Vatican City – “The Basilica of Saint Peter is a very large Basilica… but unfortunately not large enough to receive all of you.” With a greeting delivered in four languages and a word of thanks “for your courage” to those who remained outside, Leo XIV chose to open Christmas Night 2025 in this way: by walking to St Peter’s Square shortly before the Eucharistic celebration to meet the faithful who were forced to follow the liturgy on giant screens.
At 10 p.m., in the Vatican Basilica, the Pope presided over his first Midnight Mass for the Solemnity of the Nativity of the Lord 2025, while thousands of people, unable to enter because of capacity limits, took part from the square. “Good evening. Welcome everyone! Bienvenidos! Welcome!” he began, immediately linking hospitality to the concrete reality of logistics: a basilica that is “very large,” yet “not large enough” to hold everyone. Hence the decision to highlight the presence of the faithful in the square and their perseverance in the evening’s conditions: “Thank you so much for being here tonight… We want to celebrate the feast of Christmas together.”
In this brief greeting, Leo XIV condensed into a few sentences the core of the Christmas message: Christ born for us as the gift of God’s peace and love, a blessing for families, the invitation to follow the celebration on the screens, and a final wish: “Best wishes to everyone!” A gesture that once again struck observers for its naturalness and spontaneity.
Symbols and small attentions
Upon arriving in the sacristy, several concelebrants noticed a detail that was far from marginal on a symbolic level: for the first time, Leo XIV wore the sash embroidered with his personal coat of arms, a custom proper to the Pope. Observed and commented on during the immediate moments of preparation, the detail was read as a sign of attention to form and to the tradition of papal ceremonial. This custom had been set aside in previous years without any truly well-founded reason, since the presence of the coat of arms on the sash conveys no idea of wealth or vanity and, from the concrete standpoint of preparation and the conception of the vestment, entails no substantial difference.
The light sought above and the light found by “bowing one’s head”
In the homily, Leo XIV built the architecture of his meditation on a narrative contrast: humanity that for millennia has “scanned the heavens,” seeking in the stars a truth missing “among the houses,” and the Christian night in which Isaiah’s prophecy is fulfilled: “the people who walked in darkness have seen a great light.” The “star” that surprises the world, however, does not point to a cosmic riddle: “Today, in the city of David, a Savior has been born for you.” The logic of the Incarnation is explained by the Pope through a shift in perspective: to find the Savior, one need not raise one’s gaze; one must contemplate what is placed “below,” in a poor and concrete sign: “a child wrapped in swaddling cloths, lying in a manger.”
The Holy Father insisted on a point that is theological and anthropological at once: omnipotence that “shines” in the powerlessness of a newborn, the eternal Word entrusted to a cry, the Spirit radiant in a fragile body “just washed and wrapped in swaddling cloths.” It is here that the Pope broadened the horizon to the dignity of human life: the light of the Child, he said, helps us “to see the human person in every life that is born.”
“There is no room for God if there is no room for man”
At the heart of the homily, Leo quoted Benedict XVI, recalling a passage that links welcoming God to welcoming the human person: when the night of error obscures the truth about man, then “there is no room for others either - for children, for the poor, for foreigners.” The Pope drew out the practical implication: the stable can become “more sacred than a temple” when a real place is made for the human person; and Mary, with her womb, becomes the “ark” of the new covenant. From here, the “wisdom of Christmas” is defined as an event that involves history, not as an abstract solution: God gives his life “for all,” within a story of love that calls for a response. In support of this, Leo XIV evoked Saint Augustine: “human pride crushed you so deeply that only divine humility could lift you up.” And he posed a final question that is deliberately left open and concrete: whether this love is enough to change our history.
Christmas within the Holy Year: gratitude and mission
The temporal perspective of the celebration was placed within the ongoing ecclesial journey. Leo XIV recalled the words spoken “exactly one year ago” by his predecessor at the opening of the Holy Year: Christmas as an impulse to bring hope where it has been lost, with a joy that blossoms and a hope that does not disappoint. Now, with the Jubilee “moving toward its fulfillment,” the Pope pointed to two attitudes: gratitude for the gift received and mission to bear witness to it, entrusting this task to the words of Psalm 96: “Proclaim his salvation day after day…”In closing, Leo XIV defined Christmas as the feast of the three theological virtues - faith, charity, hope - linking them to an operative consequence: with these virtues in the heart, the Church can pass through the night and move toward “the dawn of a new day.”
The final gesture: the Infant Jesus brought to the Nativity scene
At the end of the celebration, the Pope performed a traditional and highly symbolic gesture: he carried the Infant Jesusto the Nativity scene placed at the back of Saint Peter’s Basilica, sealing liturgy and popular devotion in a continuity of signs that, on Christmas Night, once again speak more powerfully than formulas.
d.V.N.
Silere non possum