As we celebrate Christmas, our eyes are drawn to the nativity scene where there are three principal figures: Jesus, Mary and Joseph. They are a family. After we have rejoiced in the birth of the Savior, the Church invites us to celebrate this Holy Family not only because it ushers in our redemption, but also because it serves as a model for our own family life. Even though this family is extraordinary, the three persons of this Holy Family led a normal life, much like our own.
Several years ago when I was much heavier, a friend of mine got me a t-shirt with the following writing: “I am not fat, I am just fluffy.” It certainly got a lot of chuckles. It also pointed out our great desire to be nice. Another friend, Fr Mark, said to me on a different occasion, “Britto, you are not fat. You are gravitationally challenged.” That is an obvious nod to our culture’s attempt at political correctness.
Six years ago Pope Francis was in Turkey, a country that is predominantly Muslim even though it is deeply connected to Christianity over the last two thousand years. One of the historic gestures that the pope extended on his visit was to meet with the Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew, the head of 300 million Orthodox Christians. The Catholic Church and the Orthodox Church have been separated for a thousand years and the split came about over the authority of the papacy. Against such a historical background, the pope asked the Patriarch for his blessing. There was a time when patriarchs had to kiss popes' feet. At the end of a joint prayer service, Francis bowed to Bartholomew and asked for his blessing "for me and the Church of Rome," a remarkable display of papal deference to an Orthodox patriarch that expressed the Holy Father’s hope to end the schism. The papal gesture was an attempt at reconciliation between two major Churches.
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Born in India to deeply-committed Catholic parents, Fr Britto is one of seven children. He joined the Salesians of Don Bosco as a young man and was ordained a priest in 1981.
After he completed his priestly formation and his early education in India, he came to the US for his graduate degree in Journalism at...Read more...
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