Pope Leo XIV Prays "Immaculate one" Watch Over "humanity. Point them to Jesus, lead them to Jesus, present them to Jesus. Mother, Queen of Peace, pray for us" on the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception

Pope Leo XIV, on Dec. 8, prays with 30,000 for the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception of Mary.  The pope continues in a decades-old tradition of praying at the statue of Mary, the Mother of Jesus at her Immaculate Conception in Rome. Pope Leo prays at the bottom of the 12-meter column on top of which the figure of the Virgin Mary is located, and he lay a wreath at the base.

Pope Leo spent time greeting many of the 30,000 people gathered for the event—a number of children, the elderly and the sick.

The proclamation of the dogma of the Immaculate Conception, is honored annually with the tradition of sending flowers to the statue of the Blessed Virgin Mary in the Piazza di Spagna in Rome which began with Pope Pius XII. A few years later in 1958, Pope Saint John XXIII went to Piazza di Spagna and placed a basket of white roses at the foot of the statue.

The choir and assembly sang a Marian hymn entitled “You rise more beautiful than the dawn”. The Vicar of Rome, Cardinal Baldassare Reina and the Mayor of Rome, Roberto Gualtieri, welcomed the Pope as he arrived.

The choir also prayed the Litany of the Blessed Virgin Mary in song.

Pope Leo XIV also offered the following prayer in honor of the Virgin, Mother of God:

Hail, O Mary! Rejoice, full of grace, filled with that grace which, like a gentle light, makes radiant all those on whom the presence of God shines. The Mystery has wrapped you round from the beginning; from your mother’s womb it began to accomplish great things in you, things that soon asked for your consent—that “Yes” which inspired so many other “yeses.”

Immaculate one, Mother of a faithful people, your purity bathes Rome in eternal light, your path fills its streets with a fragrance sweeter than the flowers we offer you today. Many pilgrims from all over the world, O Immaculate Virgin, have walked the streets of this city throughout history and in this jubilee year. A humanity tested, at times crushed, humble as the very earth from which God shaped it and into which He does not cease to breathe His life-giving Spirit.

Look, O Mary, upon so many sons and daughters whose hope has not been extinguished: may what your Son has sown in them take root and grow—He, the living Word, who in each person asks to grow still more, to take on flesh, face, and voice. May jubilee hope blossom in Rome and in every corner of the earth, hope in the new world God is preparing, of which you, O Virgin, are like the bud and the dawn. After the holy doors, may other doors now open—doors of homes and oases of peace where dignity may flourish again, where people may learn nonviolence and the art of reconciliation.

May the kingdom of God come—the newness you longed for so deeply and to which you opened yourself completely, as a child, as a young woman, and as mother of the nascent Church. Inspire new insights in the Church that journeys in Rome and in the particular Churches which, in every context, gather up the joys and hopes, the griefs and anxieties of our contemporaries—especially the poor and all those who suffer.

May baptism continue to bring forth men and women holy and immaculate, called to become living members of the Body of Christ—a Body that acts, consoles, reconciles, and transforms the earthly city in which the City of God is being prepared. Intercede for us, grappling with changes that seem to find us unprepared and powerless. Inspire dreams, visions, and courage—you who know better than anyone that nothing is impossible for God, and also that God does nothing alone.

Set us on our way, with the haste that once moved your steps toward your cousin Elizabeth, and with the trembling eagerness with which you became an exile and pilgrim—to be blessed, yes, but blessed among all women, first disciple of your Son, mother of God-with-us. Help us to be always a Church with and among the people, leaven in the dough of a humanity crying out for justice and hope. Immaculate one, woman of infinite beauty, watch over this city, over this humanity. Point them to Jesus, lead them to Jesus, present them to Jesus. Mother, Queen of Peace, pray for us.