This is St Peter’s Basilica, Rome, Italy, the largest church in the world and the headquarters for the Roman Catholic Church. which has 1.2 billion members across the world.( Interesting, that number is the estimated population of India. . . .) India, always incredible India!)

Christmas Eve is  an important time in the church with the midnight mass ushering in the birthday of the Christ child.  One Christmas, the Bells were all together in Rome.  First we had an amazing Christmas Eve dinner of 24 kinds of fish dishes at a friend’s home.  Fish has been the meat of Fridays for Catholic believers as Friday was the day of the Crucifixion of Christ, and in memory, for  years, it became  a fasting or no meat day.  The twenty four is for the date of Christmas Eve.  There is controversy about whether this is  the date of His birth or chosen…