Remembering Christmas past

For many of us, this time of year brings back many memories of childhood. I was an altar boy before the Second Vatican Council in the 1960s. I remember looking forward to serving Midnight Mass every year and trying hard to remember all that the nuns told us at our rehearsals. Altar serving was more complicated in those days.

I remember our family’s Christmas Eve dinners. We always ate fish. In those days, Christmas Eve was a day of fast and abstinence. My family, like many others with ethnic roots and a traditional Catholic faith, observed the laws of the Church even at Christmas. Christmas Eve dinner became a sumptuous but odd dinner, with all kinds of tasty delights, but always centered on fish. When I asked adults why this was, I was simply told: “Tomorrow is a holy day.”
When Vatican II made its sweeping changes in the liturgy and Catholic life, and Midnight Mass became a thing of the past, our family’s Christmas Eve fish dinners slowly fell by the wayside. (However, I still can’t get out of my head the smell of fish when I think of Santa Claus!) Yet, in a few homes today the “old ways” — or at least a remnant of them — still survive.

I must be getting old. I now feel sad that kids today missed that odd but memorable experience of the past. I regret they didn’t experience how faith impacted our home life, our family table and the way we celebrated great feasts back then.

The most important thing I remember about Christmas as a child was the anticipation we felt about going to Midnight Mass. Of course, we had visions of sugar plums and Santa in our heads, but that big Mass at midnight was something to look forward to. There, we would see the giant Christmas crèche blessed again by our pastor and the amazing decoration in the church. We’d hear Christmas carols for the first time that season.

Our pastor always gave us a gift that night — his way of thanking us for serving at the altar all year. At Mass, we heard again the story of the baby born in Bethlehem. I remember hearing that Jesus would be coming to us too in Holy Communion at Mass, and making our heart a new manger. Everything else, glorious as it was, seemed subordinate to Christmas Mass and Holy Communion. It was the feast and its mystery that was most important.
Today, we live in a topsy-turvy world. We get all stressed out and our heart’s throne is given to competing interests. Sadly, the last thing on our radar screens is Christmas Mass.

We have gifts to wrap, toys to put together, cookies to put out for Santa, dinners to prepare, wine to buy and much else. The whole season is diluted by secularism, and an ever-growing insecurity among Christians making them reluctant to claim, love and express one’s faith in the public arena. I’m sure we pray a lot during this season, but our prayers are often for patience to endure. We’re in a tizzy. We’ve missed the point. We “fit in” Christmas Mass, groaning a little that time in church takes us away from more pressing things.

Maybe we need to return to some of the old ways. Maybe if we put Christmas Mass first, all else might find its proper place. Going to Mass as a family at Christmas, looking forward to it during Advent, making our home a Christian home in preparation — these things should be most important for us come what may.

We need to make Christmas Mass the center of the wheel and not one of the spokes. Christmas is, among other thing, a feast of peace. Peace is what I remember about Christmas past. If we put Christmas Mass back in the center of things, maybe we can all become children again.
(Father Morrette is pastor of St. Joseph’s in Broadalbin and St. Francis of Assisi in Northville.)

(12-24-09) [[In-content Ad]]