From the Pope!

Awesome.

I see from a quick survey, from Zadok to Fr. Tucker to Whapping, everyone’s stoked about the hat, but let’s calm down and contemplate what the man said:

Holding the audience talk on the Northern Hemisphere’s shortest day of the year, Pope Benedict said the Christmas use of light helps people understand the holiday’s true meaning.

The newly lengthening days, candles and Christmas lights everywhere "help us understand better the theme of the light that advances over the darkness," he said.

"It is a symbol evoking a reality that touches the depths of the person … the light of goodness that vanquishes evil, of love that overcomes hatred, of life that defeats death," Pope Benedict said.

He said that in the liturgies immediately preceding Christmas "the savior awaited by the nations is greeted as the ‘rising sun,’ the star that shows the way and guides people, wandering amid the darkness and dangers of the world, toward the salvation promised by God and realized in Jesus Christ."

The pope asked Christians to keep their Christmas traditions alive, explaining them to their children and resisting the attempts of a consumer society to strip all religious symbols from the celebration of the feast of Christ’s birth.

"In particular, in seeing city streets and squares decorated with shining lights, let us remember that these lights are a reminder of another light, which is invisible to the eyes but not to the heart," he said.

"While we admire them, while we light candles in church or illuminate a Nativity scene or Christmas tree in our homes, let us open our hearts to the true spiritual light offered to all people of good will," the pope said.

Pope Benedict prayed that Jesus, the "sun of light that never sets, would give us the strength to follow always the path of truth, justice and love."