The Pope highlights the three most important moments of 2025

By Cindy Wooden, OSV

Before the final countdown to the New Year, Christians should take a moment to remember all of God's blessings from the past year and reflect honestly on how they responded to those graces, said Pope Leo XIV.

New Year's Eve is a time to remember God's great love and «ask forgiveness for all the times we have failed to treasure his inspirations and invest in the best possible way the talents he has entrusted to us,» the Pope said on December 31 during his weekly general audience.

Thousands of visitors and pilgrims, bundled up against the cold winter morning, gathered in St. Peter's Square for the last audience of 2025.

The milestones of 2025

Pope Leo highlighted three “important events” from last year: “some joyful, such as the pilgrimage of so many faithful on the occasion of the Holy Year; others painful, such as the passing of the late Pope Francis, and the scenes of war that continue to shake the planet.”.

Before welcoming the New Year, he said, «the Church invites us to place everything in the Lord's hands, entrusting ourselves to his providence and asking him to renew, in us and around us, in the coming days, the wonders of his grace and mercy.».

The jubilee pilgrimage of millions of Catholics around the world in 2025 is a reminder that «our whole life is a journey, whose final destination transcends space and time, to be fulfilled in the encounter with God and in full and eternal communion with Him,» said the Pope.

And when passing through one of the Holy Doors during the Jubilee, asking for forgiveness, he said, «express our ‘ yes ‘To God, who with his forgiveness invites us to cross the threshold of a new life, animated by grace, modeled on the Gospel, inflamed by love» for our neighbor.

Crossing the Holy Door, he said, «is our ‘yes‘ to a life lived with commitment in the present and oriented toward eternity.».

The love of God

Pope Leo ended his speech by quoting St. Paul VI's speech at the general audience at the end of the Holy Year of 1975: «God is Love! This is the ineffable revelation with which the Jubilee, through its teaching, its indulgence, its forgiveness, and finally its peace, filled with tears and joy, has wanted to fill our spirit today and our lives tomorrow. God is Love! God loves me! God was waiting for me, and I have found him! God is mercy! God is forgiveness! God is salvation! God, yes, God is life!».

Pope Leo XIV prayed that the certainty of God's eternal love and mercy would accompany us «in the transition from the old year to the new, and then always, in our lives.».