Thousands of volunteers in colorful safety vests fill St. Peter’s Square during the Jubilee of Volunteers at the Vatican on Mar. 9, 2025. / Credit: Daniel Ibáñez/CNA
Rome Newsroom, Mar 9, 2025 / 13:20 pm (CNA).
Pope Francis on Sunday thanked volunteers for the closeness and tenderness they show others in need of their care.
As the Holy Father continues medical treatment at Rome’s Gemelli Hospital, the Vatican released his March 9 Sunday homily and Angelus message dedicated to the approximately 25,000 men and women participating in the March 8-9 Jubilee of the World of Volunteering.
At the conclusion of his homily, the pope thanked volunteers associated with non-profit and non-governmental organizations for following Jesus by serving others.
“On the streets and in homes, in the company of the sick, the suffering and the imprisoned, with the young and the elderly, your generosity and commitment offer hope to our entire society,” the pontiff shared in his prepared homily.
“In the deserts of poverty and loneliness, all those small gestures are helping to make a new humanity blossom in the garden that is God’s dream, always and everywhere, for all of us,” he continued.
In his Angelus message, the 88-year-old pontiff said volunteers bear witness to the “primacy of gratuitousness, solidarity and service to those most in need.”
“In our societies, too enslaved to market logic, where everything risks being subject to the criterion of interest and the quest for profit, volunteering is prophecy and a sign of hope,” the pope said.
“I express my gratitude to those who are engaged in this field: thank you for offering your time and abilities; thank you for the closeness and tenderness with which you care for others, reawakening hope in them!”
Calling those who care for the sick “a sign of Lord’s presence,” the Holy Father expressed particular gratitude towards the doctors and medical staff caring for him at Gemelli Hospital.
“Brothers and sisters, during my prolonged hospitalization here, I too experience the thoughtfulness of service and the tenderness of care,” he said. “We need this, the ‘miracle of tenderness’ which accompanies those who are in adversity, bringing a little light into the night of pain.”
The pope on Sunday also thanked those who have and continue to pray for his health and healing since being admitted to hospital more than three weeks ago on Feb. 14: “Heartfelt thanks to you all! I pray for you too.”
In a March 9 statement released by the Holy See Press Office, the Vatican said it will hold the Roman Curia’s annual spiritual exercises from March 10-14 this year.
“In accordance with tradition, this time of contemplation and prayer represents a moment of silence and discernment for the Holy Father’s collaborators, who will gather in a spirit of reflection and listening to the Word of God, continuing to pray for his health,” the Vatican statement said.
The pope said he will “join spiritually” those participating in this month’s spiritual exercises, in his Angelus message.
During the March 10-14 spiritual exercises, the Vatican said the recitation of the Holy Rosary for the Holy Father’s health will be held at 5 p.m. local time inside the Paul VI Audience Hall, instead of 9 p.m. local time in St. Peter’s Square.
Since Feb. 24, cardinals of the Roman Curia have led daily prayer evenings, open to the public, in St. Peter’s Square for the pope’s recovery.
At the end of his Sunday Angelus message, the pope asked people to pray for the “gift of peace” for Ukraine, Palestine, Israel, Lebanon, Myanmar, Sudan, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Syria.
“I entrust you all to the maternal intercession of the Virgin Mary,” he said. “Happy Sunday, and arrivederci (goodbye)!”
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Pope Francis prays during Christmas Mass in St. Peter’s Basilica on Dec. 24, 2023. / Vatican Media
Vatican City, Dec 24, 2023 / 18:00 pm (CNA).
Below is the full text of Pope Francis’ homily for the Solemnity of the Nativity of the Lord, delivered on Dec. 24, 2023, in St. Peter’s Basilica.
“A census of the whole earth” (cf. Lk 2:1). This was the context in which Jesus was born, and the Gospel makes a point of it. The census might have been mentioned in passing, but instead is carefully noted. And in this way, a great contrast emerges. While the emperor numbers the world’s inhabitants, God enters it almost surreptitiously. While those who exercise power seek to take their place with the great ones of history, the King of history chooses the way of littleness. None of the powerful take notice of him: only a few shepherds, relegated to the margins of social life.
The census speaks of something else. In the Scriptures, the taking of a census has negative associations. King David, tempted by large numbers and an unhealthy sense of self-sufficiency, sinned gravely by ordering a census of the people. He wanted to know how powerful he was. After some nine months, he knew how many men could wield a sword (cf. 2 Sam 24:1-9). The Lord was angered and the people suffered. On this night, however, Jesus, the “Son of David”, after nine months in Mary’s womb, is born in Bethlehem, the city of David. He does not impose punishment for the census, but humbly allows himself to be registered as one among many. Here we see, not a god of wrath and chastisement, but the God of mercy, who takes flesh and enters the world in weakness, heralded by the announcement: “on earth peace among those whom he favors” (Lk 2:14). Tonight, our hearts are in Bethlehem, where the Prince of Peace is once more rejected by the futile logic of war, by the clash of arms that even today prevents him from finding room in the world (cf. Lk 2:7).
The census of the whole earth, in a word, manifests the all-too-human thread that runs through history: the quest for worldly power and might, fame and glory, which measures everything in terms of success, results, numbers and figures, a world obsessed with achievement. Yet the census also manifests the way of Jesus, who comes to seek us through enfleshment. He is not the god of accomplishment, but the God of Incarnation. He does not eliminate injustice from above by a show of power, but from below, by a show of love. He does not burst on the scene with limitless power, but descends to the narrow confines of our lives. He does not shun our frailties, but makes them his own.
Christmas Mass in St. Peter’s Basilica on the night of Dec. 24, 2023. Vatican Media
Brothers and sisters, tonight we might ask ourselves: Which God do we believe in? In the God of incarnation or the god of achievement? Because there is always a risk that we can celebrate Christmas while thinking of God in pagan terms, as a powerful potentate in the sky; a god linked to power, worldly success, and the idolatry of consumerism. With the false image of a distant and petulant deity who treats the good well and the bad poorly; a deity made in our own image and likeness, handy for resolving our problems and removing our ills. God, on the other hand, waves no magic wand; he is no god of commerce who promises “everything all at once”. He does not save us by pushing a button, but draws near us, in order to change our world from within. Yet how deeply ingrained is the worldly notion of a distant, domineering, unbending, and powerful deity who helps his own to prevail against others! So many times this image is ingrained in us. But that is not the case: our God was born for all, during a census of the whole earth.
Let us look, then, to the “living and true God” (1 Thess 1:9). The God who is beyond all human reckoning and yet allows himself to be numbered by our accounting. The God, who revolutionizes history by becoming a part of history. The God who so respects us as to allow us to reject him; who takes away sin by taking it upon himself; who does not eliminate pain but transforms it; who does not remove problems from our lives but grants us a hope that is greater than all our problems. God so greatly desires to embrace our lives that, infinite though he is, he becomes finite for our sake. In his greatness, he chooses to become small; in his righteousness, he submits to our injustice. Brothers and sisters, this is the wonder of Christmas: not a mixture of sappy emotions and worldly contentment, but the unprecedented tenderness of a God who saves the world by becoming incarnate. Let us contemplate the Child, let us contemplate the manger, his crib, which the angels call “a sign” for us (cf. Lk 2:12). For it truly is the sign that reveals God’s face, a face of compassion and mercy, whose might is shown always and only in love. He makes himself close, tender, and compassionate. This is God’s way: closeness, compassion, tenderness.
Pope Francis brings a figure of the Christ child over to the nativity scene inside of St. Peter’s Basilica at the end of Mass. Vatican Media
Sisters and brothers, let us marvel at the fact that he “became flesh” (Jn 1:14). Flesh: the very word evokes our human frailty. The Gospel uses this word to show us that God completely assumed our human condition. Why did he go to such lengths? Because he cares for us, because he loves us to the point that he considers us more precious than all else. Dear brother, dear sister, to God, who changed history in the course of a census, you are not a number, but a face. Your name is written on his heart. But if you look to your own heart, and think of your own inadequacies and this world that is so judgmental and unforgiving, you may feel it difficult to celebrate this Christmas. You may think things are going badly, or feel dissatisfied with your limitations, your failings, your problems, and your sins. Today, though, please, let Jesus take the initiative. He says to you, “For your sake, I became flesh; for your sake, I became just like you”. So why remain caught up in your troubles? Like the shepherds, who left their flocks, leave behind the prison of your sorrows and embrace the tender love of the God who became a child. Put aside your masks and your armor; cast your cares on him and he will care for you (cf. Ps 55:22). He became flesh; he is looking not for your achievements but for your open and trusting heart. In him, you will rediscover who you truly are: a beloved son or daughter of God. Now you can believe it, for tonight the Lord was born to light up your life; his eyes are alight with love for you. We have difficulty believing in this, that God’s eyes shine with love for us.
Christmas Mass in St. Peter’s Basilica on the night of Dec. 24, 2023. Vatican Media
Christ does not look at numbers, but at faces. However, who looks at him amid the many distractions and mad rush of a bustling and indifferent world? Who is watching? In Bethlehem, as crowds of people were caught up in the excitement of the census, coming and going, filling the inns, and engaged in petty conversation, a few were close to Jesus: Mary and Joseph, the shepherds, and then the Magi.
Let us learn from them. They stood gazing upon Jesus, with their hearts set on him. They did not speak, they worshiped. Tonight, brothers and sisters, is a time of adoration, of worship.
Worship is the way to embrace the Incarnation. For it is in silence that Jesus, the Word of the Father, becomes flesh in our lives. Let us do as they did, in Bethlehem, a town whose name means “House of Bread”. Let us stand before him who is the Bread of Life. Let us rediscover worship, for to worship is not to waste time, but to make our time a dwelling place for God. It is to let the seed of the Incarnation bloom within us; it is to cooperate in the work of the Lord, who, like leaven, changes the world. To worship is to intercede, to make reparation, to allow God to realign history. As a great teller of epic tales once wrote to his son, “I put before you the one great thing to love on earth: the Blessed Sacrament… There you will find romance, glory, honor, fidelity, and the true way of all your loves on earth” (J.R.R. TOLKIEN, Letter 43, March 1941).
Brothers and sisters, tonight love changes history. Make us believe, Lord, in the power of your love, so different from the power of the world. Lord, make us, like Mary, Joseph, the shepherds, and the Magi, gather around you and worship you. As you conform us ever more to yourself, we shall bear witness before the world to the beauty of your countenance.
Vatican City, Nov 10, 2019 / 05:08 am (CNA).- During the Angelus on Sunday, Pope Francis led Catholics in praying a ‘Hail Mary’ for peace and reconciliation for South Sudan, whose leaders are locked in disagreement as they try to form a gov… […]
Pope Francis’ General Audience in St. Peter’s Square on March 29, 2023. / Daniel Ibanez/CNA
Vatican City, Mar 29, 2023 / 06:00 am (CNA).
Pope Francis on Wednesday spoke against a comfortable Christianity that keeps Jesus at arm’s length, rather than inviting him into the heart to change it.
“If one of us says, ‘Ah, thank you Lord, because I am a good person, I do good things, I do not commit major sins…’ this is not a good path, this is the path of self-sufficiency, it is a path that does not justify you, it makes you turn up your nose,” the pope said during his weekly public audience March 29.
He called this attitude being “an elegant Catholic, but an elegant Catholic is not a holy Catholic, he is elegant.”
“The true Catholic, the true Christian is one who receives Jesus within, which changes your heart,” Pope Francis said in St. Peter’s Square.
Pope Francis’ General Audience in St. Peter’s Square on March 29, 2023. Daniel Ibanez/CNA
“This,” he continued, “is the question I ask you all today: What does Jesus mean for me? Did I let him enter my heart, or do I keep him within reach, but so that he does not really enter within? Have I let myself be changed by him? Or is Jesus just an idea, a theology that goes ahead…”
At his Wednesday general audience, the pope continued his reflections on evangelization and apostolic zeal with a catechesis centered on St. Paul’s transformation from a persecutor of Christians to a great evangelist.
St. Paul “was a man who was zealous about the law of Moses for Judaism, and after his conversion, this zeal continued, but to proclaim, to preach Jesus Christ,” Pope Francis explained. “Paul loved Jesus. Saul — Paul’s first name — was already zealous, but Christ converts his zeal.”
To better explain zeal, the pope referenced St. Thomas Aquinas, who taught that passion, from a moral perspective, is neither good nor bad: it depends on if it is used virtuously or sinfully.
Pope Francis’ General Audience in St. Peter’s Square on March 29, 2023. Daniel Ibanez/CNA
“In Paul’s case, what changed him is not a simple idea or a conviction: it was the encounter, this word, it was the encounter with the risen Lord — do not forget this, it is the encounter with the Lord that changes a life — it was the encounter with the risen Lord that transformed his entire being,” the pope said.
“Paul’s humanity,” he added, “his passion for God and his glory was not annihilated, but transformed, ‘converted’ by the Holy Spirit.”
The pope noted that part of the change that takes place in Paul is his conversion from feeling righteous before God, and thus authorized to persecute, to arrest, and even to kill — to someone who, enlightened by God, recognizes himself to be a “blasphemer and persecutor.”
After recognizing what he had done, Paul becomes truly capable of loving, Francis said.
“If Jesus did not enter your life, it did not change,” he said. “You cannot be Christian only from the outside. No, Jesus must enter and this changes you, and this happened to Paul. It is finding Jesus, and this is why Paul said that Christ’s love drives us, it is what takes you forward.”
Pope Francis’ General Audience in St. Peter’s Square on March 29, 2023. Daniel Ibanez/CNA
“This is zeal, when one finds Jesus and feels the fire, like Paul, and must preach Jesus, must talk about Jesus, must help people, must do good things,” he explained. “When one finds the idea of Jesus, he or she remains an ideologue of Christianity, and this does not justify, only Jesus justifies us. May the Lord help us find Jesus, encounter Jesus, and may this Jesus change our life from within and help us to help others.”
Volunteers make a difference. Long live the spread of tenderness. May each and every volunteer and their loved ones be blessed.