Exchanging traditional Christmas greetings with members of the Roman Curia on December 22 , Pope Francis delivered a seven-point speech in which he asked them to never take the Lord’s graces for granted, to always walk a path of conversion, and to be peace-makers at a time in which we have never “felt so great a desire for peace.”
Reflecting on how Jesus’ birth in a simple and poor manger is a lesson in seeing things as they really are, he said “each of us is call-ed to return to what is essential in our own lives, to discard all that is superfluous and a potential hindrance on the path of holiness.”
The Pope went on to call for what he described as the most important interior attitude: gratitude.” Only when we are conscious of the Lord’s goodness to us can we also give a name to the evil that we have experienced or endured. The realization of our poverty, without the realization of God’s love, would crush us,” he said.
“Without a constant exercise of gratitude, we would end up simply cataloguing our failures and lose sight of what counts most: the graces that the Lord grants us each day.”
Reflecting on an eventful year, the Holy Father said that “before anything else, we want to thank the Lord for all His blessings. Yet we hope that among those blessings is that of our conversion.”
“Conversion is a never-ending story. The worst thing that could happen to us is to think that we are no longer in need of conversion, either as individuals or as a community.”
The Holy Father said that this process is far from complete and noted that the current reflection on the Church’s synodality high-lights how the process of understanding Christ’s message never ends, but constantly challenges us to keep Christ’s message alive and not imprison it.
He stressed the need for vigilance, warn-ing those present that it would naïve to think evil is permanently uprooted: “In short order, it comes back under a new guise.”
“Before, it [evil] appeared rough and violent, now it shows up as elegant and refined. We need to realize that and once again to unmask it.”