Vatican City – “I greet and thank all the children and young people who, in many parts of the world, pray for missionaries and are committed to helping their less fortunate peers. Thank you, dear friends!” With these words, Pope Leo XIV expressed his gratitude to the children and young people involved in the network of prayer and charity fostered worldwide by the Pontifical Society of Missionary Childhood. He did so after reciting the Angelus prayer from the central loggia of St. Peter’s Basilica, on the occasion of the Solemnity of the Epiphany, which—as the Bishop of Rome reminded everyone—is also the liturgical feast on which “Children’s Missionary Day” is celebrated.
Before the Angelus, addressing the crowd gathered in St. Peter’s Square despite the rain, Pope Prevost recalled that the Epiphany, “shows us what makes joy possible even in difficult times.” The liturgical solemnity of the Epiphany, a word whose Greek etymology means “manifestation,” celebrates the first revelation of the Mystery of Christ’s salvation to all peoples, symbolized by the Magi who traveled from afar to Bethlehem to adore the Child Jesus. After God assumed human flesh and became man in Christ Jesus – the Pope explained before reciting the Angelus – “our joy indeed comes from a Mystery that is no longer hidden. The life of God has been revealed in many times and in different ways, yet with definitive clarity in Jesus, so that we now know how to hope, even in the midst of many tribulations. “God saves” has no other meaning, no other name [than that of Jesus]. Only what frees and saves us can come from God and is an epiphany of God.”
In the mystery of the birth of Jesus, which with the Epiphany begins to be revealed to all peoples – the Pontiff emphasized in his brief catechesis – “the divine life is within our reach; it is made manifest so that we might be included in its dynamic freedom, which loosens the bonds of fear and enables us to encounter peace. This is a possibility and an invitation, for communion cannot be constrained. What else could we desire more than this?”
Furthermore, returning to the Gospel account of the Magi’s journey, the Successor of Peter emphasized that “the hope that we proclaim must be grounded in reality, for Jesus came down from heaven in order to create a new story here below.” In the gifts of the Magi, he added, “we see what each one of us can share, what we can no longer keep for ourselves but are to give to others, so that the presence of Jesus can grow in our midst. May his Kingdom grow, may his words come to fulfillment in us, may strangers and enemies become brothers and sisters. In the place of inequality, may there be fairness, and may the industry of war be replaced by the craft of peace.”
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