¡Viva la Iglesia Catolica!

Merry Christmas

As Christmas approaches, three priests from the archdiocese share their favorite memories. Here is a story from Fr. William Banowsky.


Looking back at all my Christmas memories, picking out one to highlight among my favorites is almost Herculean. How does one narrow it down when there are so many to choose from?

Do I pick my first Christmas as a priest? Do I pick the year we went to Hawaii? How does one narrow it down, especially when all those Christmases were special, all leaving a warm, hot chocolatey feeling in my heart.

But if I must choose, it would be Christmas 2015.
  
Growing up as a child of two cultures (United States and Spain), I always appreciated the opportunity to spend Christmas in Spain. In addition to getting to be around my abuela, tios, tias and primos (grandmother, aunts, uncles and cousins). Madrid in late November and December is just special, especially around the Plaza Mayor and the Puerta del Sol.

Christmas and Advent decorations everywhere. The Christmas market taking over the Plaza Mayor, selling artisan hand crafted nativity pieces to not just make the manger, but also to build an entire representation of Bethlehem! Not to mention churros con chocolate and a warm bocadillo de calamares (calamari sandwich), which not just warms the body but also the soul.

Christmas time in Madrid, for me, has always been a special and blessed moment. But if I am honest, part of the reason Christmas 2015 was so special was because it was one of my Abuela’s last Christmases, and I was able to be there and spend it with her. 

A typical Spanish Christmas is heavily centered on Christmas Eve, Noche Buena, and in my family, this was no exception. That year I traveled to Madrid with two of my seminary classmates, one from Tulsa and one from Little Rock. As both were fluent in Spanish, language was not an issue.

However, towards the end of her life my Abuela began experiencing a lot of hearing loss and had no idea that they had been speaking to her in Spanish. It is also important to note that Christmas Eve in Spain is an extroverted Night Owl’s paradise, usually consisting with Mass at either or 8 or 9 o’clock at night, followed by dinner immediately after with festivities going to as late as three or four in the morning.

That year was no different, gathering for Mass with many of the extended family, then heading to my Tio Juan’s house for dinner, merriment and impromptu Christmas skits by my younger cousins and cousin’s kids.

At midnight, we placed a figure of the infant Jesus in the manger and began signing Villancicos (Spanish Christmas Carols). Usually everyone leads a song, whether by choice or by peer pressure, and my family was really trying to get the three seminarians to sing something.

So we gathered in the kitchen to game plan. “Do we sign Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer? Frosty the Snowman? Jingle Bells? Silent Night? Away in a Manger?” And pretty much every song I suggested was met with a firm “no.”

Finally, exacerbated, I said, “Let’s just sing the Salve Regina!” Surprisingly, the other seminarians agreed. We made are way to the living room, with more than 40 people crowded around at 1 a.m. Christmas morning to see what the American seminarians were going to do.

As confidently as we could, we chanted the Salve Regina in Latin. Immediately after the song ended, my Abuela immediately shot up out of her seat and shouted, “¡Viva la Iglesia Catolica!” – Long Live the Catholic Church! 

All week she had thought that she and my two friends did not share a language, but here as we sang together in Latin she thought, “Finally a language that brings us all together.”
The shouting of “¡Viva la Iglesia Catolica!” is a reminder of how the universal Church unites us, especially as we celebrate our holy days. Across the entire world, we are bound together by our faith and Church, and while we may celebrate our traditions with similarities or differences depending on country of origin, we are united by our love and need for Christ.

That is why that Christmas is so special, not just because it was one of the last moments I shared with my Abuela, but that reminder she gives me that regardless of where we are, we are connected on Christmas by an ardent desire to welcome the Messiah into the world.

So, in her honor I continue to shout ¡Viva la Iglesia Catolica!


See related stories:
Finding blessings in a blizzard 
By Fr. Stephen Jones

Gifts are great, but memories last forever 
By Fr. Cristobal De Loera