Christmas Message from the Pastor

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, Merry Christmas!

The Christmas Season is an event that involves all the various dimensions of a person and a family. It requires careful preparation with greeting cards to be sent, decorations and lights to be bought and positioned, lists of gifts to be compiled and gastronomic menus to be decided. Amid all this "combination" of worries, music and songs, ideas, and projects, we risk forgetting the true meaning of Christmas. We risk engaging ourselves in elaborate preparations for a big party, putting the very reason for the celebration in second place. Let us not forget that Jesus was born in the simplicity of a stable having poor shepherds as first worshipers. As the saying goes: “Keep Christ in Christmas.”

"Mary ... gave birth to her first-born son, wrapped him in swaddling clothes and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn" (Lk. 2, 7). Since it was the time of the census, all inns and hostels were occupied and had become places of too much confusion to welcome a pregnant woman almost at the time of giving birth. In the simplicity of a stable Mary found the right place to give birth to Jesus, away from the crowds and the confusion. Christmas trees, lights and colors, sounds and flavors certainly have their place in the celebration of Christmas, but let us also remember to leave room for Jesus and the Holy Family. Leave for them a place in the “inn” of our hearts. In this Christmas, we are once again invited to renew our commitment to understand the message of the angels "Glory to God in the highest heaven and peace on earth to people of good will".

Let us come together, then, to celebrate Christmas and to start the New Year with joy like the shepherds who left the simple manger of Bethlehem "glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen" (Lk. 2, 20). At the beginning of the New Year, with the simplicity of the shepherds, let us renew our faith, our hope and our love under the protection of Our Lady.

A Merry Christmas to you and your family!

Best regards in Christ,

Fr. Ezio Marchetto, cs.

Pastor