Martina PurdyIt was Christmas Eve, 1977, and my brothers and I had finally stopped waking up my parents, in the wee small hours, as we crept a little too noisily along the hall to see if Santa had arrived. My mother, one eye open and one eye closed, would meet us on the stairs, around one or two in the morning, and tell us to get back to bed.
But as I turned twelve, it was my mother who woke me Christmas morning, to tell me that my granny had died quite suddenly in Belfast. She was 63 and had suffered a heart attack.
My parents did their best to ‘get through’ Christmas that year: we exchanged our gifts under the tree, with less excitement than usual, went to Mass, and feasted, as usual, on traditional turkey and trifle.
But it all seemed to be in slow motion. There was a terrible sadness, and a look in my mother’s eye that still lingers in my mind, a look that returned and never left after my father died quite suddenly more than twenty years ago.
Unbearable
Christmas is all too often something we have to ‘get through’ when life becomes quite unbearable. “Well, that’s Christmas out the window,” I heard someone say, after a particularly sad loss, some days ago.
And yet, even in death, especially in death, we need to celebrate Christmas, somehow. Because in the face of devastating loss, Christmas offers our only hope, a hope that does not disappoint.
It is why Pope Francis has announced that this Christmas Eve will mark the start of the Jubilee Year of Hope which will last until the Feast of Epiphany 2026.
I took myself off on a retreat, and painted on the wall were those words: ‘Hope does not disappoint…’”
Those words “Hope does not disappoint” came to me when my own life had pretty much fallen apart, pretty spectacularly. My convent was closing and after five years I had to leave. My religious life as Sr Martina of the Blessed Sacrament was over.
It seemed I had lost everything, and I was falling into anger, bitterness and resentment – the very things that kill hope. I took myself off on a retreat, and painted on the wall were those words: “Hope does not disappoint…” A cosmic sign, which I read with all the cynicism and misery of the Grinch who stole Christmas.
Question
I could not wait to question the monk assigned to give me spiritual direction.
It had been years since I had asked such a pointed question in my best BBC accent, the one reserved for lying politicians. “Brother,” I began, “It says on your wall that ‘hope that does disappoint’. But is that really true? Aren’t’ hopes dashed all the time? I mean I’m disappointed…”
He looked at me as if I was not the first person to ask this question. “Yes, Martina, it is true. The words of St Paul in Romans Chapter five. ‘Hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who was given to us…”
We know that suffering produces perseverance, perseverance, character, and character hope”
Well, I was not going to argue with St Paul, but I figured he must have written those words when the mission was going well…in between floggings, stonings and shipwrecks! But, actually, St Paul wrote those words two thousand years ago, while under house arrest in Rome, where he was awaiting trial and execution. And far from raging and despairing, Paul was rejoicing in his suffering. “We know that suffering produces perseverance, perseverance, character, and character hope.”
Suffering
It is in suffering that I really came to understand what Christian hope really means.
Christian hope is not worldly; and it does not depend on our circumstances: whether we are mourning, or dying, whether we are in hospital or homeless, in prison or persecuted, whether we are broken or failing. Christian hope depends on faith, our belief in the love of God, and his amazing plan for our lives.
And that love, that amazing love is the love that came down at Christmas, the love that died for us on Good Friday, and the love that rose again at Easter. It is the love that brings life because it is stronger than death.
And it is the hope that brought my family and I to St Bernadette’s Church in Toronto, after an ice storm at Christmas, 2013 when I was between two worlds. It would be my last visit home before I entered religious life. I had a secret sense I was about to let go of everything.
The priest at St Bernadette’s spoke of the birth of Jesus, and my niece was especially tickled when he declared, in particularly loud tones: ‘God is not aloof’”
That was the Christmas that really was a winter wonderland. We had awoken two days before Christmas to a glistening, frozen world, where thick ice covered everything from cars to lamp posts to trees, some of which had split right down the middle, as if hit by lightning. It was a phenomenon I had never seen before.
There were power outages and the generator at St Bernadette’s was not working, so Christmas Eve Mass was by candlelight.
What I remember most was my little niece and how she delighted in the homily.
She was only eight at the time and enjoyed her own “secret” language, which was essentially taking English words and speaking them backwards. She would call me Anitram, and anyone acting the eejit, including me, was referred to, not as a fool, but as ‘a loof’.
The priest at St Bernadette’s spoke of the birth of Jesus, and my niece was especially tickled when he declared, in particularly loud tones: “God is not aloof.”
My niece whispered excitedly into my ear: ”He used our word!”
I am not sure she knew what “God is not aloof” actually meant. But I did.
And I have come to believe more and more in Emmanuel, His eternal loving presence which, even in suffering, brings hope, a Christmas hope that does not disappoint.
**
Tis the season for Christmas movies, many of them pretty saccharine. But the late Dublin actress Maureen O’Hara, a Catholic, starred in a more edgy film, The Christmas Box, some 30 years ago. One of the memorable lines is posed by her character, Mrs Parkin.
“What is the first gift of Christmas?” she repeatedly asks a young father who is too busy working to pay attention to his young daughter. He initially responds rather flippantly. “A tie!” She tells him to keep thinking. His second answer is “love.” He eventually works it out. The first gift of Christmas? The Christ child.
***
“An Old Christmas Card…” by the late crooner, Jim Reeves, was always turned up when the radio played in our house. My mother loved the sentimental song. And although fewer cards are now sent, it is well worth the effort. It turns out Christmas cards in the post can bring more joy than an email. “Letters and cards have been found to boost positive emotions in both the receiver and sender,” said Stephen Gallagher, of the University of Limerick, in Saga Magazine’s December issue.