Looking at the photo gallery of Christmas lunches around the world: www.santegidio.org

Images that speak of a gathering that brings together poor and rich, men and women from different nations and faiths, of a holiday that creates an expanded family, without borders,

capable of welcoming those who do not have a family, of evoking joy and warmth around it.

These are the images of the Christmas lunch gathering.

These are the pictures that the www.santegidio.org website has begun to publish at a faster rhythm than one would want in order to appreciate them with calm, the pictures of the many Christmases of Sant'Egidio communities around the world, the pictures of that one, great Christmas that takes on the appearance of a modern nativity scene.

“And this will be a sign for you: you will find an infant wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in

a manger” says the angel to the shepherds at the beginning of Luke’s Gospel, at the beginning of a story of hope and salvation. We, the modern shepherds, so much more sophisticated and at times distrustful, are invited to step forward, to look at the many mangers that mean friendship, solidarity, sharing.

These mangers are close by or far away, African, American, Asian, European. These are the mangers of children that are orphans or live in institutions, of gypsies, lepers, elderly who live alone or in institutions, inmates, homeless people, people with disabilities, and people who are sick. There are mangers that are built with meager tools and others with a large amount of resources, mangers that are perfect and others that are barely patched together.

In each of these resides that force that is weak and innocent, and that dream of redemption and rebirth, which can remold our old and tired world.