Saint Joseph Catholic Church

feature

cna

cna

cna

feature

blog

commentary

Following his address to the Roman Curia, Pope Leo XIV held a separate audience in which he exchanged Christmas greetings with employees of the Curia, the Vatican City State, the Vicariate of Rome, and their families.

Pope Leo thanked the employees for the work and reflected on the presence of various kinds of laborers in the Nativity scene.

“While Mary and Joseph adore the Child and the shepherds approach in wonder, the other characters go about their daily business,” Pope Leo said. “They seem detached from the central event, but this is not the case: in reality, each one participates in it just as they are, staying in their place and doing what they have to do, their job.”

“I like to think that this can also be true for us in our working days: each of us carries out our task and we praise God precisely by doing it well, with commitment,” the Pope added. “Sometimes we are so caught up in our occupations that we do not think about the Lord or the Church; but the very fact of working with dedication, trying to give our best, and also—for you lay people—with love for your family, for your children, gives glory to the Lord.”

A bishop in the eastern Indian state of Odisha called on the faithful to “keep the Christmas celebrations low profile, i.e., without purchasing new clothes and without big feasting.”

Bishop Kishore Kumar Kujur of Rourkela did so in order to express solidarity with area farmers, some of whom are Catholic, whose land is being taken by the state and given to a cement company for expanded mining operations.

Odisha, formerly called Orissa (map), was the site of a 2008 anti-Christian pogrom in which an estimated 100 Christians were murdered, and 50,000 fled their homes.