Celebrating the feast of the Immaculate Conception as the Jubilee Year was ending, Pope Leo XIV prayed that Jubilee hope would “blossom in Rome and in every corner of the earth”, bringing with it reconciliation, nonviolence and peace. Source: CNS.
Standing near the Spanish Steps in central Rome, at the foot of a towering column topped by a statue of Mary, the Pope led thousands of Romans, pilgrims and tourists in prayer yesterday.
At dawn that morning, firefighter Roberto Leo, the fire service’s longest serving department head in Rome, climbed up 100 rungs of an aerial ladder to place a wreath of white flowers on the outstretched arm of the statue, about 27 metres above the ground.
Following a tradition begun in 1958 by St John XXIII, Pope Leo blessed a basket of white roses that assistants placed at the foot of the statue and read a prayer specifically written for this year’s feast, with references to what is going on in the Church, the city and the world.
In the prayer to Mary, Pope Leo noted that the Jubilee year brought millions of pilgrims to Rome, representing “a humanity tried, at times crushed, humble like the earth from which God shaped it and into which he never ceases to breathe his Spirit of life”.
“Look, O Mary, upon the many sons and daughters in whom hope has not been extinguished: May what your Son has sown sprout within them – he, the living Word who in each person asks to grow still more, to take on flesh, face and voice,” the Pope prayed.
As the Holy Doors of the major basilicas of Rome will close at the end of the Jubilee on January 6, he said, “may other doors now open: doors of homes and oases of peace where dignity may flower again, where nonviolence is taught, where the art of reconciliation is learned”.
The Pope prayed that Mary would “inspire new insights in the Church that walks in Rome and in the particular churches that in every context gather the joys and hopes, the griefs and anxieties of our contemporaries – especially the poor and all who suffer.”
Pope Leo also expressed the hope that baptism, which washes every person free of original sin, would “bring forth holy and immaculate men and women, called to become living members of the Body of Christ – a body that acts, consoles, reconciles and transforms the earthly city where the city of God is being prepared.”
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Pope prays Mary will fill believers with hope, inspire them to serve (By Cindy Wooden, CNS)
