VATICAN CITY (CNS) – If people refuse to make room for others – like the poor, children, and the stranger – then they also refuse to make room for God, Pope Leo XIV said as he celebrated the birth of Jesus. “Where there is room for the human person, there is room for God,” the pope said in his homily on Wednesday, December 24, as he celebrated the nighttime liturgy in St. Peter’s Basilica. “While a distorted economy leads us to treat human beings as mere merchandise, God becomes like us, revealing the infinite dignity of every person,” he 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.” Pope Leo XIV looks out at an estimated 26,000 people gathered in St. Peter’s Square at the Vatican for his solemn Christmas blessing “urbi et orbi” (to the city and the world) Dec. 25, 2025. (CNS photo/Vatican Media) As the bells of St. Peter’s Basilica rang loudly, announcing the birth of Christ, several children representing different cultures placed white flowers around the crib of baby Jesus. Before the Mass, Pope Leo appeared outside the basilica to greet some 5,000 people gathered in the square under the cold, pouring rain. The basilica was near capacity, and large screens set up in the square allowed the overflow crowd to follow the liturgy. “Good evening and welcome!” the pope said to the crowd outside. “The basilica of St. Peter’s is very large, but unfortunately, it is not large enough to receive all of you. I admire and respect and thank you for your courage and your wanting to be here this evening,” he said in English. “Jesus Christ, who was born for us, brings us peace, brings us God’s love,” he said before heading back to the basilica for the Mass. More than 6,000 people were in the basilica, and guards were reportedly letting additional people in from the rain during the service. In his homily, the pope reflected on how, for millennia, people looked to the heavens for guidance and a truth that was missing below on earth. With the birth of Jesus in Bethlehem, the One who redeems humanity is born, the pope said. “To find the Savior, one must not gaze upward but look below.” “The omnipotence of God shines forth in the powerlessness of a newborn,” he said. “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,” Pope Leo said. “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 said, quoting from Pope Benedict XVI’s homily on Christmas Eve in 2012. His predecessor’s words “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,” he said. “The wisdom of Christmas,” he said, is that God gives the world a new life – his own, offered for all – in the Child Jesus. “He does not give us a clever solution to every problem, but a love story that draws us in.” “Will this love be enough to change our history?” he asked. “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.” God sends a child to be “a word of hope,” he said, recalling how exactly one year ago, Pope Francis began the Holy Year dedicated to hope on Christmas Eve. While Bishop Rhoades celebrated the closing Mass of the Jubilee Year in the Diocese of Fort Wayne-South Bend on Sunday, December 28, the Jubilee Year will officially close on January 6. Pope Leo XIV touches the feet of a statue of the baby Jesus at the beginning of Christmas Mass at Night in St. Peter’s Basilica at the Vatican Dec. 24, 2025. (CNS photo/Vatican Media) “Now, as the Jubilee draws to a close, Christmas becomes for us a time of gratitude” for the gift received and mission to bear witness to it before the world, he said. “Let us therefore announce the joy of Christmas, which is a feast of faith, charity and hope,” he said, and become “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.” On Christmas Morning, Pope Leo celebrated Mass in St. Peter’s basilica before delivering the traditional urbi et orbi blessing and message, telling the crowd gathered in the rain in St. Peter’s Square that Jesus, “out of love,” wanted “to be born of a woman and so share our humanity; out of love, He accepted poverty and rejection, identifying Himself with those who are discarded and excluded.” As is customary, the pope used his message to call attention to urgent needs and suffering in places around the globe and to urge people to help relieve that suffering. “Those who do not love are not saved; they are lost,” he said. “And those who do not love their brother or sister whom they see, cannot love God whom they do not see,” as the First Letter of John says. “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,” Pope Leo said. Looking around the world, the pope prayed for peace and justice in dozens of countries, including Ukraine, and, as he did the night before and during the Christmas morning Mass, Pope Leo also called attention to the plight of migrants and refugees, asking governments to accept and assist them. “In becoming man,” he said, “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.” “On this holy day, let us open our hearts to our brothers and sisters who are in need or in pain,” Pope Leo said. “In doing so, we open our hearts to the Child Jesus, who welcomes us with open arms and reveals His divinity to us.” The post To Turn Away Others Is to Turn Away God, Pope Says appeared first on Today's Catholic. ...read more read less