Christmas in the Convent II

Sister Rejane  
Hello! I am Sister Rejane Cytacki with A Nun's Life, wanting to wish a Merry Christmas to all our listeners. I am here with Sister Pat, the sister I live with. And last year, since we did Christmas in the Convent, we thought we needed to do Christmas in the Convent, Part II. And today we're just going to go a little deeper into the meaning of Christmas. And our theme today is giving the gift of Christ's presence versus giving material presents. So today, Pat and I are going to talk about that in light of some of our experiences, both personal and in our religious life.

Sister Rejane  
So, our topic: giving the gift of Christ presence versus material presents. I think I learned that lesson from my own parents. And it's a story that I alluded to in Christmas in the Convent, Part I, last year, that one Christmas Eve, we had our Christmas Eve meal at McDonald's. One thing growing up that my dad and my brother and I loved was doing music. And so my dad was always in the church choir. And so he was singing Christmas Eve Midnight Mass at true midnight, I believe. And Scott and I were in the handbell choir for the kids. And so the children's Christmas Mass was at 4, right? And we're doing handbells. Well, literally earlier that day, our choir director gave my family a call and she was in a panic because some of the adult handbell choir was ill. And they were doing the 7 pm Christmas Eve Mass. And she said, "Would Scott and Rejane be able to be substitute handbell players?" So of course, we said yes. So now we have Mass at 4pm, 7pm, and midnight. And you know, Christmas Masses are longer. So say it's 4 to 5:30. And then the next Mass, you know, there's always practice ahead of time. We had to be back there at like 6"30 for a 7 pm Mass. So we didn't have time to have a nice Christmas Eve meal. So mom, just between that 4 and that 7 PM Masses, mom just ran Scott and me over to McDonald's, which was conveniently across the street from the church. And that was our Christmas Eve meal. But, you know, it taught me the value of giving of your time and your talents for people, more than just material gifts. And so I really thought that kind of sparked and connected with our theme today. Pat, you want to share some experiences you've had that kind of connected with our theme?

Sister Pat  
Yes. I was a missionary in South Sudan for five years. And the people that I ministered with were from all over the world. And we had one sister from Colombia, who brought out and gave us her collection of homemade angels that someone had made for her. And she said, "I wish we could hang these up." So another sister from Brazil and I ,went looking for some kind of a tree. Now there are big trees, but they're like mango trees or teak trees that are really tall. So we found some twigs that we kind of bunched together and put in some sand and decorated a bucket. And we had a Christmas tree of sorts.

Sister Rejane  
I have to interrupt! So there aren't pine trees? You really don't have like an evergreen tree.

Sister Pat  
No, there are no evergreen trees there. So we had a twig tree. And we had it on our prayer table in our dining room/  living room combination. And then the sisters and brothers from another part of South Sudan were coming to be with us for Christmas and everybody brought food mostly from their cultures. We had some Vietnamese, and then we had a sister who was French Canadian, was very in tune with the Yule log custom. Now, a Yule log is a cake. It's basically kind of like a jelly roll cake -- they roll it up. We're not exactly sure where she got the ingredients or how she put it together. But then she frosted it. And they're beautifully frosted and have little decorations on them like mushrooms, holly berries. So we had a beautiful Yule log to go with our other foods that came from many places. And the South Sudanese piece was a roasted chicken. They do have chickens, but no turkeys, no ham. That really kind of tied together all of our different nationalities and we had a wonderful celebration.

Sister Rejane  
What about songs? Were songs involved in your celebration?

Sister Pat  
You know, there's a there's a wonderful custom in South Sudan. The children go out for the nine days before Christmas, and sing songs. Now the sister who was the principal there was from New Zealand and she had been there a bit longer than I had. And she told me -- she said, "There will be Christmas caroling. But it's not in English. It's in their language." Silly me, I thought it was still going to be the Christmas carols that I knew. Well, they came singing every night. And it was nothing like the Christmas carols I have heard. And of course, we had no understanding of what the words were. But there was a lot of drumming and stick clacking that went with it. So I guess it was their version of Christmas carols. But they came around, up and down the streets, which were kind of like trails, every night for nine nights. And we didn't sing ourselves much because we were from so many different nationalities. We really did have all different Christmas music.

Sister Rejane  
Thank you. Yeah, I was just curious, because, you know, as we move into our next little segment here, where we're talking about doing Christmas with some of your unhoused guests at the shelter, story, food, art and, and song kind of factors in, right? We know all of this kind of traditions, regardless of where you are from, those are the topics that are important to building community and hospitality. And so I was just curious, as you kind of worked together to build a new Christmas tradition in South Sudan. Thank you. Thank you, Pat.

Sister Pat  
Now, there was one tradition, that apparently was a Vietnamese tradition. Some of our students there were able to go home; some were not, because they were too far away. So we wanted them to have nice Christmas memories. And the sister from Vietnam had this game by which there was a bag that was filled with all different kinds of things, different kinds of clothing. And when it was passed to you, you had to try within a few seconds to get all the pieces of clothing on you. [laughter] And you were eliminated if you couldn't get everything on, and it was hysterical. It was scarves. It was hats. It was gloves. It was just a crazy game. But those students laughed over it and thought it was just the most fun thing to do in the world.

Sister Rejane  
How long did you have to put all the clothes on? What was the time of that?

Sister Pat  
It was like 10 seconds.

Sister Rejane  
What??! Not even 30?

Sister Pat  
Yeah. And you had to like pull one thing out of the bag at a time. So it was very difficult.

Sister Rejane  
Oh, I want to try this. Okay. We're trying this at some point at Christmas, Pat. Oh my gosh, you've never told me that story. That's awesome. [laughter] I love new traditions. Love it! Well, I don't know if we want to share that one with the guests. That would be that that would have to be an opt in or opt out.

Sister Pat  
Yes.

Sister Rejane  
We are going to take a quick break. Thank you to all our donors and sponsors who support A Nun's Life Ministry and our In Good Faith podcasts. If you have any questions or comments about this podcast, please leave us a message at 913-214-6087. We would love to hear from you, our listeners. We will be right back.

Sister Rejane  
Welcome back. I am Sister Rejane of A Nun's life ministry. You can find past episodes of In Good Faith, and all our podcasts at anunslife.org, and on all the major platforms where you get your podcasts. You know, one thing you and I have done last year, and again this year, is kind of collaborate on some Christmas programming at the shelter where were you minister. And I think what we've come to realize is we really want to help create positive memories for our guests, that that we can partake in as well, because some of them really need to heal from some traumatic Christmases, wouldn't you say?

Sister Pat  
Yes. Yes.

Sister Rejane  
I mean, the one that sticks in my mind -- one guest shared with all of us. I think it was just last Christmas, he received a $200 coat as a Christmas present. And then literally the next day was kicked out of the house. And one of the other guests responded, "Wow, that's messed up. They gave you a coat so you could wander the streets. That's not cool." So, that's where you and I -- we don't have a lot of material stuff. But giving our time and our talent, we really are trying to build the gift of Christ presence through sharing of food, stories, art, and song. Those are part of our human experience, where Christ enters in with us. Why don't we start with sharing with our listeners a little bit about the story piece?

Sister Pat  
Yes, the story piece. I tell them it's literature. But what I do is I choose a story to read or have an audio book story that kind of has a message to it. And once we finished reading the story, I sort of asked them what they think the message is. And the first night of, of our programming, we had How the Grinch Stole Christmas. And some of the guests said, the message is not to be selfish and not to be jealous. They really saw those characteristics. And the other thing was, they got the message that even though the Grinch stole all the presents, the people still had Christmas, because they were together and they were singing. And they were celebrating. That was quite astounding that they did that.

Sister Rejane  
And it changed his heart. I mean, that was part of this conversion of heart on the part of the Grinch. His heart grew, whatever, two sizes, larger or something.

Sister Pat  
Yeah. And they really kind of caught on to that. And then I did The Wild Christmas Reindeer. And the little girl that was supposed to train the reindeer thought she had to be firm and tough, and scream and yell, to get to the reindeer to do what she wanted them to do. And that totally failed. And then she learned that kindness -- and one of the guests said, "You get farther by being kind than by them by being mean." That was just kind of a delightful thing, that that he got that right away.

Sister Rejane  
Yeah, there are some nuggets of wisdom, I think. And those were secular stories, you know, ones that weren't necessarily religious, but still kind of get at what the spirit of Christmas is supposed to be about.

Sister Pat  
Exactly. The spirit of Christmas.

Sister Rejane  
Yeah, and then one other component you and I work on his art. And so we were making Christmas ornaments. And I think the one that was the biggest hit was using tree cookies. And for our listeners, a tree cookie is like, you take a branch, you just cut a little slice off, and it still has the bark around, it's a nice circle. And you drill a hole, so you can put some twine, and it becomes an ornament. And then we had stencils, and one of your volunteers just traced with a pencil. And the stencils had, gosh, candles, candy canes, Christmas trees, reindeer, and my favorite --

Sister Pat  
Snowflakes.

Sister Rejane  
And a squirrel! And a squirrel was my favorite. I love to tease Pat. Pat does not like squirrels because they steal her bird food, but I think they're really adorable. So that was my favorite one. But honestly, the guests really did love it. And I think one of the fruits of, of bringing Christ presence is joy. And I think we did experience that with our decoration making, don't you think?

Sister Pat  
Yes. And I think the joy of discovering -- because many of them when I said we're gonna paint, said, "I don't know how to paint. I can't paint." And I said no, no. Look, the stencil is there. And the joy of discovering that, yes, indeed, they could do something like that. Because they did a beautiful job with their painting.

Sister Rejane  
Yeah, yeah. And you shared with me that one of the guests came up to you and said how much she enjoyed it, right?

Sister Pat  
Yes. And actually, she is a somewhat difficult guest. She has many challenges, and it's hard for her to be positive. And so she was one of the ones that said she couldn't paint, and I said no, look, this is what you have to do. And she painted several. She was really pleased with them. And then last night, we did bead ornaments. We did candy canes, Christmas trees, wreaths. Now there was another one too.

Sister Rejane  
A snowman!

Sister Pat  
And the snowman was very, very easy. And again, she was delighted with her ornaments. And she said to me, "This was just such a nice evening. I really enjoy being in here." And actually that's the most positive thing that I've ever heard her say. So yeah, I think finding things that they can do and enjoy and doing them together with us, because Rejane and I painted the wood, the wooden decorations. And we did the beaded decorations right along with them.

Sister Rejane  
Yeah, right. We're not just telling them what to do. We're in it. And we probably should have said we start with a meal. Forgot about that! Food is important. And try to think of things that they don't normally get like chili or Reuben sandwiches. And just make it at a good pace, not too fast, not too slow. And just spend time in conversation, you know. Put the Christmas carols on. That's always fun too.

Sister Pat  
In fact, one of the men the very first night said to me, "Are we going to have Christmas carols?" And I said, "Oh, yes." Now we've done goofy fun games with guessing the carol or guessing it by emojis. But we also just listened to the carols, and some of them really like that. And you don't know. And I think one of the things is having a variety of things to do so that the guests find something that they really like. One of our guests is just kind of entranced with doing things like hidden pictures, word searches. All of them kind of got into the word searches. But they enjoy those papers, which makes me think that they have not only not had good Christmas experiences, but not had good school experiences.

Sister Rejane  
I mean, yeah, I enjoyed it. It took us like a half an hour with that word search. You know, some of those words like mistletoe or candy cane can be hard. But we were calling things out. It was a community building kind of exercise, really? Well, this weekend, you and I are going to be baking. We're going to be baking sugar cookies and gingerbread cookies. So that next week, they can do the decorating. You know, it's kind of been leading up with our decorations for the tree to this cookie decorating and you want to explain why we're going to decorate these cookies?

Sister Pat  
Oh, yes. I always talk to them, when we do this December Christmas programming, having Christmas all these days, that Christmas is not just receiving, it's giving. And so they're giving of themselves and their talents, when we have an Open House and invite some of the sisters to come to carol with us. And to have the things that they have helped make, like the cookies, and other food that we will set out. So they really do get the idea of not only receiving -- because they will receive gifts -- but they that they give and give of themselves.

Sister Rejane  
Yeah, and I think this this will be our second Open House. Correct, Pat?

Sister Pat  
Yes.

Sister Rejane  
This year. And one of the things that that I witnessed last year is many of our guests don't have family to celebrate at Christmas time. Neither do many of our sisters, right? Because, you know, sisters, we don't have families and children of our own and our parents may be deceased -- and/ or our siblings? right. So what I witnessed was, you know, this, lack of family actually kind of creates space for Christ's presence to enter in together and have an authentic Christmas celebration. It kind of creates a common ground with the guests and the sisters. And when we do our Open House, with the food and the Christmas singalong, I just felt there was a sense of authenticity and celebration and joy. And I mean, even one of our sisters asked us, "Are you doing that again? Because that was just really special for me." So it's not something I think that we're imposing, but that we can enter into the true meaning of Christmas together and I think that's what matters in this. It's not so much about the material presents but that giving the gift of Christ's presence to each other.

Sister Pat  
Yeah.

Sister Rejane  
Thank you all for listening and now sharing in our Christmas in the Convent -- and beyond, I think. We hope that you also share your Christmas stories and bring Christ to your family throughout the year. So, Merry Christmas and God bless.

Sister Pat  
Merry Christmas.