Christmas carols in every language and culture are expressions of how music can convey “feelings and emotions, even the deepest movements of the soul,” Pope Leo XIV said after listening, clapping and singing along at the Vatican Christmas concert with the poor.

“As the melodies touched our hearts, we felt the inestimable value of music: not a luxury for the few, but a divine gift accessible to everyone, rich and poor, learned and simple,” the Pope said Dec. 6 as he thanked Canadian singer Michael Bublé, Italian singer Serena Autieri and the choir of the Diocese of Rome.

Pope Leo was seated in the centre aisle behind the main guests — about 3,000 people assisted by the papal almoner and Catholic charities in Rome.

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“Music is like a bridge that leads us to God,” the Pope said. It is like “an imaginary stairway connecting Earth and Heaven.”

“It is not a coincidence that the feast of Christmas is very rich in traditional songs, in every language and every culture,” he said. 

“It is as though this mystery could not be celebrated without music, without hymns of praise.”

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And it was that way from the very beginning, the Pope said, noting how the Gospel of Luke “tells us that while Jesus was being born in the stable in Bethlehem, there was a great concert of angels in Heaven.”

“And who listened to that concert? To whom did the angels appear? To the shepherds, who were keeping watch at night to guard their flock,” he said.

“Music can lift our hearts,” the Pope told his audience, which included migrants and refugees, people who sleep outside around the Vatican and people in need because of job loss.

Music is uplifting “not because it distracts us from our sufferings, because it numbs us or makes us forget the problems and difficult situations of life,” he said, “but because it reminds us that we are not just this: we are far more than our problems and our troubles, we are God’s beloved children.”

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Pope Leo asked everyone in the audience to use Advent and the preparation for Christmas as a time to be attentive to people in need and open to listening “to the song of God’s love, which is Jesus Christ.”

“Yes, Jesus is God’s song of love for humanity,” he said. “Let us listen to this song. Let us learn it well, so that we too can sing it with our lives.”