Keep Telling the Story
My family was not terribly pious when I was growing up. Oh, Sunday Mass was a must, and confession now and then. We prayed grace before dinner and prayed at bedtime. But we never said the family rosary, or gathered for Advent wreath prayers. Occasionally we would take part in a Parish mission or Novena. One family prayer stays with me, though, and we have kept as a custom in our family.
Every year, bristling with excitement at the start of Christmas celebrations, and almost unable to sit still, we listened as my father read Luke Chapter 2 before dinner on Christmas Eve. For us, it not only began the feast of Christmas in our house, but it bound us as family over the years. We knew that whoever was not at the table somehow shared this foundation of the coming of Jesus.
For all baptized people, this is probably true. The story of Jesus’ birth binds us to our family, the Church. To hear the story again, people will come and pack the Churches on Christmas. They will go to great lengths to come home, because without the story of the birth of Jesus, Christmas is a cozy day, but not one that sustains the bonds it does.
When we had exchange students from Japan with us over the Christmas holidays, they told us of how they celebrated Christmas in Japan. It was seen as cute, a day for a special gift for children, but the impact was no more than our celebration of Valentines’ Day. Although there are Christians in Japan, the dominant culture has only picked up the trappings of the day, and not the foundational story.
The power of God’s coming into our human lives, both in history and now, both communally and personally, is best expressed for most people through the power of story. Story echoes within us the ancient connections with humanity, a DNA that carries the essence of generations of people sharing the bond of family, and of faith.
Again, a Japanese story. Some years ago on a visit to Japan, a Sister was showing me through a small museum at a Catholic nursing home for survivors of the atomic bomb. The statues of Mary were different there, very eastern looking. I asked if this were an artist rendition to represent the universal motherhood of Mary. She replied that it was more significant than that.
When the first missionaries came to Japan under the direction of St. Francis Xavier, they told the stories of Jesus and drew hundreds of thousands to the Catholic faith. In the late 1500’s, the Emperor banished all Catholics, and forced the faithful to go underground to practice their faith. In Nagasaki, 26 martyrs were put to death for their faith, and soon the entire country was partitioned from the outside world until the mid 1800’s.
The story of faith was carried through the generations, though. Fashioning statues that resembled Buddha, Christians would veil the statue and pray to “Maria Buddha”, and if questioned, they simply took off the cloths and told the authorities it was Buddha. When the first missionaries began to arrive in the 1800’s and tell the Christian stories, people would tell them, “We know these stories. We are Christian in our hearts. Jesus and Mary are still alive here.”
The “Christmas Catholics” are like that – faith has gone underground in their lives, so to speak. They have their own “Maria Buddha” to keep the faith alive in them. In our zeal to want to share the goodness of our own lived faith, we fail to see the underground part of their faith. It would be wonderful if all those people who come back home for the story of Jesus’ birth hung around a while. It would be great if they could begin to explore more fully just what it is in that story that appeals so much.
But they come home for the one story. They come to be held close, not be chastised for staying away. Surely Mary and Joseph would have welcomed the shepherds to the place of Jesus’ birth, and told them the story of how a child was born where these humble people felt most at home. We can do nothing less. God will tell his story in their hearts. Of this we can be sure.
By Marie Luttrell, Provincial Associate
