Fast and Feast Together

By P. NIROCZKOWSKI
IT would be well at the present
time to join ourselves in thought with our fellow Catholics in Poland who still celebrate Christmas according to their ancient traditions, which are rather different from those of this country.
In Poland it is Christmas Eve that focuses the joys of Christmas. On that day there is fast and feast in one
The children flatten their noses against the window panes to spy out the first star in the wintry sky. The moment it has appeared. the time has come to sit round the table for Christmas Eve supper. There has been a fast all the day, and there is no meat even now, but the meal is "very special."
Just as the star may appear to be a reminiscence of the light falling on the shepherds, there is a reminiscence. quite distinct. of the Crib. Under the white table cloth, the lady of the household lays some hay. Before sitting down, there comes the most solemn moment of the year: a blessed wafer is brought on a plate and mutual good wishes start. It is the evening of reconciliation, of love transcending ' interhuman " distance.
SEPARATION
THE wafer is broken by every
wellwisher with everybody else present. but it is also sent in letters to absent members of the family, to friends. It is the moment when least " sentimental" people may suddenly begin to wipe their eyes --e anehow, this happened frequently at Christmas Eve suppers celebrated in separation, and there Were hundreds of thousands of those during the last war, not the fewest on British soil.
There had been many. too, in the times of partitions, with numerous Poles sent away as political exiles. In all cases, the Christmas Eve supper provided a uniting spiritual link, and it still provides one.
It is almost like a national emblem, or at least a flash of its colours, when the traditional deep amaranth beet-root soup is poured out on the plates against the white cloth. Later there follows equally traditional fried carp, and, in many houses. puffed wheat with poppyseed or rice boiled with mushrooms in cabbage leaves.
And, after the sweet, all the diners rise to peep under the Christmas tree and see what presents they have got. The Christmas tree is a thing full of wonders and symbols of those wonders hang from all its branches.
It is almost like a medieval miniature picturing all things created: here ii clown made of frilled paper, there a censer gleaming with gold, pots and little animals and stars like benign faces. And under it all a cardboard Nativity. with the Infant God surprised among the works of His Hands, helpless, tiny, and certainly cold.
RUSTIC JOY
one should warns Him. So '-' say the carols which presently are sung by all the family. Polish carols are particularly famous and particularly popular among all seedons of the nation. Their number is enormous, and their spirit is a condensation of all careless rustic joy of their authors writing centuries ago and careful accuracy about the dogmatic paradoxes expressed or implied by the Incarnation.
It seems unique. this glorious shouting a to Mazurka about the most tremendous mysteries, and a great portion of the mystery of Polish soul is held within them by a spell. A great artist felt it. Not many people outside Poland know that distinct echoes of such a carol ring in one of the most moving of Chopin's. scherzos.
The present-day English carols have a different character, but those interested have only to open that delightful volume by Chambers and Sidgwick called "Early English Lyrics" to find among the oldest English carols, with such a lot of the medieval spirit about them, much of what is meant here.
Anyhow, at this moment, people of the most varied sort. so many of them pursuing most modern professions, film cameramen or researchers on nuclear physics or pilots, join the simple faith of the rustic authors and enumerate the presents which shepherds are bringing to Bethlehem. This one will bring a pat of butter, another some buns, and the musical one will oiler a song which he will perform himself.
And there are those which the children enjoy so much, describing all the birdssinging each in his own way on Christmas Day, here the nightingale with his soprano, there the pigeon with his bass, a complete choir.
EXPECTATION
AGAINST such a background. " carol singing in church, at mianight Mass, which soon comes, appears as a natural continuation, although the choice of the carols may be a little different. One of there refers to the four thousand years of expectation before the Birth and then makes a sudden jump to the expectation in the church: God will be brought down Ii earth by the priest's voice.
Another tills the festively decorated inside of the church with the partly familiar and yet ever staggering paradoxes of the Incarnation:
It is God's Birth now: Behold Power flabbed, The Lord of Heavens naked !
Think of Fire solidified, Blaze bedimmed, Infinite grown finite !
The cloak of glory rests On the shoulders of One despised: A Mortal is the King of kings.
Thus the Word became flesh And dwelt among us.