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At his general audience on December 18, 2024, Pope Francis started a new cycle of catecheses dedicated to the life of Jesus in the light of hope, which he will unfold throughout the Jubilee Year 2025.
The theme of “Jesus Christ Our Hope” will last throughout the Holy Year, which the Pontiff will open on December 24.
The first part of the series will deal with the childhood of Jesus, he explained, dedicating his first meditation to the genealogy of Jesus, narrated at the opening of Matthew's Gospel.
This list of names shows “the truth of history and the truth of human life,” said Francis.
For the Pope, genealogy conveys “a very important message: no one gives himself life, but receives it from others as a gift.”
In his meditation, the head of the Catholic Church underlined the particularity of the genealogy of Jesus recounted by Matthew: unlike the genealogies of the Old Testament, where only male names appear, five women are named among Jesus' ancestors - Tamar, Rahab, Ruth, Bathsheba, and Mary of Nazareth, mother of Jesus.
The fact that the first four women are all “strangers to the people of Israel” underlines that God's salvation includes everyone, the Pope explained. And he encouraged the crowd: “Let us awaken in ourselves a grateful memory of our ancestors."
