The day after the inauguration of the Vatican's Nativity scene and lighting of its Christmas tree, Pope Francis prayed the Angelus in St. Peter's Square.
The Pope gave the crowds gathered there advice for living out Advent, the liturgical season leading up to Christmas.
POPE FRANCIS
Each one of us must confess, to ourselves before anyone else, our own sins, our faults, our hypocrisies. We need to come down from our pedestal and immerse ourselves in the waters of repentance.
He insisted on the importance of living humbly, and without looking to others to compare ourselves.
POPE FRANCIS
We forget that there is only one case in which it is permitted to look down on others from above: when it is in order to help the other get up. This is the only case. All other instances of looking down from above are not allowed.
Just days before its feast day, Pope Francis said each person should entrust themselves to the Immaculate Conception. On that day each year the Pope pays a special tribute to a statue of the Immaculate Conception in Rome's Piazza di Spagna.
JRB
TR: JM
