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Pope Francis closed the Year of Faith by calling on people to keep Christ at the center of their lives, especially in times of trouble. "When Jesus is at the center, light shines even the darkest moments of our lives; he gives us hope," he said in his homily November 24, the feast of Christ the King. The closing Mass in St. Peter's Square also saw, for the first time, the exposition for public veneration of bones believed to be those of St. Peter. The apostle is believed to have been martyred on a hill overlooking St. Peter's Square and buried a tomb now located two levels below the main altar of St. Peter's Basilica. Eight bone fragments, each two to three centimeters long, were nestled in an open bronze reliquary displayed to the side of the altar. During the ceremony, the pope -- the 265th successor of Peter -- held the closed reliquary for several minutes in silent prayer while choirs sang the Nicene Creed in Latin. The bones, which were discovered during excavations of the necropolis under St. Peter's Basilica in the 1940s, are kept in the pope's private chapel but had never been displayed in public. While no pope has ever declared the bones to be authentic, Pope Paul VI said in 1968 that the "relics" of St. Peter had been "identified in a way which we can hold to be convincing." How can you not love Pope Francis? His honesty and decision to make the papacy as transparent as possible recalls the ministry of Jesus Christ while He was on earth. I am thankful that God has decided to allow Pope Francis to lead His church.

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