Home / News & Publications / Michigan Catholic News / 2007 / Priests recall special moments from memorable Christmases
Priests recall special moments from memorable Christmases
Robert Delaney of The Michigan Catholic
Published December 21, 2007
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Two nuns kneel in silent prayer before a statue of baby Jesus lying in a manger in the grotto beneath the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem, as sketched by Fr. Bohdan Kosicki in 1970. |
Detroit — Ebeneezer Scrooge isn't the only one visited by memories of Christmases past this time of year. Perhaps people recall the warm glow of childhood Christmases with their family or maybe it was a particularly unusual Christmas that comes to mind.
Two priests of the Archdiocese of Detroit – Fr. Bohdan Kosicki and Fr. Stanley Pachla – share their Christmas memories.
Having been able to celebrate Mass and also pray alone at the site of Christ's birth are the highlights of Fr. Kosicki's memories of his "most unusual Christmas."
It was on a 1970 trip to Bethlehem. He had been a part of the crowd at the Orthodox-controlled Church of the Nativity on Christmas Eve, then went to midnight Mass at the adjoining St. Catherine Catholic Church.
Fr. Koskicki had played Santa Claus on Christmas Day for girls from a local Catholic orphanage, and then later celebrated at Mass in the grotto underneath the Church of the Nativity. "I presided, and it was so crowded, but it was just wonderful, saying Mass where Jesus was born right on Christmas Day," he says.
Then, on the day after Christmas, while the other priests on the pilgrimage took a side trip to Hebron, Fr. Kosicki returned to Manger Square with his sketchbook. After sketching some outdoor scenes, he went inside to sketch the interior. After the completion of a liturgy, the Orthodox priests came over to see what he was doing.
"They loved my drawings, and took me in and let me in behind the altar and showed me around. And then they took me downstairs to the site of Christ's birth, and left me. There were two nuns kneeling before the statue of the baby Jesus in prayer, and I sketched them," recalls Fr. Kosicki, now a senior priest of the Archdiocese of Detroit.
"After a while, they left, and I'm there all alone. It was absolutely magnificent — being there alone in silent prayer on the day after Christmas," he continues.
Fr. Kosicki's visit was capped off by the appearance of 40 girls from the orphanage he had been to the previous day.
"They recognized me, and began calling out, 'Mon pere, Santa Claus!' Then they sang 'The First Noel.' It's an English carol, but they sang it in French, and it was just beautiful," he adds.
Fr. Pachla, pastor of St. Veronica Parish, Eastpointe, remembers a childhood filled with Christmas Eve visits to the house of "my busia and dziadzia" (grandmother and grandfather), "who lived just a block away from us" in the neighborhood north of Hamtramck "that some people called Hamtramck Heights."
There, his family would celebrate the traditional Polish Wigilia dinner. "I remember that they would always have one extra empty chair, just in case somebody unexpected would come," he says.
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Interior of St. Catherine Church in Bethlehem as it was back in 1970, in a sketch by Fr. Bohdan Kosicki. The church has since been extensively remodeled. |
After dinner, the children would be able to open one Christmas gift before they all set out for church. "We would walk to midnight Mass at Our Lady Help of Christians Church, which would always be full," Fr. Pachla says, recalling that the service included singing Christmas carols in both Polish and English.
"After Mass, we would all go up, as a family, and say a prayer at the manger scene before heading back to my grandparents.' And because the whole neighborhood would walk to church and back, we would talk to people we knew as we walked," he remembers.
After another bite to eat – this time with meat, which was not allowed before Mass – the family would walk home. "Then, about 1 or 2 in the afternoon, we'd go back to my grandparents' for Christmas dinner," Fr. Pachla adds.
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