Can we allow this truth, this person named Jesus—this God for whom love alone is credible—to truly possess our hearts in the year ahead?

“The Word became flesh in order to dialogue with us,” he insisted. “God does not desire to carry on a monologue, but a dialogue. For God himself—Father, Son and Holy Spirit—is dialogue, an eternal and infinite communion of love and life.”

This is what we should ask Jesus for at Christmas: the grace of littleness.

Danger, death, disbelief appears everywhere. We shall not be overcome.

The gospel is more recipe than record. The only way you know that you have received the gift of Christmas is to live in love.

The pope’s talk was aimed at promoting a synodal culture, rooted in humility, at the heart of the central government of the church.