Dear brothers and sisters, at the end of these intense days that we have shared in joy, we give thanks to the Lord for the many gifts of His goodness, for the way He is present among us, for the Word He offers us in abundance and for what He has allowed us to experience together. \nJesus also – as we have just heard in the Gospel – has words of gratitude toward the Father and, addressing Him, He prays saying: "Father, Lord of heaven and earth, I praise you" (Luke 10, 21).\nHowever, praise does not always find its place within us. Sometimes, overwhelmed by life's difficulties, worried by the many problems around us, paralyzed by powerlessness in the face of evil, and oppressed by so many difficult situations, we are more inclined to resignation and complaint than to heart's wonder and thanksgiving.\nTo you, dear Lebanese people, I address this invitation to always cultivate attitudes of praise and gratitude. To you who are the recipients of a rare beauty that the Lord has enriched your land with and who, at the same time, are spectators and victims of the way evil, in multiple forms, can obscure this magnificence.\nFrom this esplanade overlooking the sea, I too can contemplate the beauty of Lebanon sung in the Scriptures. The Lord has planted His tall cedars there, nourishing and satiating them (cf. Ps 103, 16), He has scented the garments of the bride in the Song of Songs with the fragrance of this land (cf. Song 4, 11), and in Jerusalem, the holy city clothed in light for the coming of the Messiah, He announced: "The glory of Lebanon will come to you: cypress, elm, and larch together, to make the place of my sanctuary resplendent; and this place where I place my feet, I will glorify" (Isaiah 60, 13).\nBut at the same time, this beauty is overshadowed by poverty and suffering, by the wounds that have marked your history – I just went to the site of the explosion, at the port, to pray – ; it is overshadowed by the many problems that afflict you, by a fragile and often unstable political context, by the dramatic economic crisis that oppresses you, by violence and conflicts that have awakened old fears.\nIn such a context, gratitude easily gives way to disenchantment, the song of praise finds no place in the heart's desolation, the source of hope is dried up by uncertainty and disorientation.\nHowever, the Word of the Lord invites us to find the little lights that shine in the heart of the night, to open ourselves to gratitude and to incite us to commit ourselves together for this land.\nAs we have heard, Jesus does not give thanks to the Father because of extraordinary works, but because He reveals His greatness precisely to the little ones and the humble, those who do not attract attention, who seem to count little or not at all, those who have no voice. The Kingdom that Jesus comes to inaugurate indeed has this characteristic that the prophet Isaiah spoke about: it is a sprout, a little shoot that grows on a trunk (cf. Is 11, 1), a small hope that promises rebirth when everything seems to die. This is how the Messiah is announced and, coming in the smallness of a sprout, He can only be recognized by the little ones, by those who, without great pretensions, know how to recognize hidden details, the traces of God in an apparently lost history.\nThis is also a direction for us, so that we may have the clear-sightedness to recognize the smallness of the sprout that grows and thrives even in the midst of a painful history. The little lights that shine in the night, the small shoots that appear, the tiny seeds planted in the arid garden of this time, we can see them too, here as well, today as well. I think of your simple and authentic faith, rooted in your families and nourished by Christian schools; I think of the constant work of parishes, congregations, and movements to respond to people's demands and needs; I think of the many priests and religious who expend themselves in their mission amid multiple difficulties; I think of the laity, committed to the field of charity and the promotion of the Gospel in society. For these lights that strive with difficulty to illuminate the darkness of the night, for these invisible little shoots that nonetheless open hope for the future, we must today say like Jesus: “We praise you, O Father!”. We thank you for being with us and not letting us falter.\nAt the same time, this gratitude must not be an intimate and illusory consolation. It must lead us to the transformation of the heart, to the conversion of life, to consider that it is precisely in the light of faith, in the promise of hope and in the joy of charity that God has thought our life. That is why we are all called to cultivate these sprouts, not to be discouraged, not to yield to the logic of violence and the idolatry of money, not to resign ourselves in the face of spreading evil.\nEveryone must do their part and we must all unite our efforts so that this land may regain its splendor. And we have only one way to do it: let us disarm our hearts, take down the armor of our ethnic and political closures, open our religious confessions to mutual encounter, awaken deep within ourselves the dream of a united Lebanon, where peace and justice prevail, where everyone can recognize themselves as brothers and sisters, and where, finally, what the prophet Isaiah describes can be achieved: "The wolf will live with the lamb, the leopard will lie down with the goat, the calf and the lion cub will be nourished together" (Isaiah 11, 6).\nThis is the dream entrusted to you; it is what the God of peace places in your hands: Lebanon, rise up! Be a house of justice and fraternity! Be a prophecy of peace for the entire Levant!\nBrothers and sisters, I too would like to repeat the words of Jesus: “I praise you, O Father”. I give thanks to the Lord for allowing me to share these days with you, while carrying your sufferings and hopes in my heart. I pray for you, so that this land of the Levant may always be illuminated by faith in Jesus Christ, the sun of justice, and that through Him, it may keep the hope that does not pass.\n_____________________________\nPope's Appeal\nDear brothers and sisters, during these days of my first Apostolic Journey, undertaken in this Jubilee Year, I wanted to come as a pilgrim of hope to the Middle East, imploring God to grant peace to this beloved land, marked by instability, wars, and pain.\nDear Christians of the Levant, when the results of your efforts for peace are slow to come, I invite you to lift your eyes to the Lord who is coming! Let us look at Him with hope and courage, inviting everyone to engage in the path of coexistence, fraternity, and peace. Be artisans of peace, announcers of peace, witnesses of peace!\nThe Middle East needs new attitudes, to reject the logic of revenge and violence, to overcome political, social, and religious divisions, to open new chapters under the sign of reconciliation and peace. The path of mutual hostility and destruction, in the horror of war, has been treaded for too long, with the deplorable results that everyone can see. We must change course, we must educate the heart to peace.\nFrom this place, I pray for the Middle East and all the peoples who suffer because of war. I also pray for Guinea-Bissau, hoping for a peaceful solution to political conflicts. I do not forget the victims of the fire in Hong Kong and their dear families.\nI pray particularly for beloved Lebanon! I once again ask the international community to spare no effort to promote processes of dialogue and reconciliation. I make a pressing appeal to all those who hold political and social authority, here and in all countries plagued by war and violence: listen to the cry of your peoples pleading for peace! Let us all be at the service of life, the common good, and the integral development of people.\nFinally, to you, Christians of the Levant, full citizens of these lands, I repeat: courage! The whole Church looks at you with affection and admiration. May the Blessed Virgin Mary, Our Lady of Harissa, always protect you.