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THE BULLETIN, December 24, 1960—PAGE 7-B
I The Stars Are Patient
A FABLE FOR EPIPHANY
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By Charles A. Brady
Charles A. Brady is the au
thor of numerous short stories
and several novels among which
ore Stage of Fools and Viking
Summer. He lives ivith his ivife
and six children in Buffalo.
New York. _
AS THEY SAY in short sto
ries, it was no one’s fault
when Francis Merritt’s mar
riage began to go off the rails.
Not his wife’s, surely. Nor his
own—at least, not in any gross
sense of the word.
Merritt did not go with
Women, and he did not drink
to excess. Perhaps the couple’s
being childless had something
to do with it all. For, in pure
ly human terms, there is noth
ing sadder than passion un
requited.
So Merritt tried to find sol
ace in ideal pursuits, an ex
pedient which, outside reli
gion, is not unattended with
danger for the human person-
’ ality. When, for example,
Sputnik 1 flashed across the
autumn skies, Merritt took to
star-gazing for the first time
hnce an under-graduate course
in Astronomy. Looking on,
resigned and compassionate,
his wife, Anne, waited for his
latest fixation to go the way of
her husband’s other ardent,
short-lived enthusiasms.
OBSESSION
This time, however, vivid
interest hardened into obses
sion with mystic overtones.
Merritt’s business, which was
that of an architect, began to
run downhill as, in his mind,
he pitted the Star of Bethle
hem’s soundless track against
the beep-beep of Mr. Khrush
chev’s satellite.
Why shouldn’t the Wise
Men’s Star return? he asked
himself. And, once he asked
himself that question, it seem
ed imperative to him that it
must return and, as a further
■step, that he was the logical
person to prepare the world
for the Star’s second coming.
The morning after Merritt
confided this conclusion to his
wife she took her troubles to
their wise old pastor, Father
Klostermann.
Exactly one half hour later
Anne Merritt kept an appoint
ment with her physician who,
to her great bewilderment and
greater joy bore her the joyous
tidings which, two thousand
years before, an angel of the
Lord had borne to Eachary,
the husband of that Elizabeth
who, like herself, had up to
then been barren.
Father Klostermann’s advice
had been shrewdly kind. Now
she had a Christmas present
for her husband worth two of
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that. Humming Good King
Wenceslas, Anne Merritt
tweaked the snring of mistle
toe pinned to her coat, caught
a few snow crystals on her
tongue, and. in a matter of
minutes, was steering the
Chevrolet past the recon
structed colonial well which,
up to a few months ago, had
been her husband’s greatest
pride.
A child was the classic rem
edy for marital frustration,
but the news came an hour or
so too late. Francis Merritt’s
private daemon had driven
him to a further conclusion.
When the Star returned, the
secular mind would inevitably
call it a nova and let it go at
that.
Unless . . . unless . . . He
had learned Iranian in his
O S.S. days; and Iran was an
cient Persia whence the Magi
had come. Luckily his pass
port was in order for an archi
tects’ Middle Eastern junket
which, at. the last moment, he
had decided, not to attend.
There was a letter on the
mantel explaining what could
not be explained.
MODERN MAGUS
While he waited for the
transatlantic plane, a medley
of Christmas songs played on
a tinkling celeste chimed over
the loud-speaker system. Mer-
TKE END OF THE SEARCH
ritt thought how meretricious
they sounded. The cigar he lit
was savorless.
In Istanbul he made up his
mind not to drink any more
wine. He mailed his wife a
postcard from that city, but
without any forwarding ad
dress. When his supply of
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Travelers’ Checks ran low, he
used his war-time contacts to
get the occasional job he need
ed to stay afloat.
In Teheran, he decided to
travel to Bethlehem by one of
the old caravan routes, thus
paralleling, as closely as pos
sible, the kind of road the
Magi must have taken. It is
worthy of note that, as month
succeeded weary month, Mer
ritt stopped going to Mass al
together.
The continuing Arab-Israeli
tension rendered things a little
sticky at the border. But the
O.S.S. has a way of making
men ingenious. Christmas Eve,
one year to the day after
he had set out on his dream
like quest, found Merritt in
Jerusalem, only five and a
half miles from the little hill
town in Bethlehem.
Since he had become in
creasingly fanatical about this
search of his, Merritt did not
intend to go to the traditional
site of the Crib until Twelfth
Night, because that was the
anniversary of the first mani
festation to the Gentiles of the
Little Light of all the World.
It was true that so far he had
not seen the Star at all. But
there was time still.
Evening found Merritt in his
hotel room reading a French
edition of St. Gregory’s Book
of Miracles which he had
picked up in a Teheran book
shop and never opened till
now. One of the legends told
of the Well of the Star where
the Magi had stopped, weary
thirsty, and a-hungered, dis
couraged, too, for they had
lost the Star. But, as they
leaned over the Well to drink,
lo! there it was again shining
up at them from the quiet
water.
There was an Arab well just
down the street. Merritt went
out to look into it. But a cloud
passed over the moon, and he
saw nothing at all. Suddenly
the futility of his quest was
like a hand smiting him in the
face.
The Magi had lost their
Star—he had never even found
his. Perhaps it was this star
less well so like his own. For
the first time a wave of home
sickness washed over Merritt.
He put his hand on his wallet
where, thanks to some obscure
instinct, he had husbanded
enough Travelers’ Checks to
buy air passage home.
THE STAR
What with winter flying
conditions, quarantine, and
booking difficulties, it was af
ter dark on Twelfth Nieht
when Merritt found himself in
front of the well on his own
snow - blanched Connecticut
lawn.
Moved by an impulse of al
most nbvsical love toward this
homely household thing whieh
had once been his, Merritt
looked over the coping into
the lustrous depths where a
single s+ar shone silver. The
man looked uo in a start of
surprise. It. was only the eve
ning star hanging like some
well-tended lamp over his own
roof-tree.
Only the evening star? His
own phrase brought home to
Merritt, on a sudden, how pa
tient stars were, rising and
setting millenium after mil-
lenium. Wherever the Star of
Bethlehem had gone, this star,
too, had looked down on Beth
lehem then as it now looked
down on Connecticut.
One must play the role
grace casts one for. Mary had
known that, and Josenh. and
the Ox, and the myriads of
watching stars. His wife had
known, too, Merritt said to
himself, ashamed. He had been
a foolish, not a wise man.
searching abroad in time for
what Could he found now onlv
at home in the timelessness of
the ritual year.
The Babe was today, not
yesterday, here, not there, in
carnate daily, daily crucified
in the Mass. Merritt, too, was
a man under authority to
whom it had been said: Slav.
And he had gone instead. Well,
he would stay now, if it were
not too late.
For the first time in many
months Merritt looked away
from the inhuman splendor of
the stars and, through the
frosted picture window, into
the cozy human cave where
burned an open hearth, a
lighted tree beside it, and—it
couldn’t, be! But it was! The
husband turned the knob and
went into the Christmas house
where, patient as stars, a
mother and child waited for a
father’s homecoming.
CANDLES FOR HIS BIRTHDAY
It was not until some 300 years after Christ had ascend
ed that the Christians began to celebrate the joyous public
festival of the Nativity of Christ. For them, candles became
the symbol of Christ, who called Himself the “Light of the
World.”
In many countries today a large candle is lighted in the
homes of the faithful on Christmas Eve which burns for the
remainder of the Holy Season through Twelfth Night.
In continental Europe many people have a large candle
burning beside the Christmas manger as a reminder of the
presence of the “Holy Child, the Light of the World.” Other
candles, named for each member of the household, are ar
ranged around the crib. Each candle is lighted from the
Christ Candle, symbolic of the fact that everyone receives
his light from the “Light of the World.”
The youngest child is privileged to light a blessed candle
which is placed in 1 the window on Christmas Eve to show the
Holy Family that they would find shelter under that roof.
The Irish have a verse indicating that the candles were an
invitation to those who, like the Holy Family were unable
to find lodging for the night.
During the last week of Advent the family gather to
erect and decorate the Christmas tree. After the decorations
are complete a simple program can be given which includes
the blessing of the tree: “Holy Lord, Father Almighty, eter
nal God,” who has caused Thy Son, Our Lord Jesus Christ,
to be planted like a tree of life in Thy Church by being born
of the most holy Virgin Mary, bless, we beseech Thee, this
tree that all who see it may be filled with a holy desire to be
ingrafted as living branches into the same Lord Jesus Christ.”
EXTRA SHOPPING DAYS!
Some people have 13 extra
shopping days to Christmas!
Thousands of Americans, fol
lowers of the Catholic Byzan-
tine-Slavonic Rite, will ob
serve Christmas on January 7,
1961.
The difference lies in the
fact that the followers of this
rite observe religious customs
according to the ancient Julian
Calendar, while in all other re
spects they abide by the mod
ern Gregorian Calendar. There
is a 13-day difference between
the two.
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