VATICAN CITY (CNS) — Just as the star over Bethlehem called to and welcomed everyone to encounter the newborn Jesus, God today calls on the faithful to welcome everyone, creating safe, open spaces to find warmth and shelter, Pope Francis said.
The star is in the sky not to remain distant and inaccessible, he said, “but so that its light may be visible to all, that it may reach every home and overcome every barrier, bringing hope to the most remote and forgotten corners of the planet,” he said.
“It is in the sky so that it can tell everyone, by its generous light, that God does not refuse or forget anyone,” the pope said Jan. 6, celebrating Mass on the feast of the Epiphany in St. Peter’s Basilica.
“God does not reveal himself to exclusive groups or to a privileged few, but offers his companionship and guidance to those who seek him with a sincere heart,” he said in his homily. “God seeks everyone, always.”
“We do well to meditate on this today, in a world in which individuals and nations are equipped with ever more powerful means of communication, and yet seem to have become less willing to understand, accept and encounter others in their diversity!” he said.
This is why many Nativity scenes portray the Magi “with the features of all ages and races” to characterize the many different people on earth, Pope Francis said.
“God calls us to reject anything that discriminates, excludes or discards people, and instead to promote, in our communities and neighborhoods, a strong culture of welcome, in which the narrow places of fear and denunciation are replaced by open spaces of encounter, integration and sharing of life; safe spaces where everyone can find warmth and shelter,” he said.
God rejects and forgets no one because “he is a father whose greatest joy is to see his children returning home,” he said, “building bridges, clearing paths, searching for those who are lost and carrying on their shoulders those who struggle to walk so that no one is left behind and all may share in the joy of the father’s house.”
“The star speaks to us of God’s dream that men and women everywhere in all their rich variety will together form one family that can live harmoniously in prosperity and peace,” he said.
The star of Bethlehem is the light of God’s love, he said, and “it is the only light that will make us happy.”
“This light likewise calls us to give ourselves for one another, becoming, with his help, a mutual sign of hope, even in the darkest nights of our lives,” he said.
“Let us ask the Lord that we might be bright lights that can lead one another to an encounter with him,” he said.
Speaking about the current Holy Year and the Jubilee practice of making a pilgrimage, the pope said, “The light of the star invites us to undertake an interior journey that, as St. John Paul II wrote (for the Great Jubilee of the Year 2000), frees our hearts from all that is not charity, in order to ‘encounter Christ fully, professing our faith in him and receiving the abundance of his mercy.'”
While Pope Francis and thousands of people were at Mass in St. Peter’s Basilica, thousands more lined the main boulevard leading to St. Peter’s Square for the traditional, folkloric Epiphany celebration. Marching bands and people in Renaissance costumes paraded up the street behind the Three Kings on horseback.
Before reciting the Angelus at midday in the square, the pope said, “Let us ask the Virgin Mary to help us so that, imitating the shepherds and the Magi, we are able to recognize Jesus close to us, in the Eucharist, in the poor, in the abandoned, in our brothers and sisters,” he said.
