Kidnapped Baby Jesus (Mid-week)

 

 

Kidnapped Baby Jesus (A Christmas Memory)

Fr. Tony’s Midweek Message

December 25, 2013

When my family and I were living in Hong Kong for the first time, in 1987, we had a challenge in making our holiday traditions fit into our new and very strange surroundings for our children, aged at the time 5, 8, 10, and 12.  Every year, we had done a careful series of Advent activities, and we studiously kept the figure of the Baby Jesus stored away, to be placed in his manger in the crèche on the coffee table only on the morning of Christmas Eve. 

This year, we could not repeat many of our annual traditions, because they were local and not available in China.  Here one of our holiday meals was to be dim sum luncheon at a giant restaurant with dozens of steaming, mobile carts moving between the chattering, jasmine-tea fragrant tables, we had to be imaginative.

The morning of Christmas Eve, the children all crowded around the small box that usually held the Baby Jesus.   They opened it, and found it empty,  In the place of Jesus, a note, of letters cut from a magazine and pasted onto white bond, read “Jesus has been KIDNAPPED.  If you want him safe, follow all instructions, find the notes with next instructions, and get ready for a great treasure hunt.  First instruction, go and bathe, brush teeth, and dress for a busy day. When done, find next instruction in the refrigerator door.”

The next instruction was to eat breakfast, the next (found in the front hallway) to clean bedrooms, finish Christmas presents.  Finally, they were told to pack an overnight bag with one change of socks and underwear, toothbrushes and a jacket.  They were told to walk down the hill to Bowen Road, and find the next instruction taped under the first park bench there: catch a cab and go to the outlying islands ferry, where they’d be given the next instruction.

When they realized they were leaving the apartment for overnight, on CHRISTMAS EVE, the children got a little worried.  Would Santa visit them where they were mysteriously going?  Did he visit empty apartments?  How in the world were we going to have a proper Christmas Eve and Christmas day with an unexpected journey to GOD KNOWS WHERE thrown in? 

As they walked with Elena along Bowen Road, and took the cab, I went to the apartment and finished Santa things.  I hurried and got to the ferry pier before them.  The instructions were to take the tickets I gave them and go with Elena and me to Lantau Island, to a small harbor called Tai Shui Hang, there they would find the Baby Jesus. 

We had to change ferries on Peng Chau, the small island we went to in the hot weather to go to the beach and eat at waterside seafood restaurants.  When we finally arrived at Tai Shui Hang, the children realized our destination:  the Trappist Monastery.  I finally told them that we had reservations to spend Christmas Eve night there.  After a simple cabbage soup and bread dinner, we took a nap so we would be ready for Midnight Mass. 

 

 Young Trappist Monks Flee China in 1949. 

The Mass itself was luminous.  Half in Latin, with the rest split up between English, Cantonese, and Mandarin, most of it was sung. Lit with hundreds of candles, and scented with clouds of sweet frankincense, the divine was clearly present.  Most of these old monks had fled monasteries in Mainland China after the Communist takeover and the start of systematized murder of all class enemies, including priests, nuns, and monks.  Most had lost brother monks in the red terror and fled to the British colony in desperation.  It was there they had founded their new home, the Trappist Haven Monastery dedicated to Our Lady of China.    A few young novices were in their midst, but most of the monks were obviously so very old that the children wondered if maybe in their youths they had been with the shepherds with Jesus in the stable. 

After a final singing of Silent Night in German, we retired to our beds, bunks all together in a common room with thick quilted ticking to keep us warm in the chilly small hours.  In the morning, we had coffee and milk with bread and cheese, and then prepared to catch the ferry back.  We arrived back at our apartment on Hong Kong Island at 11:00 a.m.  Santa had been there, all right, and the children were very relieved. 

We never again went to a monastery for Midnight Mass together.  But the memories of that special day stayed with us.  The children reminisce about it to this day. 

Grace and Peace, 

Fr. Tony+