Pope Benedict's X-mas call: Open the door to God

December 25, 2012 05:01

To the sound of silver trumpets, Pope Benedict XVI entered St Peter's Basilica on Monday to celebrate Christmas Eve Mass and call for all people to make room for God in their heart.

As he did in 2011, the Pope, now 85, bent and waving slowly, arrived on a red rolling platform to negotiate the football-field length main nave of St Peter's.

Though his voice sounded thin, Benedict never hesitated as he led the prayers of the Christmas vigil to welcome the birth of the Christian saviour.

However soft his voice, Benedict's homily was a firm call for the world to open the door to God. He began with the Gospel lines about how Mary and Joseph could find no room In Bethlehem.

"Even if he seems to knock at the door of our thinking," said Benedict, he is often "made superfluous" in our thoughts, feelings and desires. "We are so full of ourselves that there is no room left for God" or the poor or the stranger.

Benedict called for prayer for "all who live and suffer in all the places where Christ lived," naming the Israelis and Palestinians, Lebanon, Iraq and Syria.

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