Christmas Greeting from President Michael D. Higgins and Family 2020

Take Care In the journey to the light, the dark moments should not threaten.

Belief requires that you hold steady.

Bend, if you will, with the wind.

The tree is your teacher, roots at once more firm from experience in the soil made fragile.

the journey abandoned towards the sharing of all human hope and cries is the loss of all we know of the divine reclaimed for our shared humanity.

Hold firm.

Take care.

Come home together.

Your gentle dew will come and a stirring of power to go on towards the space of sharing.

In the misery of the I, in rage, it is easy to cry out against all others but to weaken is to die in the misery of knowing Michael D. Higgins The Season of Fire, 1993

With every good wish for a peaceful and happy Christmas and New Year Beannachtaí na Nollag agus Athbhliain faoi shéan is faoi shonas

UACHTARÁN NA hÉIREANN President of Ireland 2020

“The principles that serve as a guide in our renewed commitment to combat the Covid-19 virus are based on some fundamental values that surely represent the best of ourselves, such as Solidarity, Care, Compassion and Kindness. Being effective requires positive commitments from us all and we need to speak and encourage each other to have a vision of the light that will surely come from all of our efforts when renewed and redoubled.”

- Michael D. Higgins Uachtarán Na hÉireann President of Ireland

PEACE, JUSTICE AND STRONG INSTITUTIONS

President and Sabina Higgins join ‘Shine Your Light / Lonraigh Do Sholas’, 11 April 2020.

Áras an Uachtaráin, D08 E1W3 www.president.ie

@PresidentIRL

Cover: Madonna and Child, c.1628-1630, Reni, Guido © North Carolina Museum of Art, Raleigh, USA / Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Robert Lee Humber in memory of their daughter, Eileen Genevieve / Bridgeman Images