Religion
A Christmas story
Martin Sullivan
It happened in Italy a long time ago. The war was still at its height, but winter had set in, the roads were impassable. and we were pulled out of the line.
I was chaplain to a regiment which had been through a difficult period and the men welcomed the respite. There was some desultory shelling, but appropriately enough, as it was near Christmas, a measure of peace prevailed. We took over a small village, requisitioned a few houses, and settled down for a couple of weeks. I lived with the doctor and his unit in the Regimental Aid Post.
This, for the time being, was an Italian peasant's cottage. It was a small dwelling, with a basement, an outside staircase and two rooms upstairs. The place was bare, virtually unfurnished, cold and uninviting. The family was small — father, mother and a small son. They moved down to the basement and shared. their living quarters with a couple of oxen. Their home now was a stable and their beds just heaps of straw. The father was an interesting fellow, obviously much older than his quiet, retiring wife. He spoke English, which, he told me proudly, he had learned in
Philadelphia on a visit many years before.
I visited this family daily. often just to chat with the old man who professed z real interest in religion and was delighted to know that I was a chaplain. He owned a few scrubby acres, and a handful of Sheep and chickens. When the Germans came he pushed his livestock down a deep. dried-up well and kept them successfully hidden. He was typical of the southern Italian peasant of those days, poor, undernourished, and hating the Germans. Mussolini, and probably us as well. All he wanted was to be left alone to try to farm his pathetic bit of land.
Christmas Eve came, and with it parcels from home for the troops. tins of foodstuffs, cakes. chocolates. cigarettes, those occasional boons which meant so much in a soldier's life. What led them to do it I don't know, but the little family hung up their stockings on the walls of the stable. Were they inviting the troops quartered around them to do something? Had some soldiers made them a promise? Or were they just acting on a simple child-like faith? I cannot tell.
I went down on Christmas morning to find them overwhelmed with joy. They were sitting on the straw gazing at their gifts. Their stockings had been filled from the men's parcels. I never discovered the donors. because no one would admit to this deed of kindness, which lit up and softened the grim scene around us. The old man welcomed me with joy. Rummaging in a bag he pulled out a small book and passed it to me with the words, "Read it, brother, read us the Christmas story." It was a New Testament in Italian. I had very little of the language beyond a few cursory words of greeting, but I turned to the second chapter of St Luke's Gospel, the English of which I know by heart, and began to read.
Somehow the words flowed smoothly, and the barrier of language fell down. Doubtless in my mind I was translating, but I was unconscious of the effort and the Italian phrases tripped lightly over my tongue: "And so it was. that while they were there, the days were accomplished that she should be delivered; And she brought forth her first-born son, and wrapped him in swaddling clothes, and laid him in a manger." I looked up. The father sat there with tears of joy streaming down his face, the mother with bowed head and the small boy turning over his presents. Time seemed to stand still. The oxen lowed gently, and their smell, and the smell of the straw filled the air. "For unto you is born this day a Saviour which is Christ the Lord."
It happened in Italy a long time ago. It happened in Palestine longer ago still. It is happening the world over even now. The Word becomes flesh and dwells among us, and the light from that Presence no darkness can quench.
Martin Sullivan is Dean of St Paul's
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