Newspaper Page Text
DECEMBER 24. 1955.
THE BULLETIN OF THE CATHOLIC LAYMEN’S ASSOCIATION OF GEORGIA
FIVE
Jottings ...
(By BARBARA C. JENCKS)
Christmastime presents proof
postive that all is right with the
supposedly mixed-up crazy old
world and the people who live
in it. Dateline Christmas any
year and it won’t make the least
bit of difference. Here, is one in
stance where moderns cease
straining at the leash of conven
tion, tradition and progress.
There is no wildness of escape
at Christmas. We may look for
distinctive greeting cards, gifts
and decorations but that is where
variation ends. We want every
thing just as it always has been
and hope always will be. We don’t
rebel against sameness here.
No eager merchant has suc
ceeded in selling us the idea of
exchanging blue and silver for
the traditional colors of red and
green.
No. clever or witty greeting has
succeeded in replacing the hack
neyed and unimaginative “Mer
ry Christmas.”
Norte of the popular holiday
tunes will ever take the place of
nostalgic “Silent Night”.
No city editor will ever produce
a Christmas story such as the
original one of 1955 years ago. For
there are no reporters around to
day of the caliber of Matthew,
Mark, Luke and John.
The timeless priceless things
like Christmas are always the
dearest. They'■'Sound a note of
reverence in the heart of the most
sophisticated and indifferent of
men.
Nothing can surpass Christmas
because it is the superlative of
man’s joy just as the Mass with
its timeless sacrifice around the
clock through the years can nev
er be replaced. The best things
such as love, goodness, friend
ship, peace, joy and Christmas,
we never really want to change.
We want to change ourselves
and even our surroundings but
we never want to change the es
sence of Christmas as it is. On
Christmas, we know that all’s
right with the world because we
feel small and unworthy. We wish
we were all the great things that
we should have been or still could
be.
We look very tiny when meas
ured against either the faraway
Christmas star or the nearby
Christmas crib.
We wish and we dream. I
would like to be a little girl again
at Christmas filled with innocent
wonder. It would be worth a
kingdom to view again the world
as a seven year old before the
tree on Christmas morning. The
world appears as a fairyland filled
with good and shining things.
The innocent, trusting and hope
ful little girl fails to see the world
of the grown up with its complex
ities and distractions, and the
snares of the devil which attempt
to claim further along on the
roadway of life.
Perhaps, we love Christmas be
cause it takes us back to our
childhood. I would like to be a
mother of a little boy on Christ
mas.! would like to take his little
little hand and unveil to him all
the wonderous things of man’s
Christmas. I would take him upon
my lap and read the story of an-
0 t h er Little Boy’s Christmas
many 1 hundreds of years ago in
the city of Bethlehem,
Sometimes, too, at Christmas
1 wish I were a cloistered nun
able to hold the miracle and
wonder of Christmas close to me
I could contemplate then away
from the din of the holiday
crowds the meaning and promise
of Christmas. Nuns hold some
thing of the starry-eyed wonder
of children no matter how old
they are.
Alas, I am a writer . . . I’m not
a little girl or a mother of a little
boy or a cloistered nun. I am a
writer with a Christmas column
to produce. Every year, it is the
same problem. I yearn to write
the stars out of the sky and bring
others to their knees before the
tremendous wonder of Christ
mas. I never can. It matters little,
however.
Everyone holds his own private
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Merry Christmas
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AUGUSTA,
BACKDROP—
(Continued from Page Four)
have bent utterly subjected to
the Communist will. They would
like to forget, of course, upris
ings that have occurred in - East
Germany and Czechoslovakia
and elsewhere.
Willy old boys, Krushchev and
Bulganin. They know that anti-
colonialism is a subject close to
the hearts of millions of subject
peoples, or have-been-subpect
peoples, all over the world. Cit
ing our own military alliances
in the far Pacific, they sought to
make the argument that the
West is trying to push Asia into
preparations' for a new war.
CREAM OF THE JEST
They held out bait for the Asi
ans — send your engineers to
Moscow to be trained, they urg
ed, and we’ll train them. Coloni
zers,, they said, had. invented the
lie that only colonizers could
become engineers so as to keep
the people under subjection.
No, there is no jest to surpass
a Kruschev worrying about peo
ple under subjection. But a grim
and bitter jest it is to men in
slave labor camps and jailed and
oppressed in Bulgaria and Czech
oslovakia and Rumania and Po
land and the rest of eastern Eu
rope wherever Moscow has been
able to shift to the abject puppet
role of what are called—in an
other of the sorry jests of our
day—“people’s democracies.”
HOSPITALS
SHARE IK
FORD GRANTS
To supplement arid encourage
the efforts of the American peo
ple in meeting problems affect
ing the progress of the whole
nation, the Trustees of The Ford
Foundation have approved speci
al appropriations of $500 mil
lion for privately supported in
stitutions in communities all ov
er the land. This amount is to
be distributed over the next 18
months.
First reports indicate that
Catholic Hospitals in the Dioce
se will share in these grants in
the amount of $336,500, to be
devided as follows:
St. Mary’s Hospital Athens,
$50,200; St. Joseph’s Infirmary,
Atlanta, $115,700; St. Joseph’s
Augusta, $57,700; St. Francis,
Columbus, $46,100; St. Joseph’s,
Savannah, $66,800.
The earliest celebration of the
Nativity of Our Lord on Decem
ber 25 took place at Rome about
the year 350. Previous to that
date, a joint commemoration of
the Birth and Baptism of Christ
was observed annually on Janu
ary 6. The first mention of a
Nativity feast on December 25
appears in a Roman document,
the Philocalian Calendar, said
to' date from the year 354.
YOU CAN WIN CONVERTS
A Christmas Gift
By REV. JOHN A. O'BRIEN, Ph. D.
(Universify of Notre name)
“I’m an avid reader of your
column in The Catholic News of
New York,” writes Joseph E.
Burton, “and
my chief N e w
Year’s resolu
tion for 1956
will be to do
my utmost to
win a convert.
Will you please
suggest a few
books that
would show the
best methods of doing that?
Fortunately there are some
books designed to meet the very
need which Mr. Burton mentions.
YOU TOO CAN WIN SOULS
(Macmillan) outlines eight dif
ferent methods which lay men
and women have used with
marked success. It illustrates
each of .these methods with five
or six incidents showing how
each has been used to interest
churchless friends and lead them
into the fold. It is geared direct
ly to the layman.
BRINGING SOULS TO
CHRIST (Hanover House) cov
ers the entire field of the lay
convert apostolate. Cardinal
S t r i t,c h, Cardinal Spellman
Archbishop Cushing, Bish
op Brady, Bishop Wright, Clare
Boothe Luce and other notable
persons offer valuable tips on
techniques of bringing souls into
Christ’s fold.
SHARING THE FAITH (Our
Sunday Visitor), WINNING
CONVERTS (P. J. Kenedy) and
THE WHITE HARVEST (New
man) embody the methods work
ed out by 50 leading convert
makers. These three books are
suitable for both clergy and lai
ty, for convert-making normally
involves recruiting by the latter
and instruction by the former.
In fact, the five books men
tioned are suitable for use as
texts in colleges and seminaries,
in Confraternity of Christian
Doctrine study clubs, for read
ing during meals in monasteries
and during retreats. They should
be in every Catholic home, for
only when the home becomes a
denter of apostolic instruction
will the convert apostolate reach
its maximum success. Each of
the five would be a most useful
Christmas present for a priest,
Brother, Sister, seminarian or
zealous lay Catholic.
“I have a doctor friend,”
writes Carl Brady of San Fran
cisco, “whom I am seeking to in
terest in the faith. I think my
best approach would be to give
him a book containing the stories
of some scholarly converts. Could
you suggest a few such books?”
THE ROAD TO DAMASCUS
(Doubleday) contains the stories
of such noted scholars and writ
ers as Evelyn Waugh, Fulton
Oursler, Clare Boothe Luce,
Theodore Maynard and Prof.
Ross J. S. Hoffman.
‘WHERE I FOUND CHRIST
(Doubleday) presents the con
version stories of such notables
as Prof. Jacques Maritain and
his wife Raissa, Thomas Merton,
Avery Dulles, Jocelyn Toynbee
and Daniel Sargeant. ROADS TO
ROME (Macmillan) features the
stories of such eminent scholars
as Dr. Alexis Carrel, Professors
Marshall Baldwin, John C. H.
Wu, Thomas A. Brady, and writ
ers such as A. J. Cronin and
Mary O’Hara.
THE WAY TO EMMAUS (Mc
Graw-Hill) features especially
the stories of noted divines such
as Michael Andrew Chapman,
Edward Hawks, Max Jordan
and Francis X. Farmer. All four
books boast a galaxy of scholars
who command the respect of
every educated person. They
not only make fascinating read
ing but will plant the seed of
faith in the open mind of every
truth seeker.
“I’d like to get a book,” writes
Mildred Schneider of Chicago,
“which relates the conversion
stories of ‘the little fry,’ the or
dinary men and women we meet
every day. I think it might get
a lady, who comes in once a
week to help with the cleaning,
interested in our religion.
PATHS TO CHRIST (Our
Sunday Visitor) contains the
conversion stories of 40 men and
women in all walks of life: the
housewife, janitor, clerk, steno
grapher, teacher and business
man. It is chuck-full of human
interest and will help to lead
thousands into the fold.
All these books can be secur
ed from your local Catholic
book store or ordered direct
from the publisher. Each will
make an excellent Christmas
present and help the convert
apostolate. In fact, Bishop Cody
is sending autographed copies of
YOU TOO CAN WIN SOULS
and BRINGING SOULS TO
CHRIST as Christmas gifts to
each of his priests, to help them
with their convert work.
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Best Wishes
MEREDITHS
AUGUSTA. GA. |
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thoughts at Christmas. Inspiration
is in the air and is not dependent
on the words of a Christmas col
umn. The sound of carolers, the
chimes of the parish church, the
delighted exclamation of a child,
the stocking on the mantle, the
smells of holly ... all bring deep
thoughts and high hopes.
Christmas is a good time for
the writer to bow out and do her
own private thinking and hoping
and dreaming and praying. AH
that ever could be written about
Christmas has been written. We
need nothing new. All of us . . .
even the most modern . . . want
to contemplate again the simple
story which is “ancient yet ever
new” of. the Birth of a Baby Who
iSGod.
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J. Skinner, 3rd
W. E. Taylor
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