The three gifts that the child Ratzinger asked for for Christmas
It was Christmas 1934, when he was just seven years old, that the future Pope Benedict XVI wrote a very special letter asking the Baby Jesus for three gifts.
Discovered in 2012 in the Ratzinger family home in Bavaria, the letter had been kept by the Pope's sister, Maria, who has since passed away. This precious document is now housed in the museum in the southeastern German town of Marktl am Inn.
This is what the letter from young Joseph read:
"Dear Infant Jesus, you will soon descend to earth. You want to bring joy to children. You will bring joy to me too. I would like the Volks-Schott, a green chasuble, and a Sacred Heart of Jesus. I always want to be good. Greetings from Joseph Ratzinger."
In the letter, written in Sütterlin, an old German script no longer in use, the future Pope asks Jesus for a Volks-Schott ("People's Missal"), a German missal used in 1934. This missal had two columns, one in German and the other in Latin. The request reflected a curious and pious pastime of young Joseph.
Georg Ratzinger, Benedict XVI's late brother, always remembered how he and Joseph played together: "We would make the Nativity scene together, and among our most frequent games were spiritual games. We called it 'the priest game,' and we would both play it; our sister didn't participate."