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4 GEORGIA BULLETIN, THURSDAY, DECEMBER 19, 1968
Most Rev. Thomas A. Donnellan D.D, J.C.D. - Publisher
Rev. R. Donald Kiernan - Acting Editor
Wendy Marris - Assistant Editor
Member of the Catholic Press Association
and Subscriber to N.C.W.C. News Service
Telephone 261-1281
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2699 Peachtree N.E
P.O. Box 11667
Northside Station
Atlanta, Georgia 30305
Published Every Week at the Decatur - DeKalb News
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The opinions contained in these editorial columns are •
the free expressions of free editors in a free Catholic press.
“To You...A
Saviour Is Born 99
Even the Israelites had their outcasts. Even they had their
unwanted and their unwashed. The one cherished hope of every
self-respecting Jew was that his shepherd brothr would remember his
place - with the sheep, with whom he was umistakably allied because
of his shaggy countenance. “The poor ones” they were called by
many. “The poor little ones of the Lord” they were called by history.
Historical happenings were their forte. Wasn’t it around their fires
that the Red Sea was again and again divided for Moses? Wasn’t it
from their lore that the urchin David again and again felled the giant
with a finality of death? Wasn’t it their fireside memories that
reproduced the brief moment of Solomon’s splendor? And wasn’t it
their desperate hopes that kept the promise of the Christ alive? They
remembered .they kept the history vivid in their traditions and alive in
their faith. They were “the faithful ones of the Lord” and for their
faithfulness they were to be immortalized in Saint Luke’s Gospel -
“To you — to you is bom this day -- a Saviour, who is Christ the
Lord.”
We still have our men of faith and the Saviour comes to them
again. Even though the torrents are still raging - men terrorize each
other in battle, apartheid is praised and practiced, the Holy land has
become a land of Holy war, little girls are put in jail - the Saviour is
bom to the faithful ones. In the glitter of the tinsel let us not be
blinded. It as to you, man of faith, the Saviour is bom.
Father Noel C. Burtenshaw
GEORGIA PINES
R. I. P.
This week God called to himself two men whose influence on
those about them ranked them among the great of our generation.
Widely separated in years - Dr. Karl Barth was eighty-two, Fr.
Thomas Merton was fifty-three—their lives also were different,
though in both cases singularly creative and inspirational. The one
was a prestigious scholar of systematic theology, the other a reflective
monk and a poet. Each in his own way was influential; Dr. Barth gave
new direction to his time,.Fr. Merton was a symbol of total religious
dedication to his generation and beyond it.
It is idle to predict, at the moment of their death, what history
will record about the deeds of men and their final influence on
humankind. Time has its own way of reversing our prophecies, and
making footnotes of things that seem written forever in a larger type.
For our day, at least, we can say that here were two very pure spirits
in whom the love of the Lord glowed with such brightness as to be
reflected among many others. Each had a Charisma of his own,and the
world paused often to hear their voices. They have gone from us now,
one in age the other in accident, and we must live in our memories.
What they left may not be for the ages, but it is enough that they
served so well the age that was given them.
The Pilot
ftb *1*
CHRIST, THE SAVIOR, IS REBORN
To Our Readers
From the Staff of the
Georgia Bulletin
Christmas Is A Coming
—By R. Donald Kiernan ■ i —
Four wepks ago, reminiscing about differen
Thanksgiving Days, it came to mind that
similar column on Christmas Day might b
appropriate. If I were to be asked what was th
most memorable Christmas I have ever spent a
a priest, I don’t think that just one stands oul
there are three Christma
Days which I particularl;
remember.
Christmas Day, 1949.
had been a priest abou
seven months and wa
serving as an assistan
pastor at Savannah’
Cathedral of St. John thi
Baptist. The 1 a t <
Archibshop Geral<
O’Hara returned to thi
United States. He ha<
been expelled from Roumania, by thi
Communist government. To a Cathedra
literally packed, the silence was overwhelminj
as the Archbishop related experiences anc
stories of modern day persecution happeninj
to fellow Catholics. There was hardly a dry ey<
in the Cathedral. The sermon made one prouc
to be a catholic and just as proud to live in the
United States.
Another Christmas was an occasion which a
priest seldom experiences. I offered the
Midnight Mass in my home parish church of St.
Mary s in Taunton. At the time I was stationed
as an assistant at the Shrine of the Immaculate
Conception with the late Monsignor Grady.
The previous Christmas he had been home and
I guess to sort of “even the score” he asked me
if I would like to go home for Christmas.
Needless, to say it was an opportunity I
immediately seized, although looking back
now it was the Monsignor’s last Christmas, for
late in April, he suffered a fatal heart attack.
My third memorable Christmas took place
in Gainesville. Late on the afternoon the day
before Christmas, it began to rain. The
temperature dropped and combined with the
rain it made driving real hazardous. The church
was nearly empty that night.
Morning brought sunshine, but the
temperature remained below freezing and
everything was frozen stiff. Electricity went
off, and with it the heat. But the people braved
the elements and the three morning Masses
were jammed pack. No heat in the church and
the only lights were the candles on the altar.
People sang aloud and in a church registering
forty degrees, there was the warmest spirit
present I have ever witnessed. Of course there
were other Christmases in other towns. I think
that each town had its own reflective
experience. Take Monroe, for example, The
first Mass to be offered in that little Chapel of
Saint Anna took place at Christmas. The
people, long without a worship place of their
own, were so proud and they decorated the
chapel beautifully. But we had not counted on
rain, and the mud must have been a foot deep
on that property.
I never did offer a Midnight Mass in
Cedartown, because I went to the mission in
Carrollton, while the visiting priest took the
Cedartown assignment. And then there are
the people in all of these towns. They usually
forget that the “Padre” has to get up early the
next morning, and in their generousity they are
insistant on the priest stopping by for
breakfast. I always enjoyed this, but had
regrets the next morning when I had only two
or three hours sleep.
A tradition in Gainesville was to go by
Henry Ansaldo’s house. Henry (or rather, his
wife is an excellent cook. But he had a dog. I
might add:.a mean dog. I always had the idea
that the dog thought I was eating his food
because he never left my side. At the risk of
losing Henry’s friendship I asked Henry if he
would mind keeping the dog locked up. I was
transferred the following year to Atlanta.
