On any day of the year, anyone who looks into a cradle basks in reflected glory. Correggio and Jacopo Bassano knew this very well, having depicted exactly this state in all their nativity scenes. We could mention thousands of paintings where the shepherds’ faces are illuminated by a shining light that cannot quite be expressed in words. Maybe that’s why in the Gospel According to St Luke we are told that Mary preferred to stay silent and that she “kept all these things, and pondered them in her heart.”
These days are often referred to as days of waste, yet today we will have a surplus of light with us. So what are we going to do with it? Our wish is to get a chance to share it with someone like Italian poet Ungaretti who writes that he prefers to be on his own, with his fireside’s “four somersaults of smoke”. And who knows, maybe tomorrow all our problems will have been miraculously untangled.
We wish you a merry Christmas, from the bottom of our hearts.
Name Day:
St Anastasia