ROME (CNS) ─ Celebrating the feast of the Immaculate Conception as the Jubilee Year was ending, Pope Leo XIV prayed that "Jubilee hope" would "blossom in Rome and in every corner of the earth," bringing with it reconciliation, nonviolence and peace.
Standing near the Spanish Steps in central Rome, at the foot of a towering column topped by a statue of Mary, the pope led thousands of Romans, pilgrims and tourists in prayer Dec. 8.
At dawn that morning, a firefighter named Roberto Leo, the fire service's longest serving department head in Rome, climbed up 100 rungs of an aerial ladder to place a wreath of white flowers on the outstretched arms of the statue about 90 feet above the ground.
Following a tradition begun in 1958 by St. John XXIII, Pope Leo blessed a basket of white roses that assistants placed at the foot of the statue and read a prayer specifically written for this year's feast, with references to what is going on in the church, the city and the world.
In the prayer to Mary, Pope Leo noted that the Jubilee year brought millions of pilgrims to Rome, representing "a humanity tried, at times crushed, humble like the earth from which God shaped it and into which he never ceases to breathe his Spirit of life."
"Look, O Mary, upon the many sons and daughters in whom hope has not been extinguished: May what your Son has sown sprout within them ─ he, the living Word who in each person asks to grow still more, to take on flesh, face and voice," the pope prayed.
As the Holy Doors of the major basilicas of Rome are about to close at the end of the Jubilee Jan. 6, he said, "may other doors now open: doors of homes and oases of peace where dignity may flower again, where nonviolence is taught, where the art of reconciliation is learned."
The pope prayed that Mary would "inspire new insights in the church that walks in Rome and in the particular churches that in every context gather the joys and hopes, the griefs and anxieties of our contemporaries ─ especially the poor and all who suffer."
Pope Leo also expressed the hope that baptism, which washes every person free of original sin, would "bring forth holy and immaculate men and women, called to become living members of the Body of Christ ─ a body that acts, consoles, reconciles and transforms the earthly city where the city of God is being prepared."
In a world filled with "changes that seem to find us unprepared and powerless," he asked Mary to intercede and help.
"Inspire dreams, visions and courage, you who know better than anyone that nothing is impossible for God, and at the same time that God does nothing alone," he prayed.
The pope also asked Mary to help the church always be "with and among the people, leaven in the dough of a humanity that cries out for justice and hope."
Before heading to the Spanish Steps, the pope had led the recitation of the Angelus prayer at noon with visitors in St. Peter's Square.
By preserving Mary from any stain of sin from the moment of her conception, he said, God granted her "the extraordinary grace of a completely pure heart, in view of an even greater miracle: the coming of Christ the savior into the world as man."
That extraordinary grace bore extraordinary fruit, he said, "because in her freedom she welcomed it, embracing the plan of God."
"The Lord always acts in this way: he gives us great gifts, but he leaves us free to accept them or not," the pope said. "So, this feast, which makes us rejoice for the unsullied beauty of the Mother of God, also invites us to believe as she believed, giving our generous assent to the mission to which the Lord calls us."
