On December 25, at the table can not miss friends all year: people who live on the streets, lonely elderly, Roma, immigrants and many Italians in difficulty. At the table, together. We know them and they attend summer and winter, but on Christmas Day, as is now traditional for 32 years, we are celebrating with them.
Is our answer to those who say that the poor have to defend themselves. Instead we want to defend anyone in need of help and, with him, help many others. The small table in 1982 that housed a few people in the basilica of Santa Maria in Trastevere, Rome, has grown to more than 160,000 last year invited on all continents. Because solidarity must not know borders.
In this Christmas, that in Italy and in Europe is marked by the crisis and bad signs of intolerance, the Community of Sant’Egidio has chosen to prepare a Christmas dinner even wider and solidarity. We invite you to know him and to talk about it. Here in Genoa, from the Basilica of the An nunciation, but in many other parts of the city, even in the suburbs which is spoken rarely (usually for events), but which, if not abandoned, have the ability to accept and to integrate. And then, in Rome, in Italy and elsewhere in the world, from Africa to the large suburban slums of Latin America to the Asian cities.
Here are some figures on Christmas of the Community of Sant’Egidio in Italy and in the world and on lunches organized in Genoa.
The Christmas lunches with the poor
A table wide as the world
December 25, 1982: around the table in the Basilica of Santa Maria in Trastevere in Rome gathered a small group of people: young, lonely elderly, homeless people. Christmas dinner of the Community of Sant’Egidio has started well, thinking that this big party could not go forgetting the poor who are our friends throughout the year. Hence the idea of hosting the lunch of our particular family in one of the oldest Roman basilicas. The result is an image, beautiful. But also a reality, reproducible, almost contagious, because over the years has expanded to other parts of Rome, Italy and other countries from all continents. A table as wide as the world. Even wider in a time marked by great difficulties.
MENU ‘
Appetizers mixed
Lasagne – ravioli with meat sauce
Roast
Top
Lentils
Christmas cakes
seasonal fruits and sparkling
….
Santa Claus
with personalized gifts for each guest
Who is invited to the party?
are all invited, but respond to the first ones who live in the street, with no home, that have no friends or a place to celebrate Christmas. They are our friends homeless, refugees homeless, street children, the nomads, the beggars. The festival over the years has gone widening, like a beneficial contagion, and has reached also many countries of the South in all continents.
Where is the party?
‘s Lunch Christmas of the Community of Sant’Egidio is now organized in over 600 cities worldwide. In churches that turn into large tables with the poor, in outlying areas, in European stations, in the poorest homes, but also in large slums in Africa and Latin America, in prisons, in institutions for the elderly or children, in those for disabled, hospitals, even in the streets. It is a way to turn the difficulty in friendship, friendship in hope, and celebrate the beginning of a different world.
Because every year?
The festival is a deep need. Family is a party. It is a taste of life, an idea of happiness tied to gratuity, more to give than to receive, in the true spirit of Christmas. Expresses the desire to change the world and make it more humane for everyone, from the poor. And many poor people today help us to accommodate more poor.
Christmas is a way to be every day, even after Christmas.
CHRISTMAS IN THE WORLD – 2014
GENOA:
The days before Christmas : 22 lunches in different places. From Inmates Pontedecimo and Marassi in different institutions for the elderly, to the Tennis Club Genoa.
December 25: 16 lunches. From the Basilica of the Annunciation to the warehouses of cotton, Palazzo Ducale, the Commandery of Pré until Ceis, nuns Marceline, the Don Bosco Institute at Sampierdarena, the church of San Francesco Bolzaneto, the Institute Calasanzio Cornigliano and the parish hall of St. Rocco Pra to other institutions for the elderly.
There are more than six thousand guests at Christmas time. For about a thousand members Genoese of Sant’Egidio, will join more than five hundred volunteers.
ROME:
108 lunches with about 15,000 guests on December 25th and during the Christmas period. Among the areas in which there will be lunches, the districts of East suburbs, which in recent weeks have been the scene of violence and where Sant’Egidio has been present for many years to groped to re-weave the social fabric torn.
ITALY:
220 lunches in more than 60 cities: Messina Bari, Milan, Florence, Turin, Novara, Naples, Padua, Catania, Cosenza, Palermo, Trieste, Reggio Calabria, …
WORLD:
In more than 600 cities in the world more than 160,000 guests expected:
In Europe (Spain, Germany,
Russia, Austria, Hungary, Romania, France, Portugal, Ukraine, Belgium, …)
In the Americas (Salvador, Mexico, Argentina, Guatemala, Cuba, USA, Canada …)
In Africa (Mozambique, Guinea Conakry, Burkina Faso , Ivory Coast, Cameroon, Madagascar, Tanzania, Uganda, Congo, Malawi, Nigeria …)
In Asia (Indonesia, Philippines, Cambodia, Pakistan …).
For information: Doriano Saracino (347.2499367) – Sergio Casali (347.2499358)
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