The Sunday Sermons: 2023

It has been 800 years since Our Holy Father St. Francis summoned the people of Greccio, Italy, to a manger he had arranged with straw and a breathing ox and donkey.

In a letter to his friend, John of Velita, St. Francis wrote:

"I want to do something that will recall the memory of that Child Who was born in Bethlehem; to see with bodily eyes the inconveniences of His infancy; how He lay in a manger; and how the animals stood by."

Brother Thomas of Celano - the First Biographer of St. Francis of Assisi wrote:

"Jesus embraced both “the humility of the Incarnation and the charity of the Passion” because he came to love us by becoming one of us. Love was the reason for the Incarnation. And love is what Francis wanted to celebrate at Greccio by telling the people of the village and the surrounding countryside that he was going to celebrate Christmas by reenacting the first Christmas at midnight Mass at the friary."

May God Bless you all this Christmas Season.