In keeping with tradition, the Custodial Vicar, Brother Artemio Vitores, came to Bethlehem on December 27th to preside First Vespers and to be the principal concelebrant of Mass the next day, December 28th, and of the daily procession on the Feast of the Holy Innocents. Two novelties marked the celebrations this year. The first is that Mass was celebrated at 10:00 AM instead of at 8:00. The second is that several friars from the infirmary at Saint Saviour’s came to Bethlehem.
While the state of their health did not allow them to participate in the nighttime celebrations in the City of David, the infirmary friars were visited the day after Christmas by the Saint Saviour’s community who came to celebrate the feast of Saint Stephen with them during the infirmary’s daily Mass. Five of them, accompanied by Brother Jad Sara, who is responsible for the infirmary, were able to visit the grotto and venerate the Holy Places and to join in the feast day Mass. They were also able to discover the chapel in the Milk Grotto, restored last year, and the new church that was built above it that has been highly successful among pilgrims, confirmed Brother Lawrence.
During the Mass, celebrated at the Saint Joseph altar, Brother Artemio, who was also joined by several priests from the Bethlehem fraternity including the Guardian, Brother Jerzy Kraj, recalled in his homily that suffering is never far from the joy of Christmas. From the very next day, he stressed, we celebrate the first martyr, Saint Stephen. On the feast day of the Holy Innocents, we do not remember only the children that Herod had killed, but also all those who are killed today, as individualism and profit-seeking bear their own toll of suffering and death of innocents.
At noon, as on every other day, the community held the daily procession that leads from Saint Catherine’s Church to the Grotto of the Nativity and from there to the adjoining grottos. The last station of the procession, which permits stopping at one of the altars in these grottos, was made at the altar of the Holy Innocents, festively bedecked.
In Saint Catherine’s Church, the pilgrims, who since the beginning of December have been able to visit the church from noon to two o’clock (see Open House for Pilgrims in Bethlehem), could also join in the prayer of the procession as the primary celebrant of the procession is now equipped with a portable microphone.
If the feast of the Holy Innocents invites us to meditate on suffering in the midst of the Christmas Octave, it was nevertheless with joy that the friars came together on this day.
MAB
While the state of their health did not allow them to participate in the nighttime celebrations in the City of David, the infirmary friars were visited the day after Christmas by the Saint Saviour’s community who came to celebrate the feast of Saint Stephen with them during the infirmary’s daily Mass. Five of them, accompanied by Brother Jad Sara, who is responsible for the infirmary, were able to visit the grotto and venerate the Holy Places and to join in the feast day Mass. They were also able to discover the chapel in the Milk Grotto, restored last year, and the new church that was built above it that has been highly successful among pilgrims, confirmed Brother Lawrence.
During the Mass, celebrated at the Saint Joseph altar, Brother Artemio, who was also joined by several priests from the Bethlehem fraternity including the Guardian, Brother Jerzy Kraj, recalled in his homily that suffering is never far from the joy of Christmas. From the very next day, he stressed, we celebrate the first martyr, Saint Stephen. On the feast day of the Holy Innocents, we do not remember only the children that Herod had killed, but also all those who are killed today, as individualism and profit-seeking bear their own toll of suffering and death of innocents.
At noon, as on every other day, the community held the daily procession that leads from Saint Catherine’s Church to the Grotto of the Nativity and from there to the adjoining grottos. The last station of the procession, which permits stopping at one of the altars in these grottos, was made at the altar of the Holy Innocents, festively bedecked.
In Saint Catherine’s Church, the pilgrims, who since the beginning of December have been able to visit the church from noon to two o’clock (see Open House for Pilgrims in Bethlehem), could also join in the prayer of the procession as the primary celebrant of the procession is now equipped with a portable microphone.
If the feast of the Holy Innocents invites us to meditate on suffering in the midst of the Christmas Octave, it was nevertheless with joy that the friars came together on this day.
MAB