On Saturday morning, Pope Francis welcomed the artists participating in night’s Christmas Concert, encouraging them to transmit “peace and hope” to today’s world and the new generations.
The meeting with around two hundred promoters and artists of the 2024 Christmas Concert took place in the Clementine Hall of the Apostolic Palace.
The concert is organised by the Gravissimum Educationis Foundation – Culture for Education, an organisation of Don Bosco Missions. The money raised will be used to support educational and social projects of Salesian missionaries around the world.
“Peace and hope. These are the two ‘vocal lines’ of the song that I encourage you to take up and make heard in the streets of today’s world, to pass it on to future generations. There are many people who hope to receive this gift from you,” the Pope said in his speech.
Referring to peace, the Pontiff said it is moving to think that “when Jesus was born in the silence of the night, a hymn of peace, sung by ‘a multitude of the heavenly host’, suddenly filled the heavens with joy. And so it was.”
“Music speaks directly to the human heart in a unique way; it has an extraordinary capacity to create unity and foster communion,” said Pope Francis. He therefore encouraged artists to be “angels of peace” by investing their talent, art and life as best they can and wherever they are, “in promoting that culture of fraternity and reconciliation that our world needs today more than ever.”
The Holy Father then indicated that Christmas reminds us that “hope is, above all, a gift from God” and that it is “founded on faith and nourished by charity.”
“On the one hand, hope must sink its roots in the fertile ground of communion with the Lord, but it must also grow and bear fruit through concrete choices inspired by love, thus filling the present with meaning and opening new horizons for the future,” he said.
“Friends, the world and the Church need your talents, your creative ideals, they need your generosity and your passion for justice and fraternity. With this in mind, I ask the Lord to pour out his blessings on you and your loved ones. I wish you all the best for this Concert and a Merry Christmas. And I ask you please not to forget to pray for me,” concluded Pope Francis.