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December 17, 2024Dear faithful of the Filipino community of the Parish of St. Anthony,May the Lord give you Peace and joy.I am very happy to be here with you at the beginning of the Simbang Gabi that leads us to the celebration of Holy Christmas.It is a beautiful tradition linked to your homeland, the Philippines. In our Apostolic Vicariate, this tradition is very much alive. In these first years of my ministry as Bishop in this part of the world I have had many opportunities to celebrate masses for the Filipino communities in the different parishes. I admire your faithful participation in these celebrations.I take advantage of this celebration to express my joy for your commitment in our Church. I greatly appreciate your dedication in the parish. I see you are involved in the ministries and services with love. May the Lord reward you and bless you.I have seen that many Filipino faithful who are not very regular to the Church are also present to celebrate the Simbang Gabi. I cordially greet you all. The Church is open to all. The Church is the house of God, it is the house of the people of God, it is your home. Please do not hesitate to visit this house regularly.How beautiful it is to prepare for Christmas! This year the Advent brings us a special Christmas because this Christmas will also mark the beginning of the Jubilee of the Lord 2025, a jubilee dedicated to hope: Jesus is our hope! Pope Francis will open the holy door in the saint Peter Basilica in Rome. Furthermore, this parish dedicated to saint Antony will be the shrine of the Jubilee for the faithful in the UAE.In order to have spiritual fruits from the Christmas celebrations and from the Jubilee of the Lord, we must prepare well. There are many external gestures that we do to prepare for Christmas: we decorate the Christmas tree in our homes. We prepare the nativity scene with the statues. Because we want to see with our own eyes the scene of the birth of Jesus; we want to imagine what happened on that night more than two thousand years ago, when the Son of God became man, born of Mary; born in poverty. We have many moments of celebration to exchange greetings. All these external signs must be an expression of an internal preparation, a preparation of our heart to welcome Jesus.The tradition of Simbang Gabi is a very beautiful tradition because it is a visible expression of our preparation like the one today, you left your homes to come to Church: it is an external gesture, but it expresses our spiritual preparation.Let us therefore purify our hearts, free ourselves from the sins that weigh us down. I invite you to pray more in this time and to rediscover within you the desire for salvation, the desire for happiness, the need to be loved with a gratuitous and free love, so that we too can become capable of loving our neighbor.The Gospel speaks to us of John the Baptist, the one who came to prepare the way of the Lord, inviting the people to recognize their sins and to welcome the Lord. It is Jesus himself in the discussion with the Pharisees who cites the example and the work of John the Baptist. Those who questioned Jesus' authority find it difficult to respond to the question about the authority with which the Baptist called everyone to conversion, since in fact they had not accepted his invitation.In this way, having rejected the preaching of John, they also rejected Jesus. If we do not believe in the prophecies, how will we believe in the fulfillment of the prophecies? If the desire of salvation is not alive in us, how will we recognize Jesus as our Savior? Instead of welcoming his word of salvation, they tried to hinder his work.Dear faithful, let us never oppose the message of Jesus, I invite you to always welcome his word. Let us show everyone the joy of being Christians, the joy of having experienced the love of God that frees our hearts from evil. Jesus is born among us as the light of the world. We know how much darkness there is in the world and sometimes even in our hearts. Let us therefore welcome Jesus, the light of the world, the prince of peace.Dear faithful, I wish you a Christmas full of joy in the Lord. Always be united with Jesus and always be united with the Church. May the Virgin Mary, Mother of God and our Mother, who brought us Jesus, bring us to Jesus and keep us always united with him.I may not see you on Christmas day, so I wish you today. Merry Christmas!
