“You are not alone. Together, we will rebuild everything.”

Cardinal Pizzaballa to the Catholics of Gaza

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Palestinian Christians celebrate Christmas in Bethlehem

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In 1934, Joseph Ratzinger, later Pope Benedict XVI, wrote a beautiful letter to 'Baby Jesus' requesting Christmas presents

He was 7 years old

"Dear Baby Jesus, quickly come down to earth. You will bring joy to children. Also bring me joy.

I would like a Volks-Schott (a Mass prayers book), green clothing for Mass (clerical clothing) and a heart of Jesus. I will always be good. Greetings from Joseph Ratzinger"

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Nollaig Shona Daoibh Go Léir

Happy Christmas to All

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'The Word has pitched his fragile tent among us.

How, then, can we not think of the tents in Gaza, exposed for weeks to rain, wind and cold; and of those of so many other refugees and displaced persons on every continent; or of the makeshift shelters of thousands of homeless people in our own cities?'

Pope Leo XIV

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Bethlehem and the Eucharist, the House of Bread

'Among Christians, the word "peace" has taken on a very particular meaning: it has become a word to designate communion in the Eucharist.

There Christ’s peace is present. In all the places where the Eucharist is celebrated, a great network of peace spreads through the world. The communities gathered around the Eucharist make up a kingdom of peace as wide as the world itself.

When we celebrate the Eucharist we find ourselves in Bethlehem, in the "house of bread". Christ gives himself to us and, in doing so, gives us his peace. He gives it to us so that we can carry the light of peace within and give it to others. He gives it to us so that we can become peacemakers and builders of peace in the world'

Pope Benedict XVI

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BREAKING

US President Donald Trump has ordered Christmas Day attack on 'ISIS scum' in Nigeria in response to their persecution of Christians

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Johnny Cash was asked if he was afraid of death

This was his answer

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Blessed Saint Stephen's Day

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IRELAND 🇮🇪 ✈️

Every year since 1947, a blessing has taken place of airplanes at Dublin Airport on Christmas Day

This year was no different, despite efforts by the woke mob to cancel it last year

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Assisi at Christmas

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English newspaper 'The Telegraph' has published an article stating that Charles III is a 'better Christian leader' than Pope Leo XIV because Leo mentioned Gaza in his Christmas Day Speech and Charles did not

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Every time that a pope comments on a certain issue, there is a coordinated disinformation campaign against him the next day by boomer slop influencers

It happened under Francis and people went along with it because of their own grievances

Following his Christmas Day comments about Gaza, Pope Leo XIV is being given the same treatment

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'As circumcision was the mark of the Old Law, so persecution would be the mark of the New Law. “For My name’s sake,” He told His Apostles they would be hated. All things around Him speak of His death, for that was the purpose of His coming. The very entrance door over the stable where He was born was marked with blood, as was the threshold of the Jews in Egypt.

Innocent lambs in the Passover bled for Him in centuries past; now innocent children without spot, little human lambs, bled for Him. But God warned the Wise Men not to return to Herod, So they returned to their own country By a different way.

No one who ever meets Christ with a good will returns the same way as he came. Baffled in his design to kill the Divine, the enraged tyrant ordered the indiscriminate slaughter of all male children under two years of age. There are more ways than one of practicing birth control'

Fulton Sheen

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'To be near Jesus was the height of happiness, yet it was also both a necessity and a privilege of suffering. We cannot spare the Holy Innocents from the beautiful world of Bethlehem. Next to Mary and joseph, we could take them away least of all. Without them we should read the riddle of the Incarnation wrong, by missing many of its deepest laws.

They are symbols to us of the necessities of nearness to our Lord. They are the living laws of the vicinity of Jesus. Softened through long ages, the mothers' cries and the children's moans come to us almost as a sad strain of music, sweeter than it is sad, sweet even because it is so sad, the moving elegy of Bethlehem'

Frederick William Faber

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Today is the Feast of the Holy Family

One of the most unusual pieces of 20th Century religious art is Harry Clarke's Geneva Window, the first panel of which portrays Saint Brigid of Kildare and the Passion

There are two verses, one from Padraig Pearse's 'The Wayfarer' written while he was awaiting execution for fighting for Irish freedom. It begins with 'The beauty of the world hath made me sad'

The second one is from Lady Gregory's 'The Story Brought by Brigit', a retelling of an old Irish legend connecting Brigid with the Holy Family

The story goes that Brigid gave refuge from Herod to the Holy Family in Ireland, Brigid is referred to as a sort of 'Foster Mother' to Christ and a comforter to Our Lady in her distress.

In the play, she explains how she witnessed Christ's suffering in a vision during prayer:

'It was in a dream or a vision of the night I saw a Young Man having wounds on him. And I knew him to be One I had helped and fostered, and he a Child in his mother's arms. And it was showed me in my dream there would trouble come on him but in the end he would put gladness in the heart of His friends. And it was showed to me that the place where I would find him would be in this country of Judea, a long, long way to the east'

The legend is a testimony to the mystical yet familiar nature with which the Irish viewed not just their saints but the Holy Family themselves

GK Chesterton later commented on this nature of the Irish to see the saintly and divine as their neighbour, as their family even:

‘I heard a story in Ireland years ago about how someone had met in the rocky wastes a beautiful peasant woman carrying a child. And on being asked for hername she answered simply: “I am the Mother of God, and this is Himself, and He is the boy you will all be wanting at the last.” I have never forgotten this phrase, and I remembered it suddenly long afterwards'

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