Newspaper Page Text
t
The Southern Cross, December 16, 1965—PAGE 5
The Stonewall Jackson Christmas
Sister Mary Jean Dorcy, O.P.
Jackson is a nice long little
doggie with a maximum of pat
ting space. A regal head tes
tifies that very high class
beagles contirbuted to his an
cestry. He hangs very low on
the horizon, as is the comical
fashion of beagles, and there
is an extra crimp in his tail
which as a consequence would
never wag properly. This is
not Jackson’s fault, as he is
incurably gregarious and tries
desperately to demonstrate
his feelings in the time-honor
ed manner of dogs, but the tail
is given to erratic exercises
of its own. Because of this,
not even the fine head and va
liant heart of Jackson would
qualify him for the showroom.
However, the most blue-
blooded of beagles can well
envy him. They can have their
best - in- show ribbons and
their gold cups. Jackson has
a circle of friends that ex
tends far beyond the lovely
old town of Cuernavaca where
he lives. They are—or were,
recently—little boys. No lack
of affection has ever darken
ed his horizon, for his first
Christmas found him with 24
—no, 25 counting Father Was
son—people who thought he
was perfect. (Have you that
many?)
THAT TAIL
It was not his perfections
that caused him to be chosen
out of the litter by a unani
mous vote of 24. It was that
crimp in the tail, and the fact
that he appeared to be the
runt of the litter. The boys
discussed it gravely as such
important business deserved,
and decided that probably no
one else would want him; this
is a world where people per
sist in demanding perfection
of other people and other
things. Someone’s heart had
opened to let them in, and they
could do no less for him. So
the pup became the 26th resi
dent ‘of Nuestros Pequenos
Hermanos (Our Little Broth
ers), a drafty old brewery off
the tourist route from Cuer
navaca to Mexico City.
Who named him Stonewall
Jackson is not too clear; some
wandering American, ob
viously. For all his Ameri
can name, Jackson was a dedi
cated Mexican; he liked his
meat spiced if possible, say a
nice tasty tamale that would
scorch a Northern palate be
yond repair. But since he liv
ed in a family where meat was
served — usually — once a
week, he soon adapted himself
to the situation. Like the 24
smaU gods and one large one
that made up his firmament,
he was quite willing to accept
whatever came his way. Later
he would develop an instinct
for looking as if “thank you,
he couldn’t eat another bite.”
Boys who had little enough
themselves were not supposed
to smuggle food out to him;
he would solve this problem by
conveying subtly that it was
more fun to hunt for rats. He
was nicely designed for this
sport, as he was fast on his
feet and had a low center of
gravity. But he had to wait
until he was a little bigger
than the rats, and that first
Christmas of 1954 he was stiU
very smalL
Christmas in Mexico is, or
in any case was, the day of the
Holy Child. Gifts to children
came on the day of the Kings,
Epiphany. On Christmas one
gave gifts to the Christ Child
whose birthday it was. Now
the loud red stranger with the
reindeer, (animals quite out of
place in sunny Mexico), is
ruining the gentle and beauti
ful traditions with his noisy
commercial laughter.
Santa Claus did not come to
Nuestras pequenos Hermanos
that Christmas and he is un
likely to go there even yet.
This is because Santa Claus
is not overfond of the poor.
Only the little Christ and His
peasant friends feel complete
ly at home in the company of
those who cannot buy. On the
day of the Kings, the boys
would receive gifts, though
they did not know that as they
prepared for that first Christ
mas. This of itself was far too
exciting to allow of any dis
tractions. And if you have ne
ver in your life received a
“gift” wrapped in paper, you
do not miss it. AH gifts, of
course, do not come wrapped
and labeled. Christmas is al
ways the gift of God’s love
and to those boys love itself
was new.
GETTING READY
Preparations for the great
feast were novel and absorb
ing. To make a gift for the
Christ Child one labored
mightily over a lazy habit, or
curbed a hot temper, or was
helpful or silent or diligent;
above all, one struggled to
think of acts of kindness, to
make straight the paths, to
make the rough ways plain.
(What, after all, would the
Christ child want with money
and the things money can buy,
He Who made the rainbows
and set the galaxies with
jewels beyond pricing?)
And then the Padre, with his
sanitary American notions,
insisted on a chilly scrub-up
in the river at the last min
ute before the feast. The
Navajo Indians call January
“Me-yo sitch ta-watch” —
“Month when the little lizard
freezes its tail off,” Even
in beautiful flowery Cuerna
vaca the little lizard would
shiver if required to bathe in
the river in December.
A patient and gifted volun
teer had trained a two-part
choir to make its first ap
pearance on the feast. It is
not easy to sing two-part mu
sic from rote memory, but
these wriggling small citi
zens were the heirs of a mu
sical people. Besides, they
now had something tp rejoice
about, and the unsung songs
of a short and sorrowful life
time now emerged under the
choirmaster’s hand.
When the fascinating, mys
tifying preparations were over
and the great day of the Vigil
came, there was enough sup
pressed excitement to have
launched the boys, house
and all, into space. For the
young priest who had found
himself standing as a shield
between these boys and the
cruelties of the world that
had no place for them, it was
a day of great joy and of so
ber reflection. The office
for the day sang exultantly,
“. . .for tomorrow you shall
see His glory.” But you
couldn’t, unfortunately, over
look today.
He watched his scrubbed
small brothers come tiptoe
ing or tumbling into the sha
dowy chapel, awed by the feel
ing of being up and about at
an hour that most children
never see; awed more by the
living reality of something
they had never known existed.
The discovery of love i s for
everyone a personal miracle,
carrying with it a taste of
Pentecostal madness; it is a
new birth, a new being, an
answer to all of pain’s ques
tions. The young priest who
did not know how he could
feed or clothe the acquired
family looked down into the
faces where his love had light
ed the Christmas candles, and
decided that there were more
important things to think about
than rent and mattresses and
running water. As he entered
the smaH sacristy to vest for
Mass he heard the choir rust
ling into place, and he shared
sentiments with the gentle San
Jose; a cave it may be, but
Christ is born to us.
Venid Pastorcitos comes
singing out of Spain as a folk
song of a simple people who
watch their flocks as the shep
herds of Bethlehem did. Six
months ago these boys were
lurking in the crumbling slums
of Mexico City, and had never
seen a sheep. But they sang
out of reverent hearts,
“Come now, ye little shep
herds,
Come to worship
The Infant Jesus who is in
the portal.
Come slowly on tiptoe, and
quietly, too;
The Virgin Mary, the Virgin
Mary
Is putting Him to sleep.’ ;
The two-part choir outdid
itself, and a harried choir
master relaxed. Shortly it
developed that this was a
three-part choir; the third
part, which came from very
low down, near the floor, was
rendered in a quavering con
tralto on the diphthong “ou.”
Stonewall Jackson had never
sung before, either, but he
gave it all he had. Frantic
maneuvers to silence him pro
duced no effect. If the gods
were singing, he too would
sing.
OUT — AND IN AGAIN
Sleight - of - hand conveyed
him, wriggling and whimper
ing, out of the presence of
his sworn friends. In the out
er darkness, the wailing and
gnashing of teeth rose to a
frantic pitch, and the other
two parts of the choir waver
ed slightly. Were the sheep
left outside when the little
Lord came to the cave? The
ox and the ass, did Joseph
insist that they go outside,
out of respect for their Crea
tor? - WeU, of course not.
Out of sight of the struggl
ing choirmaster, Jackson was
smuggled back in, his ecsta
tic wriggles quieted in the
warm haven under someone’s
shirt.
That Christmas night, Jack-
son discovered the joys of
fiesta. Unabashed—indeed,
with great enthusiasm —
he shared the Mexican Christ
mas salad, the frijoles, the
rice, and the meat which some
kind person had made avai
lable.
In later years he was to ex
tend his dissipations to in
clude picnics of all kinds. A
true son of this lovely land,
he knew how to rejoice with
those who rejoiced. He could
hear the preliminary crackle
of the 100-peso note left by
some benefactor to pay for
the bus to go picnicking; he
could smell out the prepara-
There was no answer to that,
so Father made none. He
walked out into a dark world
where the sad eyes of a house
ful of boys — by now more
than a hundred — looked re-
proachfuUy at him by day and
haunted him by night. When
it came right down to it, the
veterinary could not carryout
his humane suggestion. Des
perate, he concocted a spe
cial splint ana went to work
on the shattered bone. Jack-
son was an exemplary patient.
The day he came back to Nues
tras Pequenos Hermanos, it
was a second fiesta, an echo
Of that first Christmas when
Father Wasson first discov
ered that his fantastic plan
could, somehow, be carried
out.
»iff .
l/M" ' ' .
This Christmas of 1965 is
Jackson’s eleventh; he is old
now, and he hates the rain.
tions almost before the tired
and patient women had begun
putting the lunch together.
Once at the picnic grounds,
no one ate so much, clowned
so whole-heartedly, or romp
ed so frantically as Jackson.
Exhausted with the effort of
running 25 ways at once, he
dropped gratefully into the
heap of sticky, slumbering
children on the bus going
home.
Not even a very broadmind
ed adult would encourage a
dog to sleep with the child
ren. Father Wasson made
attempts to enforce the en
tirely reasonable and sanitary
rule that Jackson was to sleep
outside. But Jackson could
also mourn with those that
mourn; outside was, in fact
often warmer than inside, but
when a boy had a toothache
or a heartache, it was the
rapeutic to have Jackson drap
ed across his feet, looking
at him with sorrowful eyes,
or snoring securely against
his back. When you are poor
you don’t throw out the only
medicine you’ve got.
Jackson in later years dis
covered pain for himself. He
was hit by a car and one leg
was so badly broken that the
veterinary said to a worried
Father Wasson that it was not
possible to save the little dog.
The only humane thing to do
was to put him kindly to sleep.
When the great rains of sum
mer thunder down on the Val
ley of Mexico he mutters to
himself and crawls into one
of the dormitory beds to wait
it out. Of late years some of
the newcomers to Jackson’s
circle are sometimes unheed
ing of his age and privileges,
and have gone so far as to
tease him.
This brings about a quick
and pointed sermon from one
of the older inhabitants. They
do not remember personally
that first Christmas, because
the pioneers had graduated
now out of the old house at
Cuernavaca where today only
the little boys—52 of them,
ages two to nine—live. The
more than 400 boys and girls
who have passed under the
skillful hands of Father Was
son carry with them, as weU
as the formal and informal
instructions that make his
program a lasting one, a warm
affection for a little dog with
a bent tail, who has pioneered
along with the priest in this
experiment in humanity.
LOVE
“In the end,” says Fathei
Vann in“The Paradise Tree,”
“we shall be judged on love.”
Erich Fromm, in one of his
books, explains the sad fact
that “There are many peo
ple who have never seen a lov
ing person, or a person with
integrity, or courage, or con
centration. It is quite obvious
that in order to be sensitive
to oneself, one has to have an
image of complete, healthy,
human functioning. . .there is
teaching that can only be done
by the simple presence of a
loving, mature person.”
There is nothing very com
plicated about the system used
at Nuestros Pequenos Herma
nos; it was stated quite sim
ply, long ago, as “If you do
not love your brother, whom
you do see, how can you love
God, Whom you do not see?”
By standards Santa Claus
would fail to recognize, these
boys are exceedingly rich.
People who are oppressed with
what T. S. Eliot calls the “..
burnt - out ends of smoky
aays,” or who are fond of
quoting “Alas for the rarity
of Christian charity under the
sun” would do their souls a
favor by attending Mass with
a group of these boys who have
been rescued from some des
perate circumstance and edu
cated for a productive Christ
ian life.
Here is a world in minia
ture? the faces are all young,
and they come irom every
where. Aztec, Olmec* Toltec,
Maya—all the proud races of
New World history; the proud,
intelligent faces of the bearded
white men who came riding,
clothed with thunder,* out of
the seas where the sun rises
and changed the face of a
hemisphere; Irish eyes and
Scandinavian bones and Italian
hair and the blue eyes ofEng-
land—all these are here in a
small world that is running
on an orbit of its own. The
dignity of all these peoples is
respected in the basic recog
nition of brotherhood. Per
haps only when the rest of the
world can look in the same
way at the family of mankind
wiU we have what we each
year hODefuUy sing (without
very much conviction ) —
“peace on earth to men of
good will.”
“Let us be stretched out to
wards the rest of men,
Embracing them with love,
and chiding none,
Lightening the burden all we
can;
And this with such love in
our hearts
That we shall grieve that
there are any beyond
our help.”
. . .John Tauler
(NC FEATURES)
4m
ana.
ide-by-Side
Convenient
280 pound FREEZER
NO FROST EVER
•
Exclusive
FROST-MAGNET
stops frost before it •
ever starts!
ZERO DEGREE TEMPERATURES
keeps food safer, fresher, longer
Refrigerator
Freezer
ks:# fi*!# :/ - -S‘- ■
<s> .
22 cu. ft.!
Only 35 %” wide!
Automatic juice rack in door for
“first in, first out” fingertip ser
vice. Holds large and small cans.
Built-in shelf retainer on each
shelf keeps foods from acciden-
tally slipping out of place.
Makes storing easier.
•
CONTINUOUS SUPPLY OF ICE
CUBES AT YOUR FINGERTIPS
tee cube bin in door! The most
convenient storage place for a
high-use item. Puts “party quan
tity" of cubes up front for im
mediate use.
'Refill Ice Bin
from door!
Exclusive!
PERSONALIZED REFRIGERATOR
Arrange interior to suit the size
and shape of foods you use!
Exclusive!
ADJUSTABLE SHELVES!
Put in any position you want!
Just by lifting and replacing'
shelf in hidden step iadder
track at back of cabinet.
No wasted corners or flimsy
shelves! No space-stealing
posts, or complex mechanisms.
Exclusive!
New idea in convenience!
Put giant porcelain crisper at
any convenient height! Holds
longest stalk of celery or biggest
cabbage. Keeps % bushel of
vegetables in right humidity anS
temperature for days and days.
Meat keeper scientifically de
signed to control temperature
and humidity for perfect meat
storage.
Exclusive!
STOR-MOft DOOR
Lift-out egg trdy "holds 16 eggs.
Butter conditioner with unbreak
able butter dish, with Lifetime*
Guarantee, keeps butter at the
consistency you want
Condiment shelf keeps small
bottles out of the way.
Utility shelf with pull down door
holds up to 5Vfe. pounds of
■jttiiiheese. 'I' ■
Lay ejector tray on ice bio.
M
Push release lever dawn
Adjustable door
stop can be set for
90° or 135° door
angle.
Glide-out Basket
holds quantity of
bulky, hard-to-
store packages.
22 cu. ft. and only 35%'
wide
Adjustable door stop can bd set
for 90* or 135® door angle.
icar-
tOBS fit snugly in
door.Eachshelf
keeps 4 cartons
Glide-out basket
provides big storage
for bulky melons,
oranges, apples and
“in season” fruits.
Til quart-size bev
erage battles are
out of the way in
the Storjitor door,
too! *
WHITE & COPPER
REG. $649 SPECIAL
with your old refrig.
*549
SEE
TONY OR
SAL ALIFFI
EASY TERMS
CfaHA. TioadL
APPLIANCE CENTER
PHONE AD 6-8241
OPEN EVENINGS
’TIL 9 P.M.
FREE PARKING
SAVANNAH OWNED & OPERATED TO GIVE YOU THAT PERSONAL TOUCH
CROSSROADS SHOPPING CENTER
Other Frost Free
Amana Refrigerator
as low as
$299 with
old refrigerator
from now ’til CHRISTMAS
BUILT-IN LOOK
without normal high
installation cost!
No remodeling, no special
“breather” vents or grills! All
you do is slide the Amana in
to the area you want. You can
have cabinets that completely
surround top, sides. The Amana
22 is engineered to perform at
top- efficiency even when it is
“built-in.”