The PIME regional superior manages St. Vincent Hospital in Dinajpur. A special meal will be offered to all patients, students and medical staff. Even the hospital "changes appearance" during Christmas. A retreat "to prepare spiritually".
Dinajpur (AsiaNews) - Muslims and Hindus "will hear us pray, sing and celebrate. It is a holiday that they will share with us," this is how Fr. Michele Brambilla, regional superior of the PIME (Pontifical Institute for Foreign Missions) in Bangladesh, will spend the celebration of the birth of Christ. On that day, like every other day of the year, he will be at St. Vincent Hospital, the diocesan hospital of Dinajpur entrusted to him. Because the sick, the students and the staff can not be left alone at Christmas. Below we publish his letter addressed to all our friends and readers.
Dearest friends,
My warmest greetings from Bangladesh. In a few days we will celebrate a new Christmas. Oh yes, because every Christmas will never be like the previous one. Traditions remain, but the mood with which we will live it will be different.
I will spend these holidays in the hospital, not as a patient , but with the staff, students and patients present to remember with them the birth of Jesus. I had chosen to spend Advent with them and so it was and it seemed nice to conclude with the Holy Mass on Christmas Day with the present staff and the few sick Christians. The others, Muslims and Hindus, will hear us pray, sing and celebrate. And they too will participate during the special meal that will be offered for this feast day.
On the occasion of Christmas, the hospital also takes on another aspect. The students and the nursing school students, having finished their exams, are decorating the whole hospital: chapel, wards, refectories and meeting rooms whoever enters can see the visible change.
We too, in our small way, want to spend this season in the best of ways. This is why all the hospital staff, students and students of the school and nurses organized two days of retreat to prepare for Christmas. Listening to the Word of God, proposed meditation, confession and Holy Mass allowed each of them to stop, pray and think about themselves. The retreat is a tradition that is renewed every year in Lent and Advent, one that is very popular and also awaited by many.
This is how we prepared to celebrate Holy Christmas, together and with the Lord; and again together we will remember the coming of the Savior who is alive and present among us.
I wish you all a peaceful and holy Christmas and will remember you epecially during the Eucharist on Christmas Day.
Affectionately yours.