Pope Benedict on Christmas

A collection of quotes on Christmas by Pope Benedict XVI

“The God we contemplate in the Nativity scene is God-love…The only way to glorify God and build peace in the world is in the humble and confident welcoming of the gift of Christmas: love.”
General audience, December 27, 2006

“At Christmas we contemplate God made man, divine glory hidden beneath the poverty of a child wrapped in swaddling clothes and laid in a manger, the Creator of the universe reduced to the helplessness of an infant. Once we accept this paradox, we discover the truth that sets us free and the love that transforms our lives. On Bethlehem night, the Redeemer becomes one of us, our companion along the precarious paths of history.”
Urbi et orbi message, Christmas 2005

“[God] makes himself small for us. This is how he reigns. He does not come with power and outward splendour. He comes as a baby—defenceless and in need of our help. In this way God teaches us to love the little ones. In this way he teaches us to love the weak. In this way he teaches us respect for children.”
Christmas Eve Mass 2006

“[S]eeing city streets and squares decorated with shining lights, let us remember that these lights are a reminder of another light, which is invisible to the eyes but not to the heart. While we admire them, while we light candles in church or illuminate a Nativity scene or Christmas tree in our homes, let us open our hearts to the true spiritual light offered to all people of good will.”
General audience, December 21, 2005

“If the light of God, the light of truth is turned off, life becomes dark and without a compass. If one does not recognise God became man, what sense is there in celebrating Christmas? [Christians must] reaffirm with deep and felt conviction the truth of the birth of Christ, to pay witness before everyone the understanding of a gift never before dreamed of that is a richness not only for us, but for all people.”
General audience, December 19, 2007

“Christmas is a Christian holiday and its symbols … make important references to the great mystery of the incarnation and the birth of Jesus…We have to preserve [our traditions] even in today’s society where at times the consumerist race and the search for only material goods seem to prevail.”
Special audience, December 14, 2007

“May the baby Jesus not find us distracted or involved only in decorating our houses with lights. Rather, let us ready in our hearts and our families a worthy place where he will feel welcomed with faith and love.”
General audience, December 20, 2006

“When you give gifts for Christmas, do not give only to those who will give to you in return, but give to those who receive from no one and who cannot give you anything back.”
Christmas Eve Mass, 2006

“Joy is the real gift of Christmas, not expensive things that cost time and money.”
At Santa Maria Consolatrice parish in Rome, December 18, 2005

“Christian joy arises from this certainty: God is near, he is with me, he is with us in joy and sorrow, in health and sickness, as a friend and faithful spouse.”
Angelus, December 16, 2007

“In the manger at Bethlehem, we adore the same Lord who, in the eucharistic sacrament, wanted to be our spiritual food in order to transform the world from the inside, beginning from the human heart.”
Addressing university students, December 14, 2006

“Do we have time for our neighbour who is in need of a word from us, from me, or in need of my affection? For the sufferer who is in need of help? For the fugitive or the refugee who is seeking asylum? Do we have time and space for God? Can he enter into our lives? Does he find room in us, or have we occupied all the available space in our thoughts, our actions, our lives for ourselves? [But] God does not allow himself to be shut out.”
Christmas Eve Mass, 2007

“In the millennium just past, and especially in the last centuries, immense progress was made in the areas of technology and science. Today we can dispose of vast material resources. But the men and women in our technological age risk becoming victims of their own intellectual and technical achievements, ending up in spiritual barrenness and emptiness of heart.”
Christmas Day blessing, 2005

“[D]oes a ‘Saviour’ still have any value and meaning for the men and women of the third millennium ? Is a ‘Saviour’ still needed by a humanity which has reached the moon and Mars and is prepared to conquer the universe; for a humanity which knows no limits in its pursuit of nature’s secrets and which has succeeded even in deciphering the marvellous codes of the human genome?

“So it would seem, yet this is not the case. People continue to die of hunger and thirst, disease and poverty, in this age of plenty and of unbridled consumerism.

“How can we not hear, from the very depths of this humanity, at once joyful and anguished, a heart-rending cry for help? It is Christmas…Today, this very day, Christ…offers them the opportunity to see God’s glory and to share the joy of that Love which became incarnate for us in Bethlehem.

“Despite humanity’s many advances, man has always been the same: a freedom poised between good and evil, between life and death…And, in this post-modern age, perhaps [mankind] needs a Saviour all the more…Who can defend [man], if not the One who loves him to the point of sacrificing on the Cross his only-begotten Son as the Saviour of the world?”
Urbi et orbi message, Christmas 2006

“The birth of Christ brought a healing message of peace to the world, but to receive it, faith and humility are required: Who has time to listen to his word and to become enfolded and entranced by his love?”
Urbi et orbi message, Christmas 2007