VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- For his first Christmas as pope, Benedict XVI gave all Vatican employees signed Christmas cards and gifts of Italian cake, sparkling wine and rosaries.
The Vatican's 4,223 employees Dec. 14 each received a colorful Christmas postcard depicting a reproduction of a 16th-century painting of "Adoration of the Magi." The painting, crafted by an unknown artist, hangs in the chapel of St. Lawrence in the Vatican.
On the card's reverse side is the pope's coat of arms and a greeting -- a quote in Latin from a sermon of St. Augustine in the pope's handwriting.
"Awake mankind! For your sake God has become man," it says, followed by Pope Benedict's signature and the year.
Together with their cards, Vatican workers also carried home a large Italian Christmas cake called "panettone" and a bottle of Martini sparkling wine, gifts Pope John Paul II used to give employees every year along with his own hand-signed Christmas card.
But this year Pope Benedict also included a special set of blessed rosary beads whose metal center bears a "Madonna and Child" on one side and his coat of arms on the other.
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5 comments:
Awww he is a sweet man! I am a bit of a glutton when it comes to panettone, I ate half of one that someone gave my family for Christmas, it just had something about it..that smell! Being Italian too you have probably seen it around lots.
I think adding the rosary beads to the gifts was a great idea, how blest we are to have such a great holy father.
Wow! That's so lovely and thoughtful! Imagine how blessed the feeling would be to receive a Rosary from The Pope!! :)
Thank you also for the welcome :D
Ahhh...what a kind Santo Padre! God bless him.
Benedict truly is a great man!
Thanks for the prayers Antonia and for posting a comment on my blog. I’m happy to find more committed Catholics on the web and you and your circle of friends seem to what’s up about our faith. Congratulations on your engagement as well I hope you are enjoying your marriage prep work. I know I am. This is the first time I’ve read the section in the catechism on Christian marriage and I’m finding a lot of good teaching to meditate on.
Hope to hear from you some more.
God Bless!
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