Month: December 2023

(OSV News) – Armed with art supplies, Sister Alicia Torres recently invited young adults attending a Catholic conference near Milwaukee to create a self-portrait on paper, drawn inside a circle. The circle, she explained, represented the Eucharist.

Through the Eucharist, each person better understands himself or herself as made in the image and likeness of God, she told them.

About 50 young adults worked for almost an hour, and when they finished, they silently walked around the room to see what others had created. To Sister Alicia’s surprise and delight, the 20- and 30-year-olds naturally formed a circle around the edge of the room as the session came to an end.

“This is an image of the Body of Christ,” she remembers thinking. “Here we are, united in our faith of the holy Eucharist, and all these young adults – who have so many struggles in the culture, in their personal lives – had this experience of connecting with Jesus through this art project.”

The art session was part of a Nov. 11 workshop Sister Alicia led on the Eucharist and creativity for Inheritance 2023, a young adult conference organized by the Archdiocese of Milwaukee. It is one of the highlights from her work in the past year with the National Eucharistic Revival.

“There has been, in my awareness of what’s going on nationwide, an attentiveness to not forget our young people,” said Sister Alicia, a member of the Franciscans of the Eucharist of Chicago as well as the National Eucharistic Revival executive team. “That’s very important because the data indicates that by their early 20s, we (the Catholic Church) lose 80% of the young people that have been confirmed. … And so to be able to bring the message of Jesus’ presence in the Eucharist — his love, his mercy and his power — to the young people, I think is critical. And I see that happening, which brings me a lot of hope.”

A three-year initiative of the U.S. bishops, the revival is nearing its midpoint. It began in June 2022 with the feast of Corpus Christi. The first year focused on diocesan revival, inviting bishops, priests and diocesan leaders to deepen their relationship with Jesus in the Eucharist. The Year of Parish Revival began in June 2023, with emphasis on reaching Catholics in the pews.

The coming calendar year will include the National Eucharistic Pilgrimage that begins mid-May and the National Eucharistic Congress in July, two large-scale efforts that lead into the revival’s final year, the Year of Going Out on Mission, which ends on Pentecost 2025.

A parish year playbook for local leaders identified four areas of focus: reinvigorate worship, personal encounter, robust faith formation and missionary sending. Each “invitation” contained ideas and examples of how parishes might respond.

In the fall, revival leaders launched “Jesus and the Eucharist,” a seven-session, video-based study designed for the Year of Parish Revival and intended for use in a small group setting.

The series is “a chance to invite people to explore basic mysteries of the faith — that God loves us enough to send his son to lay down his life for us, and who then offers himself to us here and now and walks with us,” said David Spesia, executive director of the Secretariat of Evangelization and Catechesis for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. “That invitation to a renewed encounter to Jesus Christ each day, that is really what’s going to set the stage for the revival, through the pilgrimage and the congress.”

Revival leaders hoped that dioceses, parishes and other local Catholic entities would make the revival their own. The result is new or expanded adoration hours, Eucharist-focused homily series, and large Eucharistic processions. Processions this year in Manhattan, New York, for example, drew thousands of participants.

Meanwhile, some dioceses, such as the Archdiocese of Atlanta, have tied longstanding Eucharistic congresses to the revival, and others, such as the Diocese of Winona-Rochester, Minnesota, have held new local congresses.

Other dioceses have gone outside of the box: the Dioceses of Lincoln, Nebraska; Fort Wayne, Indiana; and the Archdiocese of Denver created “passports” to encourage Catholics to visit adoration chapels, attend speakers or adopt spiritual practices related to the Eucharist. The Archdiocese of San Francisco offered an online course on Eucharistic miracles. The Diocese of Cleveland, Ohio, has organized a student art contest with the theme “Eucharist: Bread of Life.”

The Archdiocese of Detroit continues to add stories to its I AM HERE campaign, launched in partnership with the prayer app Hallow, to collect and share people’s healing and transformative encounters with the Eucharist. When it was launched in June 2022, an archdiocesan leader said the campaign was a response to the revival in a “uniquely Detroit way.”

“This last year, for me, is about all the little things that are happening in local parishes,” said Tim Glemkowski, CEO of the National Eucharistic Congress. “It’s the pastor I heard about who is doing a preaching series on how the Eucharist is a ‘who’ and not just a ‘what,’ and how to have a relationship with Jesus in the Eucharist.”

Sister Alicia oversees the “Heart of the Revival” newsletter and its weekly news reel “The Pulse” that launched in September, and is a familiar face on the revival’s YouTube channel. She said she’s been impressed by the creativity parishes and dioceses have shown in localizing the revival.

“The question is, what does it mean to live a Eucharistic life?” she said. “Part of our crisis right now in our church is that, because of the movement of the culture, we have lost to a large degree that sacramental worldview, meaning that signs don’t carry the value that they might have carried for people 100 years ago.

“And that is one of the reasons why it’s hard for people to engage in Mass — because they can’t necessarily read the signs,” she continued. “They don’t understand the movement, the ritual, why do we do these things. … At the heart of this charism of the Eucharistic revival is a renewal of Catholic imagination rooted in the Eucharist.”

Revival leaders hope the 10th National Eucharistic Congress — the first national congress in 83 years — can help cultivate that sacramental imagination among the tens of thousands of Catholics expected to attend.

In November, revival leaders announced plans to make single-day passes available for the July 17-21 congress. Meanwhile, full five-day passes are offered at a 10% discount through Christmas Day at the congress’ website, www.eucharisticcongress.org. The website also includes the congress’ general daily schedule and speaker lineup.

“God has really spoken into what he wants this event to be,” Glemkowski said of the congress. “It’s truly going to be a moment of spiritual revival for the church, not just a conference. I don’t think people are going to walk away being like, ‘I heard a cool talk that was kind of meaningful to me.’ I think people are going to walk away and be like, ‘My life has changed.'”

(OSV News) – From Ukraine to Nigeria, and from Nicaragua to the Holy Land, 2023 was full of tragic situations that deeply affected the church and faithful. OSV News revisited four places clinging to hope that the new year will bring an improvement in the lives of people living in societies torn by conflict and persecution.

“As we go into the New Year, millions of people across the world are experiencing deprivation, loss and disruption to their lives, due to circumstances beyond their control,” said Caroline Brennan, emergency communications director of Catholic Relief Services, the international aid agency of the Catholic Church in the U.S.

“A moment of crisis can change the trajectory of people’s lives, and have ripple effects that last years, especially for those who are exposed to extreme, life-threatening danger and hunger,” she said in a statement. “We have to mobilize our collective efforts in aid, advocacy, funding and prevention to help people not only survive but have the means for recovery and resilience.”

This year, according to the United Nations’ June 2023 Global Humanitarian Overview, more than 360 million people needed humanitarian assistance — at a cost of nearly $55 billion — but only 20% of this need has been met by the international community. “This gap between need and assistance pledged is the highest ever,” CRS said.

Ukraine

Russian attacks on Ukraine’s civilian infrastructure inflicted severe hardships early in the year, although hopes were high that a long-awaited counter-offensive would recapture territory in the occupied eastern regions.

While the offensive made few gains, fears later grew of a shortfall in ammunition and military equipment, with Western attention diverted by conflict in the Middle East and political resistance, especially in the United States, to continued military aid.

“It was a year which started sadly, but also gave way to hope in Ukrainian hearts that we would be strong enough to be free,” Auxiliary Bishop Jan Sobilo of Kharkiv-Zaporizhzhia recalled in an interview with OSV News.

“When I visited our soldiers, they were happy with every tank and artillery piece, believing the world understood and Ukrainians would have something to fight for. Closer to fall, problems began, as it became clear the Russians had strengthened their positions and the arms deliveries weren’t as extensive as promised,” he said.

Ukraine’s religious leaders rallied national morale throughout the year, led by Major Archbishop Sviatoslav Shevchuk of Kyiv-Halych, head of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, and Metropolitan Epiphany (Dumenko) of the independent Orthodox Church of Ukraine.

Meanwhile, legislative moves continued in Kyiv’s Verkhovna Rada parliament to ban communities from Ukraine’s rival Moscow-linked Orthodox church, which is still maintaining ties with centers in a state “carrying out armed aggression against Ukraine.”

Russia’s Orthodox Patriarch Kirill, who provided vigorous ideological support for the war in weekly homilies and speeches, was sanctioned by several Western countries, and placed on a wanted list in November by Ukraine’s Security Service under his original name, Vladimir Gundyaev.

In a sign of retaliation, Archbishop Shevchuk’s Greek Catholic Church was reported to be banned in Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia, along with Caritas, the Knights of Columbus and other Catholic organizations, under a decree charging it with working for “foreign intelligence services.”

Bloody trench fighting continued around Bakhmut, Avdiivka, Mykolaiv, Kherson and other strategic towns, leaving a two-year death toll provisionally put by the United Nations at 10,000 civilians, with Western estimates of military casualties running close to half a million.

While tens of thousands of war crimes were also reported, church leaders urged the return of abducted Ukrainian children, currently estimated at around 20,000 by the Kyiv government, whose deportation formed the basis for March war crimes charges by the International Criminal Court against President Vladimir Putin and his children’s rights commissioner, Maria Lvova-Belova.

On June 6, the destruction of Ukraine’s Kakhovka Dam caused extensive flooding along the lower Dnipro River, leaving at least 58 dead and 31 missing, and threatening the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant and long-term water supplies to Russian-controlled Crimea.

Bishop Sobilo said morale had been raised by visits by the Vatican’s almoner, Cardinal Konrad Krajewski, and other bishops’ conference delegations, as well as by “strong support” for Ukraine from the pope during his weekly Rome audiences.

Among summer highlights, Pope Francis sent a peace envoy, Cardinal Matteo Zuppi, to Kyiv and Moscow to negotiate the return of prisoners, whose fate was also raised by the Vatican’s Lithuanian Nuncio, Archbishop Visvaldas Kulbokas, one of few foreign representatives to remain in Kyiv throughout the war.

“In our eastern cities, which are shelled regularly, many people are tired of a war with no end in sight and many are leaving,” Bishop Sobilo told OSV News.

“Aid has also greatly decreased, leaving widespread poverty, and the winter may turn out to be very harsh. On the other hand, there’s still a desire to defeat the enemy occupier, and we’ll be entering the new year with great hopes that the world will soon wake up again,” he said.

On Dec. 19, after recent visits to Washington and other Western capitals, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy told journalists he had turned down military requests to mobilize 500,000 more Ukrainians for the war, adding he was confident the U.S. and other allies would not desert his country.

A Dec. 14 decision by EU leaders to open membership talks with Kyiv was also welcomed by the president and Ukrainian church leaders, who united in celebrating Christmas for the first time on Dec. 25 in line with the Western calendar.

Nigeria

As the world heads into a new year, Nigeria seems to continue to lead the world in the persecution of Christians.

Emeka Umeagbalasi, chairman of Intersociety, a nongovernmental human rights organization, told OSV News that “the situation of Christians in Nigeria is precarious,” and will remain so for the foreseeable future. He said that the country’s government has long been partisan, unfair to Christians and has not provided the same protections to Christians as to Muslims.

“That is why in 2024, the killings are expected to continue to rise,” he told OSV News.

He said the spate of Christian killings in Nigeria is worrisome and blamed the government for being complicit in them.

He estimated that at least 4,000 Christians have been killed in the African country in 2023, but the number could be higher because many of the killings went unreported. Instersociety estimated that between 4,500-5,000 Christians were killed every year in Nigeria between 2020 and 2022. Over the past 14 years, at least 52,250 Nigerian Christians have been murdered at the hands of Islamist militants, according to the group.

“The government of Nigeria still has a pro-Islamist security outlook. So, they (the militants) are expected to continue the killings. They are expected to continue burning of houses, sacred places of worship belonging to Christians, as well as Christian homes, villages, farmlands,” Umeagbalasi said.

Responsible for the violence in the country are militant groups such as Boko Haram. In 2014, the group abducted 276 students from a girls’ school in Chibok, and nine years later, 98 girls are still being held by Boko Haram. Other groups, such as the Fulani herdsmen, are violently targeting Christian communities, killing people and forcing them from their villages.

Umeagbalasi said Fulani jihadists “have enjoyed the protection of the government and security forces.”

Senior Research Fellow and Director for Genocide Prevention at Christian Solidarity International in Switzerland, Franklyne Ogbunwezeh, said the Christian population of central Nigeria is facing a “genocidal campaign,” and that the killings are intentional to “wipe out” Christians from the country.

In another chapter of what a priest called an “evil scheme” plaguing Nigeria, kidnappings of priests and seminarians became a tragic pattern. According to a January report by the research organization SB Morgen Intelligence, no fewer than 39 Catholic priests were killed by gunmen in 2022, while 30 others were abducted. The report also showed that 145 attacks on Catholic priests were recorded within the same period.

Nicaragua

Busloads of political prisoners were taken in the middle of the night to the Managua airport in February, but they didn’t know their destination. Some 222 of them boarded a flight for the United States and freedom — though they were later stripped of their Nicaraguan citizenship. At least one detainee refused to leave, however: Bishop Rolando Álvarez of Matagalpa. He was convicted the following day and sentenced to 26 years in prison for conspiracy and spreading false information — after a sham trial.

Bishop Álvarez has repeatedly refused to be exiled from Nicaragua, even as part of negotiations involving the Vatican, according to media reports. In the process, he’s become the face of resistance to the oppression of President Daniel Ortega and his wife, Vice President Rosario Murillo, who have cracked down on all dissent over the five years to maintain power. He marked 500 days in detention on Dec. 18 — and remains likely to stay there.

But Catholic persecution goes beyond the bishop and appears to have worsened in 2023, according to Martha Patricia Molina, a lawyer in exile who tracks aggressions against the Nicaraguan church. Molina has counted 738 aggressions since 2018, including 273 so far in 2023.

Priests, Molina says, are receiving “courtesy visits” from police, warning them to behave and not participate in celebrations of popular piety, processions and the December feast of the Immaculate Conception — the most important in the country, according to Molina. Priests continued being arrested, too, and subsequently exiled, including a dozen who were sent to Rome in October after Vatican intervention.

A second Nicaraguan bishop was arrested Dec. 20 after voicing spiritual support for imprisoned Bishop Álvarez, according to independent Nicaraguan media. Bishop Isidoro Mora of the Diocese of Siuna, which serves the country’s remote Caribbean coast, was stopped by police and paramilitaries as he was traveling to the community of La Cruz de Río Grande to celebrate the sacrament of confirmation at the local parish, according to news organization Mosaico CSI.

The Jesuits were also expelled from Nicaragua in 2023, with the regime seizing and renaming their flagship Central American University (UCA). Many religious communities with foreign missionaries, who have not been allowed by the government to renew their legal residency, also left the country — and soon after, according to reports, the properties of some of these communities were confiscated by the government.

“I thought 2022 was the worst year,” Molina told OSV News. “We can describe this last year as the year with the most attacks against the Catholic Church in the (most) recent five-year period.”

There was a rare bright spot in November, when Sheynnis Palacios — whose gown with a blue cape was thought to be inspired by the Nicaraguan flag and the Virgin Mary — won the Miss Universe competition, sparking a patriotic celebration with flag-waving (a prohibited act) that the regime couldn’t control.

However, analysts see difficulties for the church in 2024. Arturo McFields Yescas, a former Nicaraguan ambassador, told OSV News that the regime was likely to pursue legal changes, which could control religious activities and the content of sermons.

“Religious persecution is going to be institutionalized and legalized,” he said. “They’re seeking greater control and more submission using arbitrary laws.”

Holy Land

After the Oct. 7 Hamas attack on southern Israeli communities, which left 1,200 people, including families, children, elderly and youth at a music festival murdered and 239 mostly civilian hostages taken into the Gaza Strip, and the outbreak of the Israeli-Hamas war in Gaza, with over 20,000 Palestinians killed according to Gaza health officials as of Dec. 21, the Holy Land fell into the spiral of what seems endless violence.

Ahead of the new year, Catholic Relief Services listed its most pressing humanitarian crises to watch in 2024. The humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza tops the list.

Nearly 2 million people — about 85% of Gaza’s population — have been displaced, and nearly all of those forced from their homes report that they do not have enough to eat.

“Many have crowded into schools, churches, hospitals, homes and shelters, but thousands are living outside without safe shelter. Without an immediate cessation of violence and increase of humanitarian corridors, widespread suffering will continue,” CRS said in a Dec. 21 statement.

“Even when I speak to our staff, they talk about not having enough food,” said Cornelia Sage, CRS head of programs for Jerusalem, West Bank and Gaza. “They talk about rationing meals, about not having enough to eat for their children. They tell me about going out to look for food for their families only to come back empty-handed. All of Gaza is going hungry.”

“Store shelves are empty and have been empty for weeks,” Sage said. “There are informal markets, but people are paying five to 10 times more for basic food items, especially key staples such as flour, oil and drinking water. Without cooking gas or fuel, people cannot cook, and they are eating what they can find. There is simply not enough food coming in to feed the people of Gaza.”

The lack of proper food and clean water can be particularly dangerous for pregnant women and nursing mothers.

“My son is two months old,” one CRS staff member said. “The first days were so hard for me. I had no milk, and the stress was just so hard, my body couldn’t produce it. It was hard in the beginning of the war. But now? With the lack of water and the lack of food, it’s become a real problem. We don’t know how we are going to provide for ourselves.”

Following the end of the ceasefire Dec. 1, Israeli forces have begun maneuvers in southern Gaza to root out Hamas leaders. During the ceasefire, 105 hostages, mostly women and children and including foreign nationals, were exchanged for 240 Palestinian women and teenage prisoners held by Israel.

There are 1,017 Christians now living in Gaza, of whom 135 are Catholic. The entire Christian community is sheltering either at the Greek Orthodox Church compound or at the Holy Family Parish compound. Most Christians have preferred to stay in the north of the Gaza Strip together with their community in the Christian compounds, although Israeli forces asked Palestinian civilians to flee to the south to avoid being caught in the battle.

In a heartfelt appeal during an Angelus prayer Dec. 17, Pope Francis called for an end to the “terrorism” of war, condemning the previous day’s attack in which — the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem said — an Israeli army sniper shot and killed Nahida Khalil Anton, and her daughter, Samar Kamal Anton, as they walked to a convent at the Holy Family Parish compound in Gaza. The convent of the Missionaries of Charity also was targeted.

In a Christmas message released Dec. 21, the Patriarchs and Heads of the Churches in Jerusalem denounced “all violent actions and call for their end.”

“We likewise call upon the people of this land and around the globe to seek the graces of God so that we might learn to walk with each other in the paths of justice, mercy, and peace,” they wrote.

VATICAN CITY (CNS) – Celebrating the birth of Jesus, the prince of peace, should mean making a commitment to opposing all war, to cherishing human life, feeding the hungry and speaking up for those who have no voice, Pope Francis said.

“To say ‘yes’ to the Prince of Peace, then, means saying ‘no’ to war — and doing so with courage — saying no to every war, to the very mindset of war, an aimless voyage, a defeat without victors, an inexcusable folly,” the pope said Dec. 25 as he read his Christmas message and offered his blessing “urbi et orbi” (to the city and the world).

As he stood on the central balcony of St. Peter’s Basilica with an estimated 70,000 people gathered in St. Peter’s Square, the pope began his message speaking of Bethlehem where celebrations of Jesus’ birth are muted this year because of the Israeli-Hamas conflict.

But he also used his message to preach the hope of Christmas, which he said was found in God, who loved humanity so much that he sent his son to be born in a manger.

In the midst of darkness for whole nations or for individuals, he said, God sends his light.

“Let us exult in this gift of grace,” Pope Francis said. “Rejoice, you who have abandoned all hope, for God offers you his outstretched hand; he does not point a finger at you, but offers you his little baby hand, in order to set you free from your fears, to relieve you of your burdens and to show you that, in his eyes, you are more valuable than anything else.”

U.S. Cardinal James M. Harvey, archpriest of Rome’s Basilica of St. Paul Outside the Walls, stood alongside Pope Francis on the balcony, announcing a plenary indulgence available for everyone present, listening by radio, watching on television or following with “other means of communication.”

In his message, Pope Francis said Christmas is a call to push for peace and to educate oneself about the arms industry, which foments killing.

“People, who desire not weapons but bread, who struggle to make ends meet and desire only peace, have no idea how many public funds are being spent on arms,” he said. “Yet that is something they ought to know! It should be talked about and written about, so as to bring to light the interests and the profits that move the puppet-strings of war.”

War “is devasting the lives” of Israelis and Palestinians, he said.

“I embrace them all, particularly the Christian communities of Gaza and the entire Holy Land,” the pope said. He again condemned the “abominable attack” Hamas militants carried out in Israel Oct. 7 and repeated his “urgent appeal for the liberation of those still being held hostage.”

But Pope Francis also called on Israel to halt “the military operations with their appalling harvest of innocent civilian victims” and open corridors for the delivery of humanitarian aid to Gaza.

The enemy of the prince of peace, according to the Bible, is “the ‘prince of this world,’ who, by sowing the seeds of death, plots against the Lord, ‘the lover of life,'” the pope told the crowd.

According to the Gospel of Matthew, he noted, soon after Jesus’ birth, Herod ordered the execution of all male children under the age of 2 in the vicinity of Bethlehem.

“How many innocents are being slaughtered in our world — in their mothers’ wombs, in odysseys undertaken in desperation and in search of hope, in the lives of all those little ones whose childhood has been devastated by war,” he said. “They are the little Jesuses of today.”

“From the manger, the child Jesus asks us to be the voice of those who have no voice,” the pope said. “The voice of the innocent children who have died for lack of bread and water; the voice of those who cannot find work or who have lost their jobs; the voice of those forced to flee their lands in search of a better future, risking their lives in grueling journeys and prey to unscrupulous traffickers.”

Pope Francis also prayed for peace and stability in Ukraine, Syria, Yemen, Armenia and Azerbaijan, Sudan, South Sudan, Cameroon and Congo.

Looking to the Americas, where a second Nicaraguan bishop was arrested Dec. 20 and where several nations are experiencing social and political strife, Pope Francis prayed that the newborn Lord would inspire political authorities and all people of good will “to resolve social and political conflicts, to combat forms of poverty that offend the dignity of persons, to reduce inequality and to address the troubling phenomenon of migration movements.”

With the opening of the Holy Door and the inauguration of the Holy Year 2025 only a year away, Pope Francis prayed that people would use the next 12 months as “an opportunity for the conversion of hearts, for the rejection of war and the embrace of peace and for joyfully responding to the Lord’s call, in the words of Isaiah’s prophecy, ‘to bring good news to the oppressed, to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives and release to the prisoners.'”

(OSV News) – Christmas in Bethlehem was celebratory but not as festive as usual this year, given the outbreak of war in the Holy Land two-and-a-half months ago.

Visiting for Christmas, the papal envoy, Cardinal Konrad Krajewski, prefect of Vatican Dicastery for the Service of Charity, assisted the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem in the wartime celebration amid the “helplessness” of not being able to ease suffering Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. Cardinal Krajewski is in the Holy Land as part of a “journey of closeness” with Christians in the region.

On Dec. 24, Latin Patriarch Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa arrived in Bethlehem on the West Bank with Cardinal Krajewski, where they were escorted by Israeli police to the border of the West Bank, and then by Palestinian police.

“We got out of the cars very quickly and went on foot to the Church of the Nativity. There were thousands of people there. On the way to the church everyone wanted to touch, kiss the hands of the patriarch,” Cardinal Krajewski told OSV News in a recorded voice message.

At 4 p.m. on Dec. 24, both cardinals joined the solemn procession of the Franciscans to the Grotto of the Nativity, where hymns and Christmas songs were sung, followed by a festive dinner with authorities of Bethlehem.

“This year, the mayors of Assisi and Greccio, where St. Francis built his first Nativity scene, joined Bethlehem in a touching sign of solidarity,” Cardinal Krajewski said.

At the solemn celebration of early Christmas Mass on Dec. 24, Cardinal Krajewski said that 2,000 people filled the Church of the Nativity. Despite hard times for the Holy Land, “people were all beautifully, festively dressed,” he said.

“For too many days, we have all been caught up in the sad and painful feeling that there is no room this year for the joy and peace that the angels announced to the shepherds of Bethlehem in this Holy Night, not far from here,” Cardinal Pizzaballa said during the homily.

“At this moment, our thoughts cannot be far from those who have lost everything in this war, including their closest loved ones, and who are now displaced, alone and paralyzed by their grief,” he said.

“My thoughts go, without distinction, to all who are affected by this war, in Palestine and Israel and the whole region. I am especially close to those who are in mourning and weeping and waiting for a concrete gesture of closeness and care. Tonight, I remember the hostages kidnapped from their families, as I remember the people who languish in prisons without having had the right to a trial,” Cardinal Pizzaballa said.

Instead of festive celebrations, Palestinian children in the streets of Bethlehem carried signs showing solidarity with suffering Palestinians from the Gaza Strip. White signs with black inscriptions read “Gaza in the heart” and “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.”

After the solemn Mass, the patriarch, accompanied by Cardinal Krajewski, went to the Grotto of the Nativity, “where we spent 30 minutes praying, singing, visiting the place and leaving the statue of baby Jesus there,” Cardinal Krajewski said.

Pope Francis said in his Christmas message Dec. 25 that children dying in wars, including in Gaza, are the “little Jesuses of today.” He said that Israeli strikes there were reaping an “appalling harvest” of innocent civilians.

In the Christmas Day “Urbi et Orbi” (to the city and world) address, the pontiff also called the Oct. 7 attack on Israel by Hamas militants “abominable” and appealed for the release of around 100 hostages still being held in Gaza.

Cardinal Krajewski said he was unable to reach Holy Family Parish in Gaza City by phone on Christmas Eve, but, along with the patriarch, he met 20 people who have loved ones trapped in the Gaza Strip. He assured Christians in Bethlehem that “the Holy Father is with them,” in their suffering, and “expressed his closeness.”

Cardinal Krajewski said the church feels “helpless” watching the situation in the Gaza Strip.

“We are able to organize a huge amount of aid in a few minutes and send everything to this place of great tragedy. But it is humanly impossible at the moment,” he told OSV News. “That’s why prayer is so necessary today. Jesus, you take over! We do not have such opportunities, we do not have access to Gaza. We are simply helpless.”

Still, the cardinal added, “there is hope, and we do not lose hope.”

On Dec. 23, Cardinal Krajewski visited poor Christian families. “I went with ‘koleda,'” he said, referring to a traditional Christmas visit of priests in the homes of their parishioners in his native Poland.

“They live very modestly. So I was with them and passed greetings from Pope Francis. I also left very concrete help — I thought they could pay a few months’ rent for the sum,” he said.

“But I learned then that the Latin Patriarchate rents apartments owned by the church for free to the poor Christians,” he said. “The church has a great deal of wealth, and all over the world you can help the poor in a very concrete way, the way they do in the Holy Land. we can learn from them.”

VATICAN CITY (CNS) – More than two millennia after the Holy Family was denied a room at the inn and Jesus was born in a manger, war once again renders his birthplace in the Holy Land inhospitable, Pope Francis said.

“Tonight, our hearts are in Bethlehem, where the Prince of Peace is once more rejected by the futile logic of war, by the clash of arms that even today prevents him from finding room in the world,” the pope said Dec. 24 during his homily for Christmas Mass in St. Peter’s Basilica.

The nighttime liturgy began with preparatory prayers that included Old Testament readings telling of the Messiah’s coming, invocations of the Savior and the proclamation of his birth. Children, who entered the basilica as part of the procession dressed in traditional garments from different continents, placed flowers around a figurine of Jesus that rested in front of the basilica’s main altar.

In his lengthy homily, the pope reflected on Jesus’ birth occurring after Caesar decreed a census in which “the whole world should be enrolled,” as recounted in St. Luke’s Gospel.

The census, he said, “manifests the all-too-human thread that runs through history: the quest for worldly power and might, fame and glory, which measures everything in terms of success, results, numbers and figures, a world obsessed with achievement.”

By becoming human, however, Jesus chooses the way of “littleness.”

“He does not eliminate injustice from above by a show of power, but from below, by a show of love,” the pope said. “He does not burst on the scene with limitless power but descends to the narrow confines of our lives. He does not shun our frailties but makes them his own.”

At Christmas, Pope Francis encouraged Christians to shun the image of a mighty and lofty God, “because there is always a risk that we can celebrate Christmas while thinking of God in pagan terms, as a powerful potentate in the sky; a god linked to power, worldly success and the idolatry of consumerism.”

The pope, using a wheelchair, greeted representatives of other Christian denominations as he entered the basilica. Although the 87-year-old pope delivered his homily while seated, he showed no signs of difficulty while reading the long text and only stopped occasionally to clear his throat.

Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re, dean of the College of Cardinals, was the main celebrant at the altar.

To God, “who changed history in the course of a census, you are not a number, but a face,” Pope Francis told the 6,500 people gathered inside the basilica, as well as those following the Mass on screens in St. Peter’s Square outside.

“If you look to your own heart and think of your own inadequacies and this world that is so judgmental and unforgiving, you may feel it difficult to celebrate this Christmas,” he said. “You may think things are going badly or feel dissatisfied with your limitations, failings and problems, for your sins.”

On Christmas, however, the pope encouraged Christians to “let Jesus take the initiative.”

“He became flesh; he is looking not for your achievements but for your open and trusting heart,” he said. “In him, you will rediscover who you truly are: a beloved son or daughter of God.

After the Mass, Pope Francis carried the figurine of the baby Jesus in his lap while an aide pushed him in his wheelchair toward the Nativity scene at the back of the basilica. Flanked by children on either side, the pope went to the crèche, and the Jesus figurine was placed in the manger. The pope stopped to greet the crowd as he left the basilica, led by the children who were jumping and clapping along the way.

VATICAN CITY (CNS) – The Vatican publishing house announced it will release a book of some 130 homilies given by the late Pope Benedict XVI at private Sunday Masses – 30 given while he was pope and more than 100 given to members of his household once he retired.

The homilies were recorded and transcribed by the consecrated women, members of Memores Domini, who lived with him and ran his household, said Jesuit Father Federico Lombardi, president of the board of directors of the Joseph Ratzinger-Benedict XVI Vatican Foundation.

Announcing the publication Dec. 23, the foundation and the Vatican publishing house did not give a date for its release, but they published a homily Pope Benedict XVI had given Dec. 22, 2013, the fourth Sunday of Advent of his first year of retirement.

The homily focused on St. Joseph and the biblical description of him as a “just man,” which, before the birth of Jesus, would have signified that he followed the Torah, the law given to the people of Israel.

“The danger is that if the word of God is essentially law, it can be regarded as a sum of prescriptions and prohibitions, a package of norms, and the attitude therefore would be to observe the norms and thus be correct,” Pope Benedict had said in the homily.

“But if religion is like that, if that is all it is, there is no personal relationship with God, and man remains within himself, seeks to perfect himself, to be perfect,” he had said, and it is difficult to love a God “who presents himself only with rules and sometimes even threats.”

But with the coming of Jesus, the late pope said, the law is not a set of regulations to be observed, but it is “an expression of God’s will,” and by trying to understand and follow God’s will, one enters into a relationship with him.

“A truly righteous person like St Joseph is like this: for him the law is not simply the observance of rules, but presents itself as a word of love, an invitation to dialogue,” the homily continues. The dialogue leads one to discover “that all these norms do not apply for their own sake, but are rules of love, they serve so that love grows in me.”

When one understands that “the whole law is only love of God and neighbor,” one begins to see the face of God and is led to Christ, he said.

Pope Benedict said Christians face “the same temptation, the same danger that existed in the Old Testament: even a Christian can arrive at an attitude in which the Christian religion is regarded as a package of rules, of prohibitions and positive norms,” and they can believe that if one tries hard enough, he or she can reach perfection.

The point of faith, though, he said, is to find Jesus, “the way of life and the joy of faith.”

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

Eight hundred years ago as the Church celebrated the latter days of Advent and prepared to commemorate the birth of Jesus, a cherished tradition in our lives as Christians was born.

Traveling from Rome to Assisi after having just received approval from the Pope for his brotherhood, Saint Francis stopped along the way in the little Italian town of Greccio. Having visited the Holy Land, the caves in Greccio reminded Francis of the countryside of Bethlehem. So, he asked a local man named John to help him celebrate with the faithful of the town the holy night of Christmas by replicating the original scene in Bethlehem.

Saint Francis’ biographers described in detail what then took place in Greccio: “On December 25, friars came to Greccio from various parts, together with people from the farmsteads in the area, who brought flowers and torches to light up the holy night. When Francis arrived, he found a manger full of hay, an ox, and a donkey. All those present experienced a new and indescribable joy in the presence of the Christmas scene. The priest then solemnly celebrated the Eucharist over the manger, showing the bond between the Incarnation of the Son of God and the Eucharist. At Greccio, there were no statues – just a manger, an ox, and a donkey; the nativity scene was enacted and experienced by all who were present.”

That Christmas night, eight centuries ago, began the tradition of the Nativity scene that we maintain in our churches and in our homes. For all its familiarity and the tendency that we may have to diminish its significance in the face of so many other competing symbols and traditions associated with Christmas, we would do well to pause at some point in this sacred season to reflect upon the message that lies at the heart of this treasured scene.

Like the faithful people of Greccio, Italy, look beyond the statues or figurines and imagine yourself in Bethlehem in a cave, with animals, straw, dirt, and a promise provided by a newborn baby boy.

In God’s plan to save His people, Jesus didn’t set Himself apart from the ordinariness of human life.

No, Jesus immersed Himself in the human condition of our world, for all its beauty and peace, its brokenness and pain, its sin and suffering. And He did so for a reason: In coming into our lives as a baby born in a manger – hardly a sign of power, self-sufficiency or pride – God lowered Himself so that we could walk with Him and He could stand beside us, not above or far from us, to lead us on the pathway to His promise of life and peace.

All too often, however, we are quick to leave the cave of Bethlehem and travel other pathways to achieve meaning and purpose in our lives. We set aside the message of salvation proclaimed throughout the ages by the life, love, mercy, and forgiveness of Jesus. We’re reluctant to heed his invitation to walk in his footsteps. Then we wonder why our lives are so unsettled and peace in our hearts, our homes and our world, appears to be so elusive. We wonder why God can’t provide us with a way out of suffering and pain in Israel, Ukraine, far too many places throughout our world, at our borders, in our neighborhoods, in our families and in our hearts.

Brothers and sisters, the good news and blessing of Christmas is that God has already provided us a way forward with hope if we are wise and humble enough to embrace the message of Bethlehem and the birth of his Son.

May we pray during these cherished days for peace in our troubled world, especially in the Holy Land where our Prince of Peace was born. May we open our hearts to the grace of God and the great mystery of salvation won for us through the simple story begun in a cave in Bethlehem that continues to be the world’s true and lasting reason for hope!

With gratitude for the privilege of serving as your Bishop and with prayers for a holy and blessed Christmas for you, your family and all you hold dear, I am

Faithfully yours in Christ,

Most Rev. Joseph C. Bambera, D.D., J.C.L.
Bishop of Scranton