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National Catholic Register

A Christmas I Will Never Forget

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‘Polish Christmas Dinner’

COMMENTARY: A Polish Christmas Eve tradition, kept year after year, came to life in a way none of us expected.

Christmas and the Tyranny of the Possible

James Tissot, “The Magi in the House of Herod,” Brooklyn Museum, New York

COMMENTARY: The Incarnation exposes how often ‘realism’ confuses political limits with divine possibility.

Our Christmas Mission

The Child in the manger sends us out to announce his presence, Msgr. Roger Landry reminds us.

COMMENTARY: Christmas is a celebration when the Church seeks to renew in every baptized Catholic the call to go out, to announce, to witness, to share the joy that Jesus has brought into the world.

Full Text: Pope Leo XIV’s Christmas Eve Homily

Pope Leo XIV venerates a statue of the Child Jesus during the celebration of Christmas Mass during the night in St. Peter's Basilica on Dec. 24, 2025.

‘Let us marvel, dear brothers and sisters, at the wisdom of Christmas. In the Child Jesus, God gives the world a new life: his own, offered for all. He does not give us a clever solution to every problem, but a love story that draws us in. In response to the expectations of peoples, he sends a Child to be a word of hope.’

Pope Leo XIV: Christmas ‘Is a Feast of Hope’

Pope Leo XIV celebrates Christmas Mass during the Night in a packed St. Peter's Basilica on Dec. 24, 2025.

Pope Leo XIV, at Christmas Mass during the night, said Christ’s birth brings light into the world’s darkness — and where the human person is welcomed, God is welcomed too.

Pope Leo XIV Revives Tradition During First Christmas of His Pontificate

Vatican Media
Pope Leo XIV greets pilgrims gathered in St. Peter's Square at the Vatican for the recitation of the Angelus on December 21, 2025.

Leo XIV will celebrate the Christmas Day Mass in the Vatican basilica, a custom that has not been observed since the pontificate of St. John Paul II.

The Knight Before Christmas

In this N.C. Wyeth illustration from ‘The Boy’s King Arthur’ (1922), the Green Knight readies himself for combat with Sir Beaumains, horn raised beneath the thorn — “and there he blew three deadly notes.”

The Christmas story includes chivalry as well as shepherds, and knights in shining armor as well as wise men bearing gifts.