“God in the city” was a well-chosen theme for Pope Francis’ homily at Madison Square Garden in the heart of America’s great metropolis, observing that, “We are in … a place synonymous with this city … which represents both the variety and the common interests of so many different people.”

Basing his remarks on reading from the Liturgy, Isaiah 9:1, “The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light,” Pope Francis likened the great light to the Light of Christ that brings hope to people “caught up in their activities and routines, amid their successes and failures, their worries and expectations – with all their joys and hopes, their disappointments and regrets.”

A special quality of God’s people, the pope pointed out, “is their ability to see, to contemplate, even in ‘moments of darkness,’ the light which Christ brings. God’s faithful people can see, discern and contemplate his living presence in the midst of life, in the midst of the city. Together with the prophet Isaiah, we can say: ‘The people who walk, breathe and live in the midst of smog, have seen a great light, have experienced a breath of fresh air.’”

Unfortunately, hidden in the busy city’s darkness, the Holy Father continued, “are those people who don’t appear to belong, or are second-class citizens. In big cities, beneath the roar of traffic, beneath ‘the rapid pace of change,’ so many faces pass by unnoticed because they have no ‘right’ to be there, no right to be part of the city. They are the foreigners, the children who go without schooling, those deprived of medical insurance, the homeless, the forgotten elderly.”

It is the Light of Christ that is the “hope which makes us see, even in the midst of smog, the presence of God as he continues to walk the streets of our city … He keeps telling his disciples to go, to go out. He urges them to go out and meet others where they really are, not where we think they should be.”

God is living in our cities, Pope Francis declared, “the Church is living in our cities, and she wants to be like yeast in the dough. She wants to relate to everyone, to stand at everyone’s side, as she proclaims … ‘The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light’. And we ourselves are witnesses of that light.”

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Image Credit: Screencap courtesy of Vatican on YouTube.com