Just before lighting the largest Christmas tree in the world, Pope Benedict XVI expressed his three wishes for Christmas, all of which can only come true if we take our Holy Father’s advice!
According to BusinessWeek, Pope Benedict XVI used an Android “tablet” to light the largest Christmas tree in the world, located on a mountainside in Gubbio, Italy, from his papal apartments on December 7. The massive tree is made up of a display of nearly 1,000 lights and encompasses an area as large as three soccer fields.
“I would like to express three wishes,” the Pope said in a televised address just before lighting the tree.
“This Christmas tree is formed on the slopes of Mt. Ingino at whose summit is found the basilica of Gubbio’s patron saint, St. Ubaldo. When we look at it our eyes are lifted up, raised toward the sky, toward the world of God.
“My first wish, therefore, is that our gaze, that of our minds and our hearts, not rest only on the horizon of this world, on its material things, but that it in some way, like this tree that tends upward, be directed toward God. God never forgets us but He also asks that we don’t forget Him.”
He went on to reflect upon the Gospel recounting of the night Jesus was born, when a great light enveloped the shepherds and announced the birth of the One who is the true light that illuminates all.
“My second wish is that we recall that we also need a light to illumine the path of our lives and to give us hope, especially in this time in which we feel so greatly the weight of difficulties, of problems, of suffering, and it seems that we are enshrouded in a veil of darkness. But what light can truly illuminate our hearts and give us a firm and sure hope? It is the Child whom we contemplate on Christmas, in a poor and humble manger, because He is the Lord who draws near to each of us and asks that we receive Him anew in our lives, asks us to want Him, to trust in Him, to feel His presence, that He is accompanying us, sustaining us, and helping us.”
He concluded: “But this great tree is formed of many lights. My final wish is that each of us contribute something of that light to the spheres in which we live: our families, our jobs, our neighbourhoods, towns, and cities. That each of us be a light for those who are at our sides; that we leave aside the selfishness that, so often, closes our hearts and leads us to think only of ourselves; that we may pay greater attention to others, that we may love them more. Any small gesture of goodness is like one of the lights of this great tree: together with other lights it illuminates the darkness of the night, even of the darkest night.”
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