First Christmas, 1974
Rev. Jim Ryan, PhD — jimryan6885@gmail.com
Community blog: https://maryofmagdala-mke.org/blog
The young associate Pastor’s first Christmas, St. Gemma Church, Detroit
Advent, 1974 was my first season of liturgical anticipation at St. Gemma’s Parish. Going on four months into that initial year of ministry, the timing for settling in seemed just about right. All the dither of introducing myself to the community was over. We all became better acquainted. The advance “publicity” on my oh-so-liberal, probably all-too-radical, personality had died down. I became the junior curate who leads the Teen Club and that, among other assumed duties, seemed to reassure parents and most parishioners of my trustworthiness.
It wasn’t my first Advent in Detroit. Nine years earlier, in 1965-66, as a novice living in the monastery adjacent to the parking lot of St. Gemma’s church I discovered the beauty of patiently waiting. For monks, Advent is not about being busy, not about heightened desires of receiving gifts, and certainly not about buying gifts. Rather than walking through the Mall, the longest strolls we monks-in-training had was either to the chapel or to the refectory. I loved the quiet. Now looking back at that time I am jealous of the lifestyle. The early darkness of December nights contributed to the quiet and provided ample opportunity for those first attempts at extended periods of what we called at the time, mental prayer. A community at rest, in peace, and spiritually anticipating the Word made flesh almost absolved us for hiding the Bambino.
For those who do not know – the Bambino was an over-sized statue of the baby Jesus at rest on his back with arms outstretched. It was meant to belong in its own display, apart from any crèche, in a niche above the chapel’s main altar once Christmas arrived. However, the weeks before the Holy Night the Bambino could be found hiding in cupboards and closets, in the barber chair in the basement, and in the cabinet under the television. It even spent days in novices’ beds before being discovered after “lights out.” Bambino wanderings were not part of any holy tradition. They were simply part of hide-and-seek hijinks of 18yr olds searching for a little humor in the Novitiate on the 3rd floor of St. Paul of the Cross Monastery.
Nevertheless, the Bambino capers had little effect on the overall anticipation we had of Incarnation impacting our sense of the Word who called us to monastic quiet for however long we shared novitiate, that is, the 1965-66 version.
In 1974, my experience of that first Advent at St. Gemma’s was that quiet came in short supply. The laments of preachers who decry the loss of Advent’s purpose in the busyness of Christmas are rightly focused on a loss of quiet anticipation. First came the school parties, the Altar and Rosary Society party, the Staff party, and the Teen Club Christmas Dance. Then came the Christmas home visits (during Advent) to the parishioners on the Communion list (a great time BTW to fill up on cookies and treats!). Can’t forget additional invitations to homes decorated with full-on lights, trees, and Santas with reindeer on chimneys. Mind you, this was fun, a delightful further entrance into getting to know the families and individuals in the parish. It was also far removed from monastic quiet.
A particularly fun yet also potentially calamitous event occurred during the Children’s Mass at 4PM on Christmas Eve. Let’s back up here and inform you of the Nativity set which the Pastor, Fr. Paul Ratterman, had imported from Germany. Upon completion of the new church it was only fitting that a new crèche be added. Its place of prominence was in front of the altar, filling the steps with large statues – let’s say 1 to 1.5 ft high each – their size depending on the importance of which person, angel, or animal in the nativity story was represented. I mean, Mary and Joseph had to have been 18in tall. The shepherds and the magi were almost as tall. Even the sheep could be identified easily from the back of church. Needless to say, Paul was happy with, one could even say proud of, this seasonal addition to the decorations for the new church.
So, there I was, celebrant of the Children’s Mass, mulling over how I could make the story of Jesus’ birth really mean something to these young ones – how to feel close to what occurred so long ago. When it came time for the homily I shared my bright idea with the children and their beaming parents and grandparents. “Anyone,” I said, “ who can tell me who came to see Jesus on the night he was born can go, pick up, and hold the statue you name while we tell ourselves the story.” The first child, as I recall, said Mary, the next Joseph, the next said a shepherd. I said, “Wonderful, now go up and hold the statue.
Picture this: the scene includes me standing with my back to the crèche, looking out to the non-statue-holding children and their families. By the time we arrived at the second shepherd, I noticed some of the parents getting that parental look of wide-eyed concern on their faces. I turned around just in time to prevent a statue from falling out of a child’s grip.
Flashing before me was the look that would most assuredly overtake Paul’s face if I was to tell him that one – or more – of the statues was broken. Thanks to the parents’ looks I was saved from catastrophe and worse. My instructions changed on the spot to having the children stand alongside their statues. Christmas Eve began, for me, with a near miss of jangled nerves and not much quietude.
Then Midnight Mass came – a parish event that any first year associate could only hope for, concelebrating with Fr. Paul and looking out on the packed church (back in the day when standing room only was expected). What a sense of community we had that night – best readers, well-practiced choir, families together singing the Carols that must be sung in church. It was not the quiet of anticipation, rather the joyful joining in celebration. Quiet, I thought, could wait.
Following Mass while standing in the vestibule offering Christmas greetings to one and all, a couple people came in from the parking lot and said there had been an accident. A driver pulling his car out of its space backed into another car. When people looked in, it appeared that the driver was in distress – perhaps having a heart attack. While still in my vestments (I think I handed the chasuble to someone) I ran to the car and entered from the passenger’s side. As I leaned close to the man, I heard the sound of exhaled air. If I knew the man it would have been only from sight and I wasn’t sure even then. The air I heard, I later learned in other circumstances of being with dying persons, cannot really be called a breath. Rather, it’s the lungs closing in and pushing out a final supply of air.
Parishioners later said, the man, whose name I am sorry to not have known then or even remember now, was a widower who kept to himself following his wife’s death. He lived in the neighborhood by the church but was not one to do much outside of the house or his property. He attended Christmas Midnight Mass at St. Gemma’s – a member of that glorious community on that joyful night. He died quickly and peacefully in the church parking lot, in his car with his associate pastor at his side; the same parking lot adjacent to which the novice-become-associate pastor once lived in monastic quietude. And the associate pastor, as he would at other times in ministry with the dying, stayed with this faithful member and loving husband. As he stayed, quiet arrived.
First Christmas, 1974
A Prayer (JR) With gratefulness for the Song of Songs
Arise, Beloved One, from across the void. Unite us in your love to the life
that never ends.
Arise, Beloved and Beautiful One. Let us hear your voice for your voice is
sweet and lovely.
Arise, Beloved, Beautiful, and Nurturing One. Show us the care that
enwraps and assures.
What we find in you, we pray that we may give in kind to those we love.
By this love and care we hope to reach beyond ourselves to overcome the fears and the traps that shorten our reach and keep us confined.
It is up to us to remove the barriers that prevent persons from loving each
other openly and without discrimination.
Embolden our resolve to emerge as the people who live up to your Name
– the Beloved, the Beautiful, and the Nurturing One. Amen.
