Pope at Audience: The humble and poor bear witness to Jesus’ birth

By Christopher Wells

In his continuing catechetical series on “Jesus our Hope,” Pope Francis turned to the birth of Jesus in Bethlehem, highlighting the humility of God, who chose to be born in a particular time and place, and in the most humble circumstances.

Even before His birth, the Pope said, Jesus made Himself our “companion on the journey,” traveling in the womb of Mary, His mother, to visit Elizabeth; and later, with Mary and Joseph, traveling to Bethlehem to be enrolled in the census.

Pope Francis' General Audience

First witnesses of the Good News

In his catechesis, which he asked Fr. Pierluigi Giroli, IC, to read, Pope Francis explained that the manner of Christ’s birth was “unheard of” for a king. Jesus, he noted, was not born in a royal palace but in the back of a house, in the place where the animals were kept.

The first witnesses of the Messiah’s birth were the shepherds: “men of little culture, malodorous from constant contact with the animals, living on the margins of society.”

And yet, the Pope said, the shepherds practice the very occupation “by which God Himself makes Himself known to His people.” And He chooses them as the first recipients of the greatest proclamation of all time: “A Saviour has been born for you, who is Messiah and Lord.”

Here, too, Pope Francis focused on the humble circumstances of Jesus’ appearance: the shepherds find Him lying in a manger, a feeding trough. The good news that their Saviour, the Messiah, is to be found in “a very humble place, reserved for animals… opens their hearts to wonder, praise, and joyful proclamation.”

As the Pope noted in his Apostolic Letter, Admirabile signum, “It is the humble and the poor who greet the event of the Incarnation.”

Pope Francis at the General Audience

Capable of wonder and praise before God

The Holy Father invited the faithful to seek the grace of being capable of “wonder and praise before God,” as the shepherds were, “and to be capable of cherishing what He has entrusted to us: talents, charisms, our vocation, and the people He places beside us.”

Finally, he said, “Let us ask the Lord to be able to discern in weakness the extraordinary strength of the Child God, who comes to renew the world and transform our lives with His plan full of hope for all humanity.”