Everyone knows about the Christmas Eve Masses in Bethlehem, always celebrated at midnight in this town that saw the birth of the Savior of the world. Through the magic of television everyone can watch it live, and this year the Custody’s Internet site will offer an online transmission. But Christmas in Bethlehem is not just one Mass; it is not just this Mass.
While some 2500 Christians had booked, sometimes long in advance, their entry tickets to the Basilica of Saint Catherine, where Mgr Michel Sabbah is the principal celebrant, assisted by some 150 priests, Franciscan friars and seminarians from Beit Jala, parish priest Father Amjad Sabbara ofm and Terra Sancta School director Father Marwan Di’Des ofm concelebrated a Mass in the very grotto of Bethlehem. For, except for three interruptions for Orthodox and Armenian Masses, from midnight until 5:00 p.m. on the 25th of December the grotto sees Masses celebrated every half hour. The Midnight Mass, well known to the Christians of Bethlehem, was celebrated in Arabic. In his homily, which he summarized briefly in Italian, Father Amjad encouraged the faithful to come back to the heart of the mystery of God in our lives: God who always intervenes on our behalf, who is always with us, who gives us strength and courage and makes straight the twisted routes. “God loves us,” he continued. “Let us pray to Him, asking that we may accept ourselves as we are. Let us place our lives, let us place ourselves there in the crèche, and ask him to cause a new man to be born within us, to give us a new heart.” In the grotto, the crowd, who had been standing and waiting for two, if not three, hours, remained recollected in prayer.
At the moment of Communion, even though you would have thought that the immense crowd of people in this tiny grotto would make it impossible to move even slightly to the right or the left, everything happens quite naturally, almost gently, and every one of the faithful was able to receive the Eucharist. Up there in the basilica Mgr Sabbah was preaching; in Beit Sahur, in the Shepherds’ Field, Masses followed one on the other. The Lord comes; he comes for everyone in every way. It is Christmas everywhere in Bethlehem.
MAB
While some 2500 Christians had booked, sometimes long in advance, their entry tickets to the Basilica of Saint Catherine, where Mgr Michel Sabbah is the principal celebrant, assisted by some 150 priests, Franciscan friars and seminarians from Beit Jala, parish priest Father Amjad Sabbara ofm and Terra Sancta School director Father Marwan Di’Des ofm concelebrated a Mass in the very grotto of Bethlehem. For, except for three interruptions for Orthodox and Armenian Masses, from midnight until 5:00 p.m. on the 25th of December the grotto sees Masses celebrated every half hour. The Midnight Mass, well known to the Christians of Bethlehem, was celebrated in Arabic. In his homily, which he summarized briefly in Italian, Father Amjad encouraged the faithful to come back to the heart of the mystery of God in our lives: God who always intervenes on our behalf, who is always with us, who gives us strength and courage and makes straight the twisted routes. “God loves us,” he continued. “Let us pray to Him, asking that we may accept ourselves as we are. Let us place our lives, let us place ourselves there in the crèche, and ask him to cause a new man to be born within us, to give us a new heart.” In the grotto, the crowd, who had been standing and waiting for two, if not three, hours, remained recollected in prayer.
At the moment of Communion, even though you would have thought that the immense crowd of people in this tiny grotto would make it impossible to move even slightly to the right or the left, everything happens quite naturally, almost gently, and every one of the faithful was able to receive the Eucharist. Up there in the basilica Mgr Sabbah was preaching; in Beit Sahur, in the Shepherds’ Field, Masses followed one on the other. The Lord comes; he comes for everyone in every way. It is Christmas everywhere in Bethlehem.
MAB