass:

VATICAN CITY, DEC. 25, 2005 (Zenit.org).- Christmas is the greatness of God who becomes small so that we can love him, says Benedict XVI.

In the homily at his first Christmas Eve Midnight Mass as Pope, he contemplated the mystery of Bethlehem and implored for peace in the land of Jesus' birth.

"God is so great that he can become small," the Holy Father told the faithful in a crowded St. Peter's Basilica. "God is so powerful that he can make himself vulnerable and come to us as a defenseless child, so that we can love him."

..."As a sign, he chose the Child lying in the manger: This is how God is," he observed. "This is how we come to know him. And on every child shines something of the splendor of that 'today,' of that closeness of God which we ought to love and to which we must yield -- it shines on every child, even on those still unborn."

"In that Child lying in the stable, God has shown his glory -- the glory of love, which gives itself away, stripping itself of all grandeur in order to guide us along the way of love," Benedict XVI he continued.

Full article.