A Christmas I Will Always Remember

 Fr Matthias Nsamba -Ten years ago, Bishop Fritz Lobinger, then head of Aliwal North diocese in the Eastern Cape, solemnly opened St Jude’s church in Sterkspruit, where I served as parish priest. There was a Christmas Church Feast two months later…

We had built this Church to commemorate the Year of Holy Eucharist, proclaimed by Pope John Paul II. The theme of the fundraising for the building of the church and the opening was: “The Church is the Temple where God’s people meet to break and share bread.”

The people of Jozana’s Hoek would not settle for only celebrating Mass and receiving the Body and Blood in their cherished newly-built and blessed church. Two months after the opening they organised a Christmas feast at the church for all people in the village (Isaiah 25:6).

Everybody was invited to share in the meal. All kinds of food were there; there was plenty to eat and drink. The people of Jozana’s Hoek contributed generously towards their Christmas feast at the church.

We also baptised children at Mass that day. By their baptism they were born into a healthy Church -the family of God – and were assured of growing up among exemplary people who follow the commandment, “Love one another” (John 13:34-35).

This was an exceptionally good Christmas when all the people of God, Catholics and non-Catholics alike, came together to celebrate the Birth of our Saviour. We shared the Eucharistic meal and the traditional meal.

For us as Africans, a meal is perhaps the most basic and most ancient symbol of friendship, love, and unity; food and drink taken in common are signs that life is shared.

People sat around dishes of meat, pap and umnqhusho (crushed maize mixed with beans) and gourds full of traditional drinks and were passed on from one to the other.

As the area is a predominantly Sotho, one could see people covered with blankets and Sotho hats, coming with sticks and knives to cut meat.

Dogs were seen in big numbers, waving tails because they had tasty bones in plenty too.

People shared their presents with one another, Catholics and non-Catholics. This was a proper ecumenical spirit on display.

It is rightly said that if you want your Christmas presents to be perfect, seek the presence of God. In that new church God dwelt and he dwells eternally.

That Christmas in Jozana’s Hoek’s Catholic church, all people came together: enemies shared in the spiritual and physical meals, the sick were there, the hungry left satisfied. There was joy, sharing and acceptance, a true spirit of the children of God and of Christmas.

The communal meal the people shared that day’regardless of their creed, gender, political parties, tribe or age, was a root metaphor of the Eucharist, the giver of life to whom the fruit of life is joyfully presented.

This unique way of celebrating Christmas in 2005, ten years ago, deepened my communal understanding of the Eucharist.

I am now serving at Qoqodala parish in the diocese of Queenstown, but I look back fondly at that Christmas at Jozana’s Hoek ten years ago.

The children I baptised that day will celebrate ten years since they were born into the family of God, and the people of Jozana’s Hoek are celebrating ten years of their new church.

I will always remember that Christmas of 2005. And now I am looking forward to another one in the same style, here at Qoqodala.