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December 31, 2019 "I wish tonight that our gaze on the city of Rome would take things from the point of view of the gaze of God. The Lord rejoices in seeing how many realities of good are being made every day, how many efforts and how much dedication in promoting fraternity and solidarity. Rome is not only a complicated city, with many problems, with inequalities, corruption and social tensions. Rome is a city in which God sends his Word, which nestles through the Spirit in the hearts of its inhabitants and pushes them to believe, to hope despite everything, to love by fighting for the good of all ". So Pope Francis in his homily during the celebration of Vespers in the Vatican Basilica.

"I think of the many courageous people, believers and non-believers, whom I have met in recent years and who represent the 'beating heart' of Rome. Really God has never stopped changing the history and face of our city through the people of children and the poor who live there: He chooses them, inspires them, motivates them to action, makes them supportive, pushes them to activate networks, to create virtuous bonds, to build bridges and not walls. It is precisely through these thousand streams of living water of the Spirit that the Word of God makes the city fertile and sterile makes it a 'joyful mother of children' ".

"Church in Rome" throw yourself into the fray ", new air is needed"
The Church of Rome must take the field, "jump into the fray", have time to be with people. "In doing so, in fact, new air is circulating in the city and also in the Church, the desire to get back on the road, to overcome the old logic of opposition and the fences, to collaborate together, building a more just and fraternal city," he said the Pope. "We are called to meet others and listen to their existence, their cry for help. Listening is already an act of love! Having time for others, dialoguing, recognizing the presence with a contemplative look and the action of God in their lives, to witness the new life of the Gospel with deeds rather than words, is truly a service of love that changes reality ".

"God starts from suburban women to change history, not from powerful"
"The prophets, in Scripture, warn against the temptation to link the presence of God only to the temple. He lives among his people, walks with it and lives his life. His faithfulness is concrete, it is proximity to existence daily life of his children. Indeed, when God wants to make all things new through his Son, it does not start from the temple, but from the womb of a small and poor woman of his People. This choice of God is extraordinary. History does not change through the powerful men of civil and religious institutions, but starting from the women of the periphery of the empire, like Mary, and from their sterile womb, like that of Elizabeth "recalls Pope Francis.

Pope in a parish for the funeral of a teacher friend
In the afternoon the Pope participated "in private form at the Roman Parish of San Giuseppe al Nomentano" in the funeral of Prof. Maria Grazia Mara, her friend, who died yesterday. At the end of the Holy Mass, the Holy Father greeted some of those present, and then returned to the Vatican. This is what the Holy See communicates.