Bring Your Baby Jesus to Church Day

This Sunday we will have the blessing of the bambinelli at all our masses. Bambinelli is the Italian word for babies, and it originated years ago when St John Paul II invited the children of Rome to bring the Baby Jesus from their home nativity to St Peter’s Square on the Third Sunday of Advent, and blessed them at his Angelus prayer. It’s a custom that has been continued by Pope Benedict and Pope Francis. It has spread since to many churches around the world. I find it a wonderful, tangible way to link our prayer and celebration of Christmas at home to the prayer and celebration of our parish communities.

-Fr Lou

PS – I’ll be out of town on vacation this coming week so I won’t have an article in the newsletter. But never fear, I’ll be back for Christmas!