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Missionary Christmas in Ethiopia: Celebrating Through Service

In Ethiopia, members of the Villaregia Missionary Community spent Christmas day—celebrated on January 7—working alongside vulnerable women and children in the East Bale Zone, around eight hours from their base in the Prefecture Apostolic of Robe. Fr. Emanuele Ciccia, a member of the missionary community, shared that their deep engagement with the marginalized is a core aspect of their Christmas celebrations, aligning with their mission of evangelization.

The group worked with the Women and Children’s Office in various provinces, focusing on raising awareness about harmful traditional practices, such as female genital mutilation and early marriage. For Fr. Ciccia, this engagement is a form of evangelization. “Whatever violates the dignity of the human person is a privileged space for the proclamation of the Gospel,” he said. The missionary explained that for them, Christmas is about recognizing the presence of Jesus in the most vulnerable members of society.

Fr. Ciccia reflected on the importance of practicing evangelization, not just by preaching but by caring for those in need. The community’s Christmas celebration resonated with Pope Francis’s call to “touch the flesh of Christ” by reaching out to those in need.

He also discussed the differences between Catholic and Orthodox Christmas celebrations in Ethiopia, noting that the Feast of Timkat (the Ethiopian Orthodox celebration of Christ’s Baptism) holds a deeper theological significance for the Orthodox Church than Christmas itself, contrasting with the Catholic focus on the humility of Christ’s birth.

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