" The Broken Baby Jesus" John's 24th Annual Christmas Poem

“The Broken Baby Jesus”
(Nach Bhfuil Muid Sinn Fein). (1)
John’s 24th Annual Christmas Poem
By John R. Wible
December 25, 2009

1. Athair Uí Mháille (2)

Father O’Malley (3) paused pensively behind the serviceable pastor’s desk, his hands clasped, fingers interlocked behind his head, pondering the Advent season at St. Dominic’s, a tiny parish on O’Connell Street near St. James Hospital in Dublin. It was nearly Christmas, the Christmas of 1916 –the Christmas after the “Easter Rising” of 1916 (4) which had so ferociously fueled the feelings of Irish nationalism and heightened the hatred of the Protestant “interlopers”"deported” there centuries ago by William of Orange.

Father O’Malley was a likable sort, in touch with God and in touch with his parishioners; a man who was ever the peacemaker (5) even in those times of terrible trouble. He had come to the priesthood later than many, having trained for a time as a physician. “Then God called him to heal men’s souls rather than their bodies,” so he was wont to hold.

2. A bhriseadh (6)

The good Father’s contemplations of Christmas were interrupted by a knock at his study door, a timid, yet pregnant knock, the kind of knock that might mean mischief – and mischief it was for it was Sister Maud Gonne (7) whom Father O’Malley could discern was even more downcast than usual.
Sister Maud, raised in a good Catholic family had taken her nun’s vows not long after her beloved sister, Constance had, against the great wishes of Maud and her whole family, “ran off and married that man” - the Protestant, Lovic Friend. Though she had vowed, inter alia, to be a woman of charity for all, Sister Maud had maintained a secret scathing and a bias about this in her breast to such a degree that she had indeed disowned her sister, Constance because of it. Thus the typical flat affect she wore like a hard-bitten habit.

“Oh, Father O’Malley, a turrible thing has happent,” came the words which followed the knock hurriedly flying through the (8) chamber door. “I’ve broke the Baby Jesus.” Ever the peacemaker, and ever the gentle soul he was, Father O’Malley said, “now calm down, Sister Maud, come in and tell me what you mean, ”you’ve broke the baby Jesus.” “Come wi’ me and let me show ye,” she pleaded. The good Pastor obliged and followed the nun to the site where the manger scene was to be placed near the dais of the altar in the centre of the sanctuary.

3. An briste baby Íosa (9)

(10) Now, the prized possession and most sacred relic of St. Dominic’s was its exquisite porcelain manger scene of almost life-sized proportioned figures, fashioned long ago, so long ago, in fact that no one really knew who made it or even from whence it had come. It seemed to have (11) pre-existed the church - Mary, Joseph, the Wisemen, the Shepherds and Angels, three camels and two sheep . . . and of course, the Baby Jesus in a manger; a beautiful Baby Jesus of the most delicate features and intricate detail down to the eyelashes and fingernails. It almost seemed human – truly a work of art that no one could explain.

The Baby Jesus – ah, therein laid the problem – literally. In the doing of her duties being careful to unwrap each piece and set it up in the manger scene, just as she had done many Christmases hence, Sister Maud did the unthinkable. As careful as she ever was, she somehow and for some inexplicable reason, dropped the Baby Jesus onto the marble floor of the dais. And that exquisite Baby Jesus in an instant, shattered into a thousand ash-like pieces – totally irreparable and perfectly irreplaceable.

Father O’Malley’s jaw dropped as though he had been hit with one of the bricks hurled at the (12) General Post Office in the Easter Rising. “Father, what are we gonna do?” pleaded the desperate nun. Father O’Malley’s first thoughts were likewise those of desperation because this Sunday was the Christmas Mass always proclaimed from the manger with the Baby Jesus as the centre-piece. “What would the congregation think? What would they do? Would they turn their outraged against Sister Maud?” wondered the Curate. His pastor’s heart went out to the sad and silent Sister Maud who must, he knew, be devasted.

“Now, now, Sister Maud, doncha be a-worryin’ yourself none, the Good Lord give us this manger scene and He’ll be a-findin’ a way for us to unite it once again – somehow.” “Somehow,” he thought. “But how?” He wasn’t sure he believed his own words.

4. An coiste eaglais (13)

He summoned the Parish Relations Committee for St. Dominic’s: (14) John McBride, Joseph Plunkett, Patrick Pearse, Thomas MacDunagh, Eamonn Ceannt and Mollie Malone (15). Patrick Pearse, the always Arch-Chairman, appointed himself to search for a suitable substitute.
He scoured the streets of Dublin and finally found himself in an art gallery – actually, a sculptor’s studio, the finest in County Dublin. Mr. Pearse explained the confounding circumstances and showed the great sculptor one of the smaller pieces he had taken with him as an ensample. The sculptor studied the sample carefully, very carefully and then exclaimed, “I’ve never seen or even heard of such work. Shure and it would take months to create a piece like this if, in fact, it could be created.”

Disappointed and deflated, Mr. Pearse passed through a number of other, but lesser shops with the same outcome and receiving similar comments. Finished, he reported the sad tiding back to the Committee which, unable to act, adjourned without finding a solution to the problem leaving it in the hands of Father O’Malley.

5. Cur chuige na Nollag (16)

Day turned to night; night turned to day and Christmas Eve approached. Father O’Malley thought that night about what could substitute for the broken Baby Jesus. And as he was careful to do, he prayed, “Dear Father, I know that you’re the giver of all good and perfect gifts. You, Yourself, musta supplied us wi’ the Baby Jesus once before, now I pray that ye do it for us yet a second time over. In that Baby Jesus’ name I’m a-prayin’, AMEN.”

Then his thoughts turned to the parish people and then to the Parish Relations Committee. “And a fine lot they are,” he mused with more than a wee bit of irony in his thoughts for each of them because though somewhat devout people in their own way and leaders in the Parish, each, like all of us, was a flawed figure.

(17) John McBride was a banker to whom Yeats referred as a (18) “vain-glorious lout.” He had forged a fortune charging usury to poor people. Joseph Plunkett’s family was his pride and joy, perhaps too much so, for his love of them rivaled his love for God. (19) Billy Yeats had become a poet of note whose success and self-assuredness grew with each publication of a new work. And then there was Patrick Pearse, the “school master” and man behind the scenes who enjoyed the power of control while appearing pious. Thomas MacDunaugh was an Irish patriot who thought of a free Ireland as his greatest goal in life.

Now Eamonn Ceannt was an enigma, though he cherished the Church, truly, yet this love appeared to exceed his love of the God and Christ whose Church it was. Lastly was “Sweet” Mollie Malone. Mollie Malone was once a prostitute whom Father O’Malley had rescued from the life of the street and who now stood tall in the Parish hierarchy despite having “been nice to the gentlemen” while on her back. It seemed that she was “looking for love in all the wrong places,” thinking that love would fill the “God-sized cavity in her heart. But of course, it never did – or could. “Yes,” fancied Father O’Malley, “shure and a fine lot they are, but they’re merely people, just like me, and no different really from the rest of the Parish – or any parish.”

Just before dropping off to a fitful sleep, the Good Father thought of the inconsolable Sister Maud and of his words to her about the broken Baby Jesus, “the Good Lord’ll provide.” And at that, he fell fast asleep.
With the issue unresolved and still up in the cold Irish air, Christmas Eve blew in on a cold, snowy northwest wind. Day turned to night and the parishioners began to congregate at the Church for the annual mass. Carols were sung by the choir and the merry organ was played by the converted Mollie Malone, no less, then came the time for the traditional teaching from the manger. The liturgy specified that the Curate was to display for all to see the Baby Jesus, taken from his manger. As he rehearsed the blessed Christmas story, explaining what each event meant and urging all who saw and heard with their eyes and ears to keep that same signal Christmas and the real and authentic Baby Jesus in their hearts true.

6. Athrú ar an liotúirge (20)

Now Father O’Malley, knowing that he had no Baby Jesus to hold up, changed the liturgy. He thought better of giving the traditional address about this Baby Jesus, rather, he recounted the Christmas story as St. Luke had told it and then urged the congregation to gather around the manger scene and gaze upon it, letting the Spirit of God preach to each individual parishioner the sermon each needed to hear and to see the Baby Jesus, not as this Baby Jesus was, a broken pile of (21) ashes but as each truly saw Him with their heart’s eye.

Each congregant obliged and gathered near the manger. Departing from the age-old offering of liturgy, Father O’Malley pulled back the swaddling clothes covering the manger to reveal the pile of ash-like porcelain where this Baby Jesus had once lain. The congregants were taken aback and murmured with shock. “Now, now, settle down,” chastised the Curate. “I challenge each of ye to gaze upon this pile of ashes and see what the Good Lord aims for ye to see.”

7. Fís Fíor (22)

Somewhat begrudgingly, each did fix his or her gaze on that pile of ashes. And then, after a moment, each seemed to look through the eyes of the God of their heart to reveal their very own Baby Jesus. It was not at all what the Curate had expected.

John McBride thought of his bank and the money that lay in it – and maybe how it got there; Joseph Plunkett gazed over a scene of his family at the Yuletide feast thinking how much he loved them, maybe more than anything in this or any other world; Yeats yearned for the next poem he would write. Had he fallen too far from the faith? Patrick Pearse thought as how had he known that Father O’Malley would so deviate from the liturgy in this manner, he would have urged the Curate to do differently, but could he control this circumstance? Thomas MacDunaugh gazed intently and it seemed to him that he saw a green Ireland rising from an orange sea free from the clutches of England and free from the influence of the Protestants, the hated Protestants; would he ever halt that hatred? Lastly, Mollie Malone, the “lady of the evening” turned church organist saw the ashes and thought how her life had been but a pile of ashes in the years she had spent looking for love and giving pleasure and entertainment to the gentlemen and she tried to see the faces of each but realized that they were all faceless.

A hush fell on the congregation as they all looked at each other realizing what each had seen. Perhaps this was the way it was supposed to be. Maybe God, in His infinite wisdom was telling each of them that nothing could really take the place of the Baby Jesus, no earthly thing. All these things, they realized, for good or ill, were in reality just dust ascending into the air, ashes to be blown by a snowy north wind to God knows where.

8. An choimhthíoch ag an doras (23)

At that moment, the back door of the church flung open and a poor, bedraggled and cold man came in and up to the front. “Father,” he said to O’Malley, “I’m Lovic Friend (24) and my wife is Connie. She’s outside in the cold. I’m a-tryin’ ti’ get her to St. James hospital. She’s gonna have a baby and, well, the baby is a-coming now. We saw the lights and came in. Can ye help us?”

The congregation all gasped as one but then . . . “Certainly,” replied the Father as the congregation nodded. “Get her in out of the cold, man!” “Connie,” the man motioned, “come on in.” Just as she shuffled over the threshold of the holy door, she grasps her great belly and groaned. “It’s time … it’s happening now.”

“Lay her on the pew,” ordered Sister Maud, who took her by the hand … a familiar hand... a surprisingly familiar hand. “Connie – Constance?” Are you my sister Constance?” “Yes, I am” was the anguished answer. Sister Maud and several ladies of the church attended as Father O’Malley, now turned physician, delivered a fine baby boy. Someone brought the swaddling clothes from the manger and they wrapped him in them. Then there was silence … silence except for the soft cry of the new born babe.

9. Dia ar fáil (25)
After a time, Father O’Malley held the babe up for everyone to see. “Look, look, God has provided a baby Jesus for us! He’s not porcelain and he’s not ash, nor is he all or any of those things you saw in the manger. He is flesh and blood and he is with us! Truly, he is Emmanuel!

Sister Maud with years’ worth of tears streaming down her face tightly twined around her true sister, Constance from whom she had been estranged for lo these many years. In that moment, all was forgotten and forgiven and O’Malley, Maud and each observer understood that God had worked a miracle, nay, two miracles, nay, many more miracles than anyone could count for it was a different miracle for each, yet in one way, the same miracle.

In a moment, someone began to sing, "Oíche Chiúin, Oíche Naofa " and they all joined in for truly this once silent night had become a holy night. God had provided the Baby Jesus and now everyone saw him in the manger.

***

Is your Baby Jesus broken? Is your Baby … Jesus?
Nollaig Shona (26) and Merry Christmas
John R. Wible

Notes:
1. Irish Gaelic for “We are not ourselves alone.” All the foreign words herein are Irish-Gaelic.
2. “Father O’Malley
3. Father O’Malley is taken from the Bing Crosby character in the movie “Going My Way.”
4. The story is set against the religious tension between Catholics and Protestants in Ireland and the hatred of the native Irish of the English. I would be helpful to the reader to Read Yeats’ “Easter – 1916” and Counterfeit Gods by Timothy Keller. The story draws on both of those.
5. Blessed are the peacemakers for they shall be called the sons of God”. Matt. 5:9.
6. A knock at the door
7. Except for Mollie Malone and WB Yeats (Billy), all the other characters were leaders in the 1916 uprising which failed initialed but ultimately succeeded.
8. “Chamber door” from Edgar Allen Poe’s “The Raven.”
9. A Broken Baby Jesus
10. The mystery of the origin of the pieces adds a note of transcendence to the story.
11. “In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God.” John 1:1.
12. The General Post Office was attacked and overtaken by the Irish patriots but then surrendered in 3 days.
13. The Church Committee
14. All members of the Irish patriot band.
15. From the Irish Ballad, “Mollie Malone” about a street prostitute who sells herself under the guise of selling “cockles and muscles alive, alive oh.”
16. Christmas approaches
17. Each person represents a Christ substitute.
18. Yeats so calls him in “Easter- 1916.”
19. The Irish poet and Nobel-laureate, William Butler Yeats who was not involved in the Easter Rising.
20. A Change in the liturgy.
21. All our false gods will be ultimately burned up in eternity as though dust.
22. True vision
23. The Stranger at the door.
24. A well-known protestant who was vice-commander of the English force that put down the revolt of 1916.
25. God provides.
26. “Silent Night, Holy Night.”
27. Merry Christmas