{"id":79032,"date":"2025-12-13T11:04:23","date_gmt":"2025-12-13T16:04:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/spiritdaily.org\/blog\/?p=79032"},"modified":"2026-01-09T22:43:55","modified_gmt":"2026-01-10T03:43:55","slug":"pope-benedicts-touching-childhood-christmas-wish","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/spiritdaily.org\/blog\/pope-benedicts-touching-childhood-christmas-wish\/","title":{"rendered":"Pope Benedict&#8217;s Touching Childhood Christmas Wish"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/spiritdaily.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/unnamed.png\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-79033\" src=\"https:\/\/spiritdaily.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/unnamed.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"760\" height=\"507\" srcset=\"https:\/\/spiritdaily.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/unnamed.png 760w, https:\/\/spiritdaily.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/unnamed-255x170.png 255w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 760px) 100vw, 760px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Joseph Ratzinger is shown next to a copy of a letter he wrote during Advent 1934. (photo: Courtesy photo BenedictusXVI.com \/ BenedictusXVI.com)<\/p>\n<div><span style=\"color: #000000;\"><a style=\"color: #000000;\" href=\"https:\/\/www.ncregister.com\/author\/alyssa-murphy\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" data-saferedirecturl=\"https:\/\/www.google.com\/url?q=https:\/\/www.ncregister.com\/author\/alyssa-murphy&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1765723663050000&amp;usg=AOvVaw1ik8MXcIYCKSvAcWYxd5CX\">Alyssa Murphy<\/a>\u00a0<a style=\"color: #000000;\" href=\"https:\/\/www.ncregister.com\/section\/blogs\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" data-saferedirecturl=\"https:\/\/www.google.com\/url?q=https:\/\/www.ncregister.com\/section\/blogs&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1765723663050000&amp;usg=AOvVaw0qMEdPjDS96cKexRD8a0ky\">Blogs<\/a><\/span><\/div>\n<div>\n<p>In 1934, a young 7-year-old Joseph Ratzinger penned a letter to Jesus requesting threee gifts for Christmas.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\u201cDear Baby Jesus, you will soon descend to earth,<i>\u201d<\/i>\u00a0the words written in German read. \u201cYou want to bring joy to children. You will also bring joy to me.<i>\u201d<\/i><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>The young Ratzinger, who would one day be pope, concluded: \u201cI would like a Volks-Schott, a green chasuble, and a Heart of Jesus. I always want to be good. Greetings from Joseph Ratzinger.<i>\u201d<\/i><\/p>\n<p>+<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"gsp_post_data\" \r\n\t            data-post_type=\"post\" \r\n\t            data-cat=\"uncategorized\" \r\n\t            data-modified=\"120\"\r\n\t            data-created=\"1765623863\"\r\n\t            data-title=\"Pope Benedict&#8217;s Touching Childhood Christmas Wish\" \r\n\t            data-home=\"https:\/\/spiritdaily.org\/blog\"><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Joseph Ratzinger is shown next to a copy of a letter he wrote during Advent 1934. (photo: Courtesy photo BenedictusXVI.com.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-79032","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-uncategorized","7":"entry","8":"has-post-thumbnail"},"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/spiritdaily.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79032","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/spiritdaily.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/spiritdaily.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spiritdaily.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spiritdaily.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=79032"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/spiritdaily.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79032\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/spiritdaily.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=79032"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spiritdaily.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=79032"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spiritdaily.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=79032"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}