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December 24, 2021 Pope Francis celebrated Christmas Eve Mass in St. Peter's Basilica. Bergoglio, having reached the Altar of the Chair, listened to the recitation of the Calenda, then unveiled the statue of the Child, kissed it and incensed it.
An act of devotion also in front of the icon of the Madonna Salus Populi Romani, to which he is particularly attached, and after a group of children of different nationalities brought some bunches of flowers to the altar, he listened to the Sistine Choir intone the " Dominus dixit to me ".
"Jesus was born there, close to the shepherds, close to the forgotten of the suburbs - the Pope said at the Christmas Eve Mass -. He comes where the dignity of man is put to the test. He comes to ennoble the excluded and reveals himself first of all to them. : not to educated and important people, but to poor people who worked ".
"Tonight God comes to fill the hardness of work with dignity - he added -. He reminds us how important it is to give dignity to man with work, but also to 'give dignity to man's work', because man is lord and not a slave to work. On the day of life we repeat: no more deaths at work! And let's commit ourselves to this ".
"Let's look again at the crib and we see that Jesus at birth is surrounded by the little ones, the poor - the Pontiff underlined -. Who are they? 'The shepherds'. They were the simplest and were the closest to the Lord. They found him because, 'spending the night in the open, they kept watch all night keeping watch over their flock' (Lk 2: 8) ".
"They were there to work, because they were poor and their life did not have timetables, but depended on the flock - Francis recalled -. They could not live how and where they wanted, but they regulated themselves according to the needs of the sheep they looked after".
"Welcoming littleness means one more thing: embracing Jesus 'in today's little ones'. To love him, that is, to serve him in the poor. They are the most similar to Jesus, born poor. And it is in them that He wants to be honored. On this night of love, a single fear assails us: to wound God's love, to wound it by despising the poor with our indifference. They are the beloved of Jesus, who will one day welcome us to Heaven ". Thus the Pope at the Christmas Eve mass.
"Let us not lose sight of Heaven, let us take care of Jesus now, caressing him in the needy, because he identified himself in them", he added.
The Pope also wanted to quote a verse from a well-known American author: "A poetess wrote: 'Whoever has not found Heaven down here will miss it up there' (E. Dickinson, Poems, P96-17) ".