Twenty twenty-one began as a year of great promise.
After a pandemic forced Americans into their homes, toppled the U.S. economy and infected millions across the country, the prospect of the vaccine rollout would be the antidote to everything that had unraveled in its wake.
Instead, it was a year of historic death and violence, and even more loss.
COVID-19 fatalities surpassed 800,000 in the nation as delta and omicron variants unleashed a surge of infections. Mass shootings, homicide rates and gun sales hit the highest levels since the 1990s.
The newly minted sense of hope dwindled each and every time tragedy struck.
A mob of then-President Donald Trump supporters attacked the Capitol in Washington, D.C., just six days into January. Asian-American women were killed in the Atlanta spa shootings in March. On June 24, part of the Champlain Towers South condo building collapsed in Surfside, Florida, killing 97 people as they slept soundly in their beds. A few days before Thanksgiving, a man driving a red SUV struck people in a wave of terror at the annual Waukesha Christmas parade in Wisconsin. And earlier this month a 15-year-old sophomore opened fire at his high school in Oxford, Michigan, and killed four students just before a violent tornado tore through Kentucky, Illinois and Missouri.
As another year draws to a close, there is less certainty that the worst has already passed.
But as night fell on Christmas Eve, beleaguered believers in these communities followed the North Star to evening services.
Everywhere, religious leaders from the Vatican to Waukesha and Miami reminded parishioners that Jesus too was born in a time of great upheaval and tribulation. In every service, the same liturgy from the Bible was read out loud. Like every other year.
“A people who walked in darkness have seen a great light. Upon the land of gloom, you, God, brought them joy: Isaiah 9:2”
Only this time, it hit a little harder, a little deeper. They were called upon to meet calamity with serenity and dare to hope.
People make a church
When worshippers sing “O Come, All Ye Faithful” during Christmas Eve services, they’re typically not accompanied by the steady hum of generator-powered lights or handbells rescued from heaping tons of rubble.
But there isn’t much typical about Mayfield, Kentucky, this year after a tornado leveled much of downtown Dec. 10.
First Christian Church and First Presbyterian Church once stood on opposite sides of one of the town’s main thoroughfares joined together to host a candlelight Christmas Eve service attended by more than 100 people.
The service – which took place in a parking lot between the remnants of the two buildings – doubled as a farewell to their once-stately sanctuaries.
The Christian church was built in 1906, and its Presbyterian neighbor, the oldest continually operating church in Mayfield, was built in 1914. Many of the attendees were lifelong members of their respective churches and could trace their family ties back generations.
First Christian Church Pastor Milton West, who is also a psychologist, said the service was necessary for the two congregations to grieve their losses.
“There’s a term in psychology and therapy called ‘reframing,'” West said. “Reframing is simply looking at a set of events or circumstances and choosing how you interpret what they mean in your life.”
West said his church faces a choice: They can look at the loss of their building and fall into the depths of despair, or, they can view it as an opportunity to rethink and re-energize their ministry.
“That’s the reframe. It’s, ‘Hey, how can I be better?’ he said. “I think that’s not only psychologically sound; it’s theologically and spiritually sound as well.”
Beth Scarbrough, a fourth-generation member of First Christian, is quick to remember that people make a church, not steeples and pews.
“That building is not the church,” she said. “What we valued most – our communion table and a piece of stained glass that says ‘First Christian Church’ – survived. We can build again. And that’s what we’re going to do.”
‘It’s time to push back the darkness’
The month of December in Oxford has shrouded this community an hour north of Detroit in a darkness far deeper than winter brings.
Residents were slammed with communal shock and grief over shootings in late November at Oxford High School.
Amid the lingering darkness, Kensington Church in Lake Orion, just south of Oxford, scheduled its usual lineup of services for Christmas Eve. The church recently saw 1,400 mourners for the funeral of one of four students who died.
The shooting stunned not just the community but the entire nation, drawing nonstop attention to this area of lakes, country lanes and semi-rural subdivisions. The notoriety swelled with implications that the suspect’s parents, as well as school authorities, might have prevented the tragedy.
That’s left locals defensive and despairing, amid the harsh glare of publicity. Now, at Christmas Eve, church leaders said it was time to start healing.
Lead Pastor Craig McGlassion said Friday that he couldn’t stage-manage his church’s usual holiday theatrics, dramatizing the Christmas story as if nothing outside had changed. McGlassion said the service had to acknowledge the hurt burdening his flock. Still, where the tragedy had been central to recent sermons, on Christmas Eve the service wasn’t to focus on it, but also wasn’t to ignore it.
“I think it’s time to push back the darkness. We’re going to really celebrate Christmas as the light that enters humanity,” McGlassion said.
Minutes later, a youngster began making the rounds, lighting every candle in every outstretched hand. As they did at Kensington’s vigil on the night of the shooting, people held up the flickering flames in the dark auditorium. Only this time, instead of shock, the mood was different, as faces shined with the holiday’s renewal of hope.
“Whatever happens, remember the joy,” their pastor said through his microphone, calling for all to raise their candles high.
A pack of batteries
The Catholic community of Waukesha gathered on a gloomy Christmas Eve night, 33 days since a man drove his SUV into the crowd at the Waukesha Christmas Parade, killing six and injuring at least 62 people.
The Christmas parade tragedy hits especially close to home for the church. Many were marching in the parade and several members were struck and seriously injured including Father Patrick Heppe, who suffered a concussion.
This night, however, wasn’t about fear. It was about grace.
And so, a packed house at St. William Catholic Church listened, sang and joined in prayer.
Father Matthew Widder wanted to draw the congregation’s attention to the most important gift of the Christmas season: peace.
Widder shared a story of his childhood Christmas. One year, a mysterious present was under the tree addressed to the family. He said it was a mid-size gift with some weight on it, which led him to believe it was a toy or electronic device.
Upon opening the gift, the children discovered that it was a pack of batteries – one thing necessary for many of the other gifts to work. And Widder said there is a lesson there.
“Without the batteries, nothing works. … But, in essence, that was the most important gift, because it made everything else work,” he said.
The lesson is that without the grace of God or the grace of Jesus Christ, people cannot make sense of what they need or don’t understand, Widder told the congregation.
“We can have all those things, but we can’t make sense of all of them, we can’t truly use them,” he said.
Widder encouraged the congregation to lean on their faith when dealing with the trauma surrounding the parade.
“We know of the parade tragedy that many of us were a part of and there to see. People that have been impacted by that tragedy, here at Mass tonight, in the healing process. It’s a powerful testament to God’s grace.”
Every 24th of the month
For half a year, the 24th of each month at St. Joseph’s Catholic Church is a requiem for the souls lost to the tragic collapse of a 12-story building in Surfside, Florida.
Christmas Eve would not be the exception.
“We remember them every 24, we will remember them tonight,” said Father Juan J. Sosa.
The now demolished building once overlooked the church’s parking lot on 86th Street. Of the 97 dead, 20 adults and children belonged to this neighborhood parish.
Sosa said his community still grieves.
“There is a sense of loss because people miss their friends, their community. There’s an emptiness; a feeling, a reaction to a place,” Sosa said.
As the clergy entered the sanctuary during the opening procession, carrying a life-size porcelain Jesus that would be placed on a wooden chair draped in red and gold fabric, Sosa urged congregants to remember that Jesus’ birth was an opportunity for peace. For love, for joy – especially in times of trial and tribulation.
Instead of solemn musical arrangements, more than 150 people sang “O Come, All Ye Faithful” to the beat of a Caribbean clave and cajón instruments.
The cacophony of voices reciting the Lord’s prayer simultaneously in English and Spanish reverberated off the mint green and white vaulted ceilings.
“This evening, God’s Word reaches into the depth of our hearts to resonate within our human experience. … As the story of His birth is recounted in the Gospel in words, carols and images, we gather together to celebrate in faith that he was born once in a manger but is reborn in our hearts every year,” Sosa said during the homily.
To live in love, peace and forgiveness was Sosa’s calling.
“The Surfside tragedy showed us that we must live in love,” Sosa said. “We must pray and become what we pray.”
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