FIre in Grotto of the Nativity in Bethlehem

(Bethlehem) moments of terror prevailed in Bethlehem when the Grotto of the Nativity was on fire. The fire in the crypt of the Church of the Nativity Bethlehem broke out a few hours after  Pope Francis returned to Rome.

The Catholic Church leader had visited the Holy Land for three days  from Saturday to Monday. On Sunday, he had also come to Bethlehem. He also visited the grotto below the  Cathedral built by Emperor Constantine the Great  and prayed at the spot Jesus Christ was born.

Regarding the cause of the fire, there is no certain knowledge. It is assumed that one of the oil lamps had ignited a tapestry. Within a few seconds  parts of the birth grotto were in flames. Because, besides the tapestries there was not much combustible in the grotto, the damage had been limited. "The shock we received when we saw the flames was great," said an Armenian monk. The cleanup is underway.  Like  the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, several Christian churches share in the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem.

Link to slideshow at Katholisches...

Trans: Tancred vekron99@hotmail.com

AMGD

Gulls and Ravens Hunt the Pope's Doves -- Of Signs and Symbols

(Vatican) Last Sunday, 26 January, Pope Francis released two doves at the Angelus in St. Peter's Square. A tradition. Since Paul VI, is that every year on the last Sunday in January a meeting with Catholic Action will take place.  The Vaticanist Antonio Margheriti Martino watched the scene, which was brought to his attention by a reader.  At first he took the hint to be exaggerated, but "if I want to read the incident symbolically, he has alerted me to something." Here is his report:

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Gulls and Ravens Kill the Pigeons of the Pope: Ominous Foreshadowing?

The walls of the Apostolic Palace with the apartments of the Pope, his home, are blessed by the centuries-long presence of the Vicar of Christ, those men with such responsibility, that they are not enviable. Walls which know the history of the world by the sighs of the Popes. The walls, which we can rightly assume that they are specially protected because they involve Peter himself.

But these walls have grown like any other walls this year.  The grace seems to have left them, together with the Pope. The Vicar of Christ no longer lives there and the animals seem to sense it and so we have witnessed a sad scene that provoked horror and tears among the people in the square.

Doves as a Symbol of Peace

Italian TV showed the pictures in direct transmission, the annual flight of white doves as a symbol of peace, who rise from the window for the Angelus prayer in the Pope's apartment. Or rather we should say today, from the window, which once belonged to the apartment of the Pope, but, as we know, is now abandoned and uninhabited. But we are doing this just once more as if it were all normal. The white dove is the symbol of the Holy Spirit. So the peace symbol has  very special significance so from a Christian point of view.