Christmas greetings from Archbishop Eamon - Advent 2025

Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,

This short verse from the Book of Revelation is one of my Advent favourites, made even more special by William Holman Hunt’s famous painting.

It shows Jesus standing in an orchard garden, knocking at the door of a house.  It’s semi dark, just before dawn.  Jesus, the Light of the World, holds a lantern.  He waits there at the door, wanting to be invited in.  But the door is overgrown with weeds and ivy; its hinges are rusted; there is no handle on the outside.  The only way Christ can enter is if the person within gets up and makes a real effort to open that door which seems to have been shut for a very long time.

The late Pope Francis once said, "Jesus comes into our lives… (but) how many times we don’t notice because we are so immersed in our own thoughts and affairs - even in our Christmas preparations - so as not to notice Him who comes and knocks at the door of our hearts, asking for acceptance, asking for a "yes” like Mary’s.”

I love the way Pope Francis describes Jesus as knocking at ‘the door of our hearts’.  In his final encyclical, Dilexit Nos, he emphasises how much Jesus wants a real ‘heart to heart’ encounter with us.  Nowadays it’s as if Jesus is standing before the whole world, knocking to be let in, urging the world to rediscover its heart.  Only in His wounded heart can the world hope to find an answer to the global problems which at times seem so overwhelming.  As Saint Augustine prayed: "You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our hearts are restless until they rest in you.”

The Jubilee Year 2025 - made extra special by the celebrations of St Oliver Plunkett and the Sacred Heart - is drawing to a close.  My Christmas prayer this year is borrowed from Pope Francis’ prayer in Dilexit Nos:

"In the presence of the heart of Christ, may the Lord have mercy on this suffering world in which he chose to dwell as one of us.  May he pour out the treasures of his light and love (this Christmas) so that our world may regain the most important and necessary thing of all: its heart.”

Thank you for everything you do to ‘put fresh heart’ into our parishes and dioceses.

God rest Pope Francis. God bless Pope Leo XIV.

P.S. You’re very welcome to join me in a Mass of Thanksgiving to close the Jubilee Year on Sunday 4th January 2026 at 5.30 pm in St Patrick’s Cathedral, Armagh, or, at 12 noon in the Cathedral of St Patrick and

St Colman, Newry.

In lieu of Christmas cards and postage, I’m making a donation to St Vincent de Paul Society, Trócaire, ACN and the Knights of the Holy Sepulchre.