Mary Kenny
‘Goodwill to all’ is one of the key messages of Christmas and maybe particularly relevant in this year of Covid-19 restrictions.
Social community
In all my life, of over seven decades, I don’t think I’ve lived more separated or detached from a social community. Sometimes, it seemed, it was as if all of us had signed up to the monastic life – and yet, the monastery, though apart from the world, is at least based on community. Perhaps the parallel is rather more with the hermit in the desert – alone, in our own remoteness.
A daft exaggeration: hermits don’t order takeaway food from pizza parlours or go online for their household purchases. And, as we’ve dipped in and out of lockdown, there have been times of meeting – though never of hugging – and sharing. But, generally, the world of coronavirus 2020 has been, in my experience, a lonely one.
I’m not normally given to loneliness, but this year, I’ve grown aware of what it is like to be lonesome – not to have everyday access to human company. It seems macabre to say so, but I was grateful to attend a funeral just before Christmas (and honoured to be included in the restricted number of mourners) for an old friend. A dozen friends and colleagues have died this year – only one from Covid-19, aged 84 – but I’ve only attended one funeral. That’s not natural.
Unedifying
And here’s another unedifying little disclosure. God forbid I should turn into a crabby old crone, but, as a widow, I began to harbour certain resentments against couples. It’s all very well for them, I’d grumble to myself: they have one another! They can help out each other, do chores for each other, and support each other. Singletons are on their own! This ungenerous thought emerged into consciousness when I made a mean-spirited complaint to a shopkeeper that her small boutique, which only allowed four customers at one time, was occupied by couples shopping together. Why couldn’t she copy the supermarket chain which displayed a notice saying ‘please shop alone’ – so as to be fair to single shoppers?
Dear me: what a misery-boots!
Christmas
So, coming up to Christmas, I made a special effort to remind myself to ‘offer it up’ a little more, and complain a little less. And so, Christmas cards and messages somehow became more meaningful than ever: prompted by the deep human need to reach out to others and feel that goodwill which is commanded of us at this time.
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On a related theme of community, Fr Michael G. Murphy, of Bishopstown in Co. Cork, has sent me a thoughtful message. “I feel that perhaps an opportunity was missed by the Church during the lockdown – to call forth the blessings of what was called at the Second Vatican Council, the domestic Church.”
While the Mass is “the source and summit” of our faith, writes Fr Murphy, (who, incidentally, is a hale 92 years old), the domestic Church, in the home, was the only Church available during times of persecution. In his annual newsletter, he quotes the words of Jesus from John 15:4: “Make your home in me, as I make mine in you”. There are many faith passages about the spiritual life being in our hearts and our hearths, as well as in the physical building of a Church.
All this is true and wise. But there is a female perspective to the issue: women in the past sometimes felt too cloistered in their homes. They attended to their home life all day – a visit to the chapel was a welcome change of scene. There they found both spiritual uplift, and also, community.
I’m far from being devoted to domesticity, and during 2020 I became aware of the confines of my kitchen, where, as I remember my aunts lamenting “a woman’s work is never done”. Fr Murphy was very understanding, too, of that viewpoint.
Carolling through covid
It’s sad that there will be no singing of Christmas carols this year, although we all understand why singing in a confined space is not recommended.
A woman in Sheffield, Yorkshire, Jan Thornton, came up with the cheering suggestion that people could appear at their front door each Thursday evening and sing carols, safely distanced. ‘Sheffield Carols’ even put out a programme of carols on their website for Thursday nights when neighbours might carol together, socially distanced.
Aled Jones, the well-known Welsh baritone supported the initiative: Christmas, he says, needs celebrating with music. His own favourite is Away in a Manger, one of the simplest, and yet most affecting hymns to the Nativity.