VATICAN INSIDER: CELEBRATING CHRISTMAS AND THE NEW YEAR IN ROME AND THE VATICAN – POPE EMERITUS RESTED WELL OVERNIGHT, HEALTH SITUATION STABLE

Allow me to wish all of you who follow me – my blog readers, radio listeners and TV viewers – a happy, healthy, fulfilling, peaceful and joy-filled New Year!. May it be better in every way possible than the year we are leaving!

I’ll be back on this page – save for breaking news – on January 2, 2023! So, see you next year!

VATICAN INSIDER: CELEBRATING CHRISTMAS AND THE NEW YEAR IN ROME AND THE VATICAN

Welcome to Vatican Insider on this Christmas and New Year’s weekend. After all, don’t forget that it is still the Christmas season! In what is usually the interview segment after the News, I have prepared what I hope is a fascinating Christmas story, a Special in which I bring you to Italy to learn how the Vatican and Rome and Italians celebrate Christmas and New Year’s. Christmastide is as wonderful here as you can imagine, and I think you’ll want to invite family members, especially children, to sit around and listen!

POPE EMERITUS RESTED WELL OVERNIGHT, HEALTH SITUATION STABLE

The Director of the Holy See Press Office on Friday said Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI’s health condition remains stable.

By Vatican News

In a response to questions from journalists, the Director of the Holy See Press Office, Matteo Bruni, on Friday confirmed that Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI’s health condition remains stable at this time. He added that yesterday evening Benedict XVI was able to have a good rest, and earlier in the afternoon he participated in the celebration of Mass in his room.

Vatican news file photo of Benedict XVI and his personal secretary, Abp. Georg Gaenswein –

In related news, at 5:30 pm Rome time on today, Mass was celebrated at the basilica of St. John Lateran, remembering in prayer Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI and his health. Cardinal Angelo De Donatis, vicar of the Diocese of Rome, presided over the celebration.

The Diocese of Rome encouraged “parish communities, chaplaincies, religious men and women, all the faithful of the diocese and all the men and women of good will who live in Rome,” to gather in prayer for Benedict XVI,  “remembering with gratitude the road travelled together with our bishop emeritus,” and accompanying him now “in this time of suffering and hardship, praying to the Lord that He may console him and sustain him in his witness of love for the Church until the end.”

 

A HOMEY CHRISTMAS IN ROME

A HOMEY CHRISTMAS IN ROME

There’s “Joan’s Rome” and there’s Joan’s home! A home in which I love to welcome visitors and have guests for dinner or even a happy hour with some great prosecco! My dining room table is always set for 4 people – I mean, you never know!

I love the seasons, and try to set the table so you know when you see it that we are in summer, fall, winter, spring but especially Christmas and Easter.

Two choices for Christmas…

Welcome to Christmas!   It starts at my front door…

And continues in my entryway with the nativity set from Bethlehem…

Let’s walk down the hall to my office….

And the stockings are hung by Joan’s bar with great care….

There’s always an Advent calendar….

In the dining room, you’ll find Jingle Bear, sitting on a small rocking chair my paternal grandmother gave me when I was 3….

The living room features my Lladro nativity scene (up all year)….

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…And my tree and many of my favorite ornaments! The pink baby rattle is mine – my Mom hung it as an ornament on our Christmas tree every year, starting with my first Christmas. It still goes on my tree!  I love tradition!

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