Thursday, December 25, 2025: Christmas Day: With these virtues in our hearts, unafraid of the night, we can go forth to meet the dawn of a new day."

Poem by E. E. Cummings: little tree

little silent Christmas tree

you are so little

you are more like a flower

who found you in the green forest

and were you very sorry to come away?

see          i will comfort you

because you smell so sweetly

i will kiss your cool bark

and hug you safe and tight

just as your mother would,

only don't be afraid

look          the spangles

that sleep all the year in a dark box

dreaming of being taken out and allowed to shine,

the balls the chains red and gold the fluffy threads,

put up your little arms

and i'll give them all to you to hold

every finger shall have its ring

and there won't be a single place dark or unhappy

then when you're quite dressed

you'll stand in the window for everyone to see

and how they'll stare!

oh but you'll be very proud

and my little sister and i will take hands

and looking up at our beautiful tree

we'll dance and sing

"Noel Noel"

From Pope Leo: 

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 the Divine," the pope said in his homily Dec. 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, The Spirit 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."

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 the Divine 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, Jesus 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.

" there is no room for Spirit 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 The Spirit gives the world a new life -- in the Child Jesus. "She 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."

"Let us therefore announce the joy of Christmas, which is a feast of faith, charity and hope, 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."