On New Year’s, pope says every day is a new beginning

ROME – Pope Leo XIV kicked off the new year saying Christmas is a reminder of the freedom God offers through his salvation, and of the ability to start again each day with his mercy and love.

Speaking during his New Year’s Day Mass for the Jan. 1 solemnity of Mary, Mother of God, the pope said that, “every day can be the beginning of a new life, thanks to God’s generous love, his mercy and the response of our freedom.”

He reflected on how God in scripture sent Moses to free the Israelites from slavery by leading them into the desert.

Even though they lost the security of food, shelter, and a certain stability, “in exchange there was freedom, which took shape as an open road toward the future, found in the gift of a law of wisdom and in the promise of a land where they might live and grow without shackles or chains,” Leo said.

“In short, it was a rebirth,” he said, saying, “It is beautiful to view the coming year in this way: as an open journey to be discovered.”

With God’s help, believers “can venture forth on this journey with confidence – free and bearers of freedom, forgiven and bringers of forgiveness, trusting in the closeness and goodness of the Lord who accompanies us always,” he said.

Pope Leo celebrated Mass in St. Peter’s Basilica after presiding over a Vespers service in the basilica the night before, for New Year’s Eve, bringing 2025 to a close.

His Christmas liturgies will culminate with the Jan. 6 celebration of the feast of the Epiphany, during which he will formally conclude the Jubilee of Hope by closing the holy door in St. Peter’s Basilica. He will then celebrate Mass for the Baptism of the Lord, baptizing infants in the Sistine Chapel, which marks the end of the Christmas season.

In his homily Thursday, Leo reflected on Mary’s role as Mother of God, saying her acceptance of God’s plan helped obtain humanity’s freedom from the slavery of sin.

“She helped give a human face to the source of all mercy and benevolence: the face of Jesus. Through his eyes – first as a child, then as a young man and as an adult – the father’s love reaches us and transforms us,” he said.

As the adventure of a new year begins, the pope urged believers to ask God to “help us experience at every moment, around us and upon us, the warmth of his fatherly embrace and the light of his benevolent gaze.”

Christians must also give God praise through prayer and striving to live a holy life, “becoming mirrors of his goodness for one another,” he said.

Jesus’s choice to come as an infant, dependent on his mother, demonstrates “the complete gratuity of his love,” Leo said, saying God “presents himself to us ‘unarmed and disarming,’ as naked and defenseless as a newborn in a cradle.”

“He does this to teach us that the world is not saved by sharpening swords, nor by judging, oppressing or eliminating our brothers and sisters. Rather, it is saved by tirelessly striving to understand, forgive, liberate and welcome everyone, without calculation and without fear,” he said.

This is the face of God that Mary allowed to grow and take shape inside of her, transforming her life and later transforming the world through his death and resurrection, he said.

As Mary watched her son grow and followed him to the foot of the cross, he said, she like many mothers “laid aside every defense, renouncing expectations, claims and comforts…consecrating her life without reserve to the son she had received by grace, so that she might, in turn, give him back to the world.”

Mary’s motherhood, the pope said, thus shows the two “unarmed” realities of a God who renounces the privilege of divinity to be born as a fragile infant, and of a human person who fully trusts in God’s will.

“In a perfect act of love, she offers him the greatest power she possesses: Her freedom,” he said.

Pope Leo closed his homily noting that the Jubilee of Hope is about to close, and urged believers to give thanks for the grace and forgiveness received.

“At the beginning of the new year, and as we approach the conclusion of the Jubilee of Hope, let us draw near to the Nativity scene in faith. Let us approach it as the place of “unarmed and disarming” peace par excellence,” he said.

The nativity scene, he said, is “a place of blessing where we recall the wonders the Lord has worked in the history of salvation and in our own lives.”

He urged believers to draw close to the infant Jesus thanking and praising God “for all that we have seen and heard.”

“May this be our commitment and our resolve for the months ahead, and, indeed, for the whole of our Christian lives,” he said.

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