First Sunday of Advent Advent is the season of hope.  Advent is also about being aware.  Advent is the time to walk in the Light of the Lord. * Nugget from Fr. Maher

Beirut, Lebanon, Nov 30, 2025 / 11:20 am (CNA).

Pope Leo XIV urged Lebanon’s leaders to embrace tenacity, dialogue, and a renewed commitment to the common good during an address at the Presidential Palace in Baabda on Sunday, continuing his weeklong apostolic journey to Turkey and Lebanon.

The trip, focused on Christian unity, regional stability, and the Church’s mission in the Middle East, has taken the Holy Father from historic encounters in Istanbul to a nation still recovering from political crisis and the 2023–2024 war.

“Blessed are the peacemakers,” the pope began, adding that peace “takes tenacity” and “perseverance to protect and nurture life.” His remarks came as Lebanon seeks stability after years of political paralysis, economic collapse, and the lingering trauma of regional conflict.

The Presidential Palace, overlooking Beirut and built in 1956, hosted its first papal address since Parliament elected Joseph Aoun on Jan. 9 as Lebanon’s 14th president after more than two years without a head of state. A Maronite Christian and career army officer born in Beirut in 1964, Aoun welcomed Pope Leo for a ceremony that included a traditional dabke dance and the planting of a “cedar of friendship” in the palace gardens alongside Vatican and Maronite Church leaders.

Pope Leo acknowledged the difficulty of governing “in circumstances that are highly complex, conflictual, and uncertain,” but praised the resilience of the Lebanese people. “You are a people who do not give up,” he said, noting the many who work for peace quietly each day.

He described Lebanon as “a community of communities, united by a common language: hope,” at a time when many parts of the world face rising pessimism, instability, and decisions made “to the detriment of the common good.” Despite the burden of crisis and what he called “an economy that kills,” he said Lebanon has repeatedly shown its capacity to “start again.”

The pope urged the country’s leaders to remain close to their people, emphasize the role of youth and civil society, and resist reducing national life to competing interests. “The common good is more than the sum of many interests,” he said.

Reconciliation, he stressed, is indispensable. Wounds — personal and collective — require time and courage to heal, he said, warning that without this process “we would remain stuck, each imprisoned by our own pain.” Dialogue, even amid misunderstandings, is “the path.”

Pope Leo spoke of the sorrow caused by emigration and the courage required to remain or return. He highlighted the contributions of women, whom he called uniquely gifted in “the work of peacemaking.”

Closing his address, the pope reminded Lebanon that peace is not only a human achievement but also a gift that shapes the heart and teaches people to “harmonize our steps with those of others.” Peace, he said, “is a desire and a vocation; it is a gift and a work in progress.”

Following the ceremony at Baabda, Pope Leo was scheduled to travel to Harissa, where he will stay at the Apostolic Nunciature. On Monday morning he will begin his day with a prayer visit to the tomb of St. Charbel Makhlouf at the Monastery of St. Maroun in Annaya.

Beirut, Lebanon, Nov 30, 2025 / 10:15 am (CNA).

Pope Leo XIV said Sunday that he discussed both the Gaza war and the conflict in Ukraine directly with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, saying that the two leaders found common ground on key points and that Ankara could play a significant role in new peace efforts.

Leo told journalists on his flight from Turkey to Lebanon that Erdogan agrees with the Holy See’s long-standing support for a two-state solution to the Israel-Palestine conflict and could help advance emerging proposals aimed at ending the war in Ukraine.

“We spoke about both situations,” the pope said. “The Holy See has publicly supported, for several years, the proposal of a two-state solution. Israel at this moment does not accept it, but we see it as the only solution that could bring an end to this conflict. We are also friends of Israel, and we try to be a mediating voice between both sides.”

Pope Leo said Erdogan “agrees with this proposal” and stressed that Turkey “has an important role it could play,” both in Gaza and in efforts to ease the war in Ukraine. He noted that Turkey previously helped broker the Black Sea grain corridor, which allowed Ukraine to export food supplies safely through the war zone before the agreement collapsed in 2023. Now, he said, “there are concrete proposals for peace,” and Erdogan’s contacts with Kyiv, Moscow, and Washington could help advance “dialogue, a ceasefire, and a way to resolve this conflict.”

The pope’s comments came at the midpoint of his apostolic journey to Turkey and Lebanon, a trip he has framed as an appeal for peace across a region marked by conflict, displacement, and deep political fractures.

Looking back on his days in Turkey, Pope Leo said his meetings and liturgies were marked by a spirit of “simplicity and profundity,” noting especially Friday’s commemoration in Iznik for the 1,700th anniversary of the Council of Nicaea. He also celebrated Sunday morning’s Divine Liturgy with Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I, considered first among equals among Eastern Orthodox bishops, calling it “a wonderful celebration.”

He highlighted Turkey’s Christian minorities as a reminder that peaceful coexistence is possible even amid differences. At the same time, he acknowledged that Turkey has “experienced difficult moments in this regard throughout its history.”

The Holy Father also disclosed ongoing ecumenical discussions about 2033, marking 2,000 years since the Redemption. Church leaders, he said, are considering a shared Christian gathering for the anniversary, possibly in Jerusalem.

Shortly after speaking to reporters, Pope Leo landed in Beirut to begin the Lebanon leg of his journey, where he is expected to address the country’s political paralysis and encourage a population still recovering from war and economic collapse.

Beirut, Lebanon, Nov 30, 2025 / 08:32 am (CNA).

The sky over Lebanon — once dominated by missile exchanges and relentless air raids during the 2023–2024 conflict between Hezbollah and Israel — opened Sunday not to warplanes but to the aircraft carrying Pope Leo XIV. Touching down in the Land of the Cedars, the Holy Father begins a mission to preach the Gospel of peace to a nation long wounded by conflict and instability.

Fighting along Lebanon’s southern border reignited in October 2023 as a spillover of the Gaza war. Hezbollah, a Shia militia supported by Iran and formed after the 1982 Israeli invasion of Lebanon, became the principal actor in the renewed confrontation with Israel. Although a fragile agreement in late November 2024 reduced hostilities, intermittent violence has continued, and the ceasefire remains uncertain until United Nations Resolution 1701 — requiring Hezbollah’s withdrawal north of the Litani River — is fully implemented.

After landing in Beirut, the pope’s motorcade was scheduled to travel toward the presidential palace through one of the most politically sensitive areas in the country. Dahieh, the Hezbollah stronghold in southern Beirut, has endured heavy bombardment and a series of assassinations over the past year. Hezbollah’s longtime secretary-general Hassan Nasrallah and his potential successor Hashem Safieddin were killed in separate strikes in 2024. As recently as Nov. 23, an Israeli air raid in the suburb killed a local commander and five others and wounded 28.

Despite the tensions, several Shia clerics have publicly welcomed Pope Leo’s visit, and Dahieh’s municipalities have invited residents to greet him along the motorcade route.

Lebanon’s wounds extend beyond its most recent conflict. Years of political paralysis and economic collapse have left the country deeply weakened. Mass protests erupted in 2019 against corruption and sectarianism, while the COVID-19 pandemic and the catastrophic Beirut port explosion in August 2020 compounded the suffering.

Historically a crossroads between Christianity and Islam, Lebanon remains a mosaic of communities bound together by a shared but fragile national identity. Christians — including Maronites, Greek Orthodox, Melkite Catholics, and Armenians — continue to play a vital role in cultural and social life, even as emigration and instability have reduced their numbers.

Lebanon’s confessional political system, established during the French Mandate and formalized in the unwritten National Pact of 1943, divided power among the country’s religious communities. While intended to preserve coexistence, the arrangement also entrenched sectarian rivalry. The Lebanese Civil War (1975–1990), fueled by the Arab-Israeli conflict and the massive influx of Palestinian refugees, left an estimated 150,000 dead and reshaped the country’s political landscape.

The Ta’if Agreement of 1989 ended the war by rebalancing power between Christians and Muslims and curbing the authority of the Maronite presidency. But it did not resolve the underlying challenges of corruption, foreign interference, and sectarian fragmentation. Syrian troops, deployed as peace guarantors, remained until 2005.

Today, the Land of the Cedars remains a delicate patchwork of identities, hopes, and unresolved tensions. Into this complex and wounded landscape, Pope Leo arrives as a pilgrim of peace, offering a message of reconciliation and renewal for a country longing for stability and a future grounded in justice and mutual trust.

New York City, New York, Nov 30, 2025 / 08:00 am (CNA).

Part of the New York Public Library’s Spencer Collection, the Tickhill Psalter is on view throughout Advent and Christmas at The Morgan Library & Museum in its exhibit “Sing a New Song: The Psalms in Medieval Art and Life.” A full-page Jesse Tree introduces the Psalms in the Tickhill Psalter, a 14th-century illuminated manuscript from the Augustinian Worksop Priory in Nottinghamshire, England.

David appears in the historiated B of Psalm 1, providing a conceptual link to scenes from his life in the Jesse Tree on the facing page. “Beatus vir,” or “Blessed is the man,” the first stanza opens in celebration of the one who delights in God’s law, concluding: “That person is like a tree planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in season and whose leaf does not wither, — what they do prospers.” 

These words and their historiated B, with its visual link to the facing page, highlight David as key author of the Psalms and their prefiguration of Christ, the good fruit of the Jesse Tree, a theme common to medieval illuminated manuscripts.

The central panel of a 1490 Flemish triptych with scenes from the life of Saint Augustine contextualizes the exhibit. This five-by-five-foot oil on wood painting references Augustine’s use of allegory, essential to his understanding of scripture and interpretation of the psalms as prophecy. One scene captures Augustine’s realization of the Trinity as boundless mystery that dwarfs human understanding, allegorized by a child trying to pour the sea into a hole in the sand. 

In the book accompanying the exhibit, Morgan curator Deirdre Jackson extends the psalms’ significance to this triptych through a reference to a surviving panel housed in Ireland that shows Augustine on his deathbed. It’s a scene described by contemporary bishop Possidius of Calama, who said that Augustine “ordered those psalms of David which are especially penitential to be copied out and, when he was very weak, used to lie in bed, facing the wall where the written sheets were put up, gazing at them and reading them, and copiously and continuously weeping as he read.”

In his book “The Tickhill Psalter and Related Manuscripts,” 20th-century art historian Donald Drew Egbert speculates that the Tickhill Psalter was decorated by highly skilled illuminators working for Augustinian monasteries and patrons of Augustinian houses during a high point of book arts in England.

This high point inspired a trend of books as personalized treasures, best exemplified in this exhibit by St. Thomas More’s prayer book. Containing much of his own writing in the margins, it consists of a Book of Hours and a Psalter and was with him in the Tower of London while he awaited execution. More’s notes during that time show his preoccupation with the psalms of David’s tribulations. Beside Psalm 87:5-10, “a man without help … in the dark places, and in the shadow of death,” More writes, “in severe tribulation and in prison.”

More’s thoughts in distress demonstrate the appeal of David’s story to the human heart, a reality repeatedly expressed throughout the treasures of this exhibit. In the Tickhill Psalter’s Jesse Tree, David is encircled by branches springing from a tree that grows out of his father, Jesse, sprawled in an active sleep, his elbow supporting a hand planted against his head as though dreaming of all that is to come. 

The branches of the tree wind around David and directly overhead to encircle the Virgin and Child, tracing Christ’s lineage through Mary to the House of David. At the top, the branches surround Christ enthroned in majesty, fulfilling the promise of victory over sin and death foreshadowed in the psalms.

David strikes a joyous pose and plays a harp in celebration, and foliage on either side of the main branch wraps around prophets who unfurl scrolls to hint at mysteries about to be foretold in the reading of the psalms.

Beneath the figure of Jesse, two separate depictions of David protecting his sheep from wild animals cast his actions as allegory in the fight against evil, segueing to his likeness in the historiated B, dancing and singing his story into the Psalms to animate their prefiguration of Christ.

Pope Leo XIV makes a 30-minute visit to the Carmelite Sisters of the Theotokos in Harissa, on the evening of his first day in Lebanon.

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Pope Leo XIV concludes his Apostolic Journey to Türkiye with a visit to the Armenian Apostolic Cathedral of Istanbul and Divine Liturgy with Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew.

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Pope Leo XIV meets with Lebanese civil authorities in Beirut as he begins his Apostolic Journey to Lebanon, urging the country's young people to speak “the language of hope,” which he said has enabled Lebanon “always to start again.”

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Istanbul, Turkey, Nov 30, 2025 / 04:50 am (CNA).

Pope Leo XIV dedicated the final morning of his visit to Turkey on Sunday to strengthening ties with the Armenian Apostolic Church, thanking God for “the courageous Christian witness of the Armenian people throughout history, often amid tragic circumstances.”

The pope addressed the faithful at the Armenian Apostolic Cathedral in Istanbul, highlighting the deepening relationship between the Catholic Church and the Armenian Apostolic Church and recalling key milestones in their modern ecumenical journey.

The visit to the cathedral, seat of the Armenian Patriarchate of Constantinople, formed part of a day marked by prayer, dialogue, and reflection as the pope concluded the Turkey leg of his first international apostolic journey, which continues next in Lebanon.

Armenians are one of Turkey’s oldest Christian communities, with roots stretching back to the early centuries of Christianity. Their history includes periods of flourishing as well as profound suffering, especially the mass deportations and killings under the Ottoman Empire in 1915, which Pope Francis termed a genocide. Today, a small Armenian minority remains in Turkey, centered largely in Istanbul, where the Armenian Patriarchate continues to serve as their spiritual and cultural anchor.

Relations between the Catholic and Armenian Apostolic Churches have grown steadily in recent decades. In 1967, Catholicos Khoren I became the first primate of an Oriental Orthodox church to visit the bishop of Rome, then Paul VI. Three years later, Catholicos Vasken I and Paul VI signed the first joint declaration between their churches, urging Christians “to rediscover themselves as brothers and sisters in Christ with a view to fostering unity.”

While the Armenian Patriarchate of Constantinople is autonomous in its internal governance, it recognizes the spiritual primacy of the Catholicos of All Armenians in Echmiadzin. The cathedral remains a central spiritual home for Turkey’s Armenian community.

Marking the 1,700th anniversary of the First Council of Nicaea, the pope stressed the unifying force of the Nicene Creed. “We must draw from this shared apostolic faith in order to recover the unity that existed in the early centuries between the Church of Rome and the ancient Oriental churches,” he said. Full communion, he added, “does not imply absorption or domination, but rather an exchange of the gifts received by our churches from the Holy Spirit.”

Pope Leo also honored Armenian saints, especially the 12th-century Catholicos and poet Nerses IV Shnorhali. “May the example of St. Nerses inspire us and his prayer strengthen us on the path to full communion,” he said, noting the recent commemoration of the 850th anniversary of Shnorhali’s death.

Patriarch Sahak II Mashalian welcomed the pope to the cathedral for a program that included prayer, liturgical chanting, a welcome address, the pope’s remarks, an exchange of gifts, a blessing, and a final hymn. The pope concluded the visit by blessing a commemorative plaque at the cathedral entrance.

Liturgy with Bartholomew

Later in the day, Pope Leo XIV moved to the Orthodox Patriarchal Church of St. George for the Divine Liturgy of the feast of St. Andrew, patron of the Ecumenical Patriarchate and of Turkey. He addressed the faithful, acknowledging unresolved tensions between Christian churches.

“There are still obstacles preventing us from achieving full communion. Nevertheless, we must not relent in striving towards unity,” he said, urging all Orthodox churches to participate actively in this effort.

The pope also addressed global challenges, calling Christians to be peacemakers amid war and unrest. “Peace must be sought through prayer, penance, contemplation, and nurturing a living relationship with the Lord,” he said. He appealed for renewed care for creation, warning that the ecological crisis demands “spiritual, personal, and communal conversion.”

Speaking about technology, he encouraged Catholics and Orthodox to cooperate “in promoting their responsible use… ensuring their benefits are not reserved to a small number of people or the interests of a privileged few.”

He ended with a broad call to collaboration: “All Christians, the members of other religious traditions, and all men and women of goodwill can cooperate harmoniously in working together for the common good.”

After the liturgy, Pope Leo XIV gave an ecumenical blessing with Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I. The two were scheduled to have lunch before a farewell ceremony for the pope at Atatürk Airport. According to a source in the partriarcate, the menu was to include shrimp soup, seabass with vegetables, and Turkish delights. He was then scheduled to depart for Lebanon, continuing a journey marked by efforts to deepen Christian unity and renew the shared responsibility flowing from the Nicene faith.

ISTANBUL (CNS) -- As he had done throughout his visit to Turkey, Pope Leo XIV spent his last morning in the country reaffirming the Catholic Church's commitment to the search for Christian unity.

The key symbol of that was the pope's presence at the Divine Liturgy celebrated by Orthodox Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople Nov. 30, the feast of St. Andrew, patron of the patriarchate.

For decades the popes and patriarchs have sent delegations to each other's patronal feast celebrations -- the Vatican's celebration of the feast of Sts. Peter and Paul June 29 and the patriarchate's celebration of St. Andrew's feast Nov. 30.

St. Peter and St. Andrew were brothers and were the first of the 12 Apostles to be called by Jesus.

After the liturgy, the pope and patriarch went to a balcony where they jointly blessed the people gathered below. 

Patriarch Bartholomew had been present at most of the events on Pope Leo's itinerary in Turkey, including the meeting in Ankara Nov. 27 with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and government and civic officials. The patriarch hosted the commemoration of the 1,700th anniversary of the Council of Nicaea Nov. 28, and he attended Pope Leo's Mass for the country's Catholic communities Nov. 29.

At the liturgy Nov. 30 in the Patriarchal Cathedral of St. George, Pope Leo spoke about how for 60 years Catholics and Orthodox have followed "a path of reconciliation, peace and growing communion." 

The increasingly cordial relations have been "fostered through frequent contact, fraternal meetings and promising theological dialogue," he said. "And today we are called even more to commit ourselves to the restoration of full communion."

Especially important work has been done by the Joint International Commission for Theological Dialogue between the Catholic Church and the Orthodox Church, the pope said, but he noted that tensions among the Orthodox churches have led some of them to suspend their participation.

The commission's last plenary session was held in Egypt in 2023; the most noticeable absence was that of the Russian Orthodox Church, which broke relations with the Ecumenical Patriarchate in 2018 when the patriarch recognized the autonomy of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church.

Pope Leo used his greeting at the Divine Liturgy to confirm that, "in continuity with the teaching of the Second Vatican Council and my predecessors," the pursuit of full communion among Christians "is one of the priorities of the Catholic Church. In particular, it is one of the priorities of my ministry as Bishop of Rome, whose specific role in the universal Church is to be at the service of all, building and safeguarding communion and unity."

In his homily at the liturgy, Patriarch Bartholomew restated the Orthodox commitment to unity and called for common Christian efforts to protect the environment and to end wars.

"We cannot be complicit in the bloodshed taking place in Ukraine and other parts of the world and remain silent in the face of the exodus of Christians from the cradle of Christianity" in the Holy Land, the patriarch said. 

Pope Leo's day had begun with a visit to Archbishop Sahak II Mashalian, the Armenian Apostolic patriarch of Constantinople, at his cathedral in Istanbul.

The celebrations of the 1,700th anniversary of the Council of Nicaea and its statement of faith that formed the basis of the Nicene Creed, are an affirmation that "we must draw from this shared apostolic faith in order to recover the unity that existed in the early centuries between the Church of Rome and the ancient Oriental Churches," the pope said.

"We must also take inspiration from the experience of the early church in order to restore full communion," he said; the goal is "a communion which does not imply absorption or domination, but rather an exchange of the gifts received by our churches from the Holy Spirit for the glory of God the Father and the edification of the body of Christ."

While Pope Leo paid tribute to "the courageous Christian witness of the Armenian people throughout history, often amid tragic circumstances," he was not more explicit about the politically sensitive subject of what many call the "Armenian genocide," when an estimated 1.5 million Armenians killed by Ottoman Turks in 1915-18.

Mardik Evadian, a local business owner who was present for the pope's visit, told reporters that for Armenians in Turkey "it is not important" that the pope use the word "genocide."

Armenians know what happened and remember their loved ones who were killed, he said, "but we are living in this country; maybe in old times there were pogroms, but now it is peacetime."