There is a growing awareness among liturgy planners
of the need to express in some way the connection between the crèche
and the cross. Theologically, it is a given. “The Word was made
flesh” to live, die, rise to life, and come again to reign gloriously
in peace and contentment. Hymn writers are challenged.
That’s a lot to express in four stanzas, four lines each, with
every other line rhyming. There are not many texts around that express
this important facet of the birth of Jesus and the paschal mystery.
God knows, however, we do not want for poetry that relishes the stable
scene, livestock, stinking shepherds, and extraterrestrial visitors.
. . . And I haven’t mentioned roasted chestnuts and “city
sidewalks, busy sidewalks dressed in holiday style.”
We are not hard pressed to see examples of Jesus being born; it is
the dying and rising around us that begs for language that bridges
the birth and everything else. Perhaps if we looked at some everyday
demonstrations of Jesus dying and rising, we might get a clue. I have
three musicians in mind.
Sister Cynthia Serjak, RSM, a Sister of Mercy, who lives and works
in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania: For several years now, she visits on
a weekly basis three downtown shelters for the homeless. She does
more than sling hash and offer prayers and encouragement to the homeless
though.
She conducts music instruction, leads them in singing, and provides
a weekly occurrence in the street people’s lives. She witnesses
and teaches. She is a “constant” experience in their otherwise
chaotic lives. At one of the centers she has organized a jazz ensemble
made up of some of her street friends.
They have even issued their own audio cassette of their “jamming.”
For more about her, look into the TableTalk archive and bring up the
piece entitled “Another Remarkable
Woman.”
Mrs. Marge Nykaza, a music minister in Chicago, who stretches music
ministry way beyond church walls: This tireless music minister to
the outcast and needy follows a weekly routine of visiting various
sites of four institutions in Chicago: Deborah’s Place, House
of Hope, Port Ministries, and the Institute of Women Today. Like Sister
Cynthia, she conducts music sessions, rehearses, teaches, and is a
stable, affirming force in their daily activities.
On February 22 of next year, her chorale, the Choir of Hope, will
be singing at the Rockefeller Memorial Chapel in Chicago as part of
an anniversary program of the chapel and a commemorative event of
twenty-five years of the Chicago Food Depository.
Father Ron Raab, CSC, associate pastor of the Downtown Chapel of St.
Vincent DePaul Parish in Portland, Oregon: After eighteen months working
at the retreat center at Notre Dame in Indiana, he assumed the position
of associate pastor in this inner-city chapel.
He is immersed in the ministry to inner-city society. In the November
17 edition of Portland’s Pulitzer Prize–winning newspaper,
The Oregonian, he is the center of an article that reports an out-on-the-street
3:00 AM prayer service conducted right on the site of a gunshot murder.
The article makes a point to state that he sang petitions. The twenty
people responded, “Save us, O God.”
From the brutality of murder and violence:
Save us, O God.
From the hardships of poverty and loss:
Save us, O God.
From the addiction of drugs and alcohol:
Save us, O God.
From the corruption of sin and darkness:
Save us, O God.
And from all evil, and from all evil, and from all evil:
Save us, O God.
At the end of the service he is seen in the church
talking quietly to the victim’s mother.
Maybe our hymn writers should talk to these three street angels.
