Christmas is drawing near, and once again I wish to address you all to convey to you my wishes of Joy and Peace and A MERRY CHRISTMAS!.
Message to all of the HOSPITALLER COMMUNITY. Christmas 2017
“Let us be like Christmas …”
Christmas is drawing near, and once again I wish to address you all to convey to you my wishes of Joy and Peace and A MERRY CHRISTMAS!
I am writing you from Dapaong (Togo), just after the second meeting of Hospitaller Sisters in Africa, where we met with sisters from the different hospitaller facilities in this continent. Along with this message, I am sending you a photograph of one of our sisters who has dedicated her life to serving premature and malnourished children at the Yendube Children’s Hospital, along with many other members of the Hospitaller Community.
In taking a close look at the reality of these people, both the children at the Hospital and in other care facilities, and those in the streets of the different villages we passed through, I often thought about something Saint Benedict Menni used to say when writing the sisters for Christmas, “Jesus was born poor and humble in the manger in Bethlehem … Contemplate and listen to him in your hearts”.
Jesus was born poor and humble… we portray him that way in the creative mangers that decorate the different structures of the Hospitaller Work, our houses, our churches and in some countries, even public places … that is how we depict him: poor and humble, with simple symbols and images, which spontaneously evoke a familiar atmosphere, a sense of tenderness, harmony and peace.
As members of the Hospitaller Community, I invite us all to contemplate and listen from our hearts to the mystery/gift which we are celebrating.
For those who are believers, Christmas is the celebration/reaffirmation of God’s presence, the infinitely merciful God who for the sake of love became human to “grant us” through his Son Jesus, the gift of salvation, the gift of communion with Him and with our brothers and sisters, and the experience of feeling that we are the beloved children of God, brothers and sisters in fellowship with others.
