Feast date: Dec 24

In the first ages, during the night before every feast, a vigil was kept. In the evening the faithful assembled in the place or church where the feast was to be celebrated and prepared themselves by prayers, readings from Holy Writ (now the Offices of Vespers and Matins), and sometimes also by hearing a sermon. On such occasions, as on fast days in general, Mass also was celebrated in the evening, before the Vespers of the following day. Towards morning the people dispersed to the streets and houses near the church, to wait for the solemn services of the forenoon.

 

This vigil was a regular institution of Christian life and was defended and highly recommended by St. Augustine and St. Jerome (see Pleithner, "Aeltere Geschichte des Breviergebetes", pp. 223 sq.). The morning intermission gave rise to grave abuses; the people caroused and danced in the streets and halls around the church (Durandus, "Rat. Div. off.", VI, 7), and St. Jerome speaks of these improprieties (Epist. ad Ripuarium).

 

The Synod of Seligenstadt (1022) mentions vigils on the eves of Christmas, Epiphany, the feast of the Apostles, the Assumption of Mary, St. Laurence, and All Saints, besides the fast of two weeks before the Nativity of St. John. After the eleventh century the fast, Office, and Mass of the nocturnal vigil were transferred to the day before the feast, and even now [1909] the liturgy of the Holy Saturday (vigil of Easter) shows, in all its parts, that originally it was not kept on the morning of Saturday, but during Easter Night. The day before the feast was henceforth called vigil.

 

A similar celebration before the high feast exists also in the Orthodox (Greek) Church, and is called pannychis or hagrypnia. In the Occident only the older feasts have vigils, even the feasts of the first class introduced after the thirteenth century (Corpus Christi, the Sacred Heart) have no vigils, except the Immaculate Conception, which Pope Leo XIII (Nov. 30 1879) singled out for this distinction. The number of vigils in the Roman Calendar besides Holy Saturday is seventeen, viz., the eves of Christmas, the Epiphany, the Ascension, Pentecost, the Immaculate Conception, the Assumption, the eight feasts of the Apostles, St. John the Baptist, St. Laurence, and All Saints. Some dioceses and religiousorders have particular vigils, e.g. the Servites, on the Saturday next before the feast of the Seven Dolours of Our Lady; the Carmelites, on the eve of the feast of Mount Carmel. In the United States only four of theses vigils are feast days: the vigils of Christmas, Pentecost, the Assumption, and All Saints. 

Following his address to the Roman Curia, Pope Leo XIV held a separate audience in which he exchanged Christmas greetings with employees of the Curia, the Vatican City State, the Vicariate of Rome, and their families.

Pope Leo thanked the employees for the work and reflected on the presence of various kinds of laborers in the Nativity scene.

“While Mary and Joseph adore the Child and the shepherds approach in wonder, the other characters go about their daily business,” Pope Leo said. “They seem detached from the central event, but this is not the case: in reality, each one participates in it just as they are, staying in their place and doing what they have to do, their job.”

“I like to think that this can also be true for us in our working days: each of us carries out our task and we praise God precisely by doing it well, with commitment,” the Pope added. “Sometimes we are so caught up in our occupations that we do not think about the Lord or the Church; but the very fact of working with dedication, trying to give our best, and also—for you lay people—with love for your family, for your children, gives glory to the Lord.”

A bishop in the eastern Indian state of Odisha called on the faithful to “keep the Christmas celebrations low profile, i.e., without purchasing new clothes and without big feasting.”

Bishop Kishore Kumar Kujur of Rourkela did so in order to express solidarity with area farmers, some of whom are Catholic, whose land is being taken by the state and given to a cement company for expanded mining operations.

Odisha, formerly called Orissa (map), was the site of a 2008 anti-Christian pogrom in which an estimated 100 Christians were murdered, and 50,000 fled their homes.

Cardinal Lazarus You Heung-sik, the prefect of the Dicastery for the Clergy, said in an interview that “there can be no future” for the priesthood “without fidelity.”

“Fidelity, especially in the Western world, tends to be considered almost a negative value, something for immobile, static people of another era,” he said. “Nothing could be further from the truth ... Fidelity, in fact, is the very measure of charity.”

The prelate also said that the crisis in priestly vocations is not universal and that, where it exists, it affects marriage and the religious life as well.

“A world that encourages temporary, partial relationships and discourages stable, lasting commitments—let’s say faithful ones—is a world that distracts everyone from seeking their vocation, let alone persevering in it,” he said.

Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle, one of the two pro-prefects of the Dicastery for Evangelization, recently concluded a visit to the United Arab Emirates, where he celebrated Mass for 30,000 in Dubai (the nation’s largest city) and 18,000 in Abu Dhabi (the nation’s capital).

Islam is the official religion of the Middle Eastern nation of 10 million (map); because of a large migrant population, only 75% of its residents are Muslim, while 13% are Christian (12% Catholic), 6% are Hindu, and 3% are Buddhist. Pope Francis made an apostolic journey there in 2019.

Dr. Jerry Pillay, the South African Presbyterian minister who leads the World Council of Churches, has issued a Christmas message, entitled “Holy Family, Holy Faith.”

“Our gauzy picture of the Holy Family and the Lord’s nativity often fails to capture the fraught situation that Luke’s gospel portrays,” he said. “Mary and Joseph’s betrothal was jeopardized by her pregnancy and potential scandal. Her confinement was upended by an imperial edict to traversing a difficult journey to a far-away town.”

“Jesus himself was born on a cold night in a humble stable, and his first days were spent as a refugee fleeing danger from a mad king,” he continued. “In such desperate and unlikely circumstances did the Holy Family begin.”

350 Protestant and Orthodox communities are members of the World Council of Churches, which is headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland. Pope Francis made an ecumenical pilgrimage to Geneva in 2018 for its 70th anniversary.

Over 20 million pilgrims have visited the Papal Basilica of Saint Mary Major during the 2025 jubilee year.

The basilica’s archpriest will close the basilica’s holy door for the jubilee year on December 25. The basilica is also the site of the tomb of Pope Francis, who died on April 21 and was interred there on April 26.

In a front-page op-ed in the Vatican newspaper, a prominent Holy Land Franciscan decried Israeli treatment of Palestinian civilians.

Writing in the December 20 edition of L’Osservatore Romano, Father Ibrahim Faltas, OFM, said that “around Gaza and the State of Palestine in the West Bank, physical and visible walls have been built that prevent access to the ‘unauthorized’: humanitarian aid and relatives, volunteers, journalists, and international observers.”

He added:

What or who prevents us from helping desperate human beings who live in an inhumane way? ... Who recognizes as enemies men and women exhausted by the pain of not being able to help those to whom they gave life, children and the elderly, easy targets of violence, human beings without strength and sick? What interest prohibits feeding, healing, and warming with what is available in abundance just a few steps away? Why not give the possibility of life to those who cannot live without the medicines that await them just beyond a crossing or a checkpoint?

Until earlier this year, Father Faltas was the second-ranking official of the Custody of the Holy Land, the Franciscan province there; he is now director of Terra Santa Schools.

The Vatican has announced the dates of the closing of the holy doors that were opened at the beginning of the 2025 jubilee year. The closing dates differ from the dates established by Pope Francis in Spes Non Confundit, his bull of indiction for the jubilee year.

The holy doors in Santa Maria Maggiore, the Lateran Basilica, and the Basilica of St. Paul Outside the Walls were all originally scheduled to be closed on December 28. Under the new schedule, the archpriests of the three basilicas will close the respective holy doors on December 25, December 27, and December 28. Pope Leo XIV will close the holy door in St. Peter’s Basilica on January 6, as originally scheduled.

In addition, Cardinal Baldassare Reina closed the holy door in Rebibbia Prison on December 21. In his bull of indiction, Pope Francis expressed the hope of opening a holy door in a prison, but without establishing opening and closing dates; he opened the holy door in that prison last December 26.

The Catholic Bishops’ Conference of India issued a statement yesterday condemning the “alarming rise in attacks on Christians in various states of our country.”

“These targeted incidents, especially against peaceful carol singers and congregations gathered in churches to pray, gravely undermine India’s constitutional guarantees of freedom of religion and the right to live and worship without fear,” the bishops said, before citing specific incidents.

The bishops called on Amit Shah, the nation’s Minister of Home Affairs, to “ensure strict enforcement of law and proactive protection for Christian communities so that the joyful festival of Christmas may be celebrated peacefully, in an atmosphere of security and harmony, across our beloved nation.”