THE YEAR THE INNKEEPER'S WIFE WEPT . . .

 

Catherine Nicolette:

SO it is Christmas once again. The shops are aglow with light, laughter, music, Christmas baubles, fake trees, glitter, cakes, food and bustle. I must say, I thoroughly enjoy all the camaraderie of this time of year.

Welkom Carols by Candlelight

I was paging through old photo albums and newspaper clippings from yesteryear, when I came across an old newspaper article from the "Carols by Candlelight". This was a Nativity play which was held in Welkom every year, during which the audience provided light by means of candles. The photo accompanying the article showed our inspirational producer next to myself dressed as Mother Mary, and various members of the cast dressed as St Joseph and shepherds.

Useless actor

I smiled as I remembered the year I was cast as the innkeeper's wife. I had originally been cast as King Herod; that year there were a lot of sport games going on, which took a number of our male leads away. In desperation, the producer thought that I would be good in the role as the King. 

Three practices after being bellowed at by the co-producer, I was kicked out of the role as a useless actor because I did not have a manly enough stance. The producer apparently thought I would be very upset, and came backstage to comfort me. I could not tell her that secretly I was very relieved. I did not particularly want to have a manly stance.

There is no room

Thereafter I was cast as the innkeeper's wife. This should have been easy: however, I covered myself in disgrace. That year, Carols by Candlelight had a real donkey in the stadium for the Nativity play. The donkey was a sweet animal from one of the neighbouring farm-plots. He was not worried by crowds at all, and patiently carried the actress playing Mother Mary upon his back.

At the practices, the donkey clopped on the concrete flooring of the stadium, which at other times served as the the local roller-skating rink. The actress playing Mother Mary sat on the donkey with the young man taking the part of St Joseph leading the animal by the reins. 

The actor playing Joseph looked deeply worried as he pleaded for a place to stay for his wife who was in labour. The acting was so good that it was almost as if I were transported back in time to the first Christmas. 

The lad playing the innkeeper was masterful in his role, majestically waving Joseph away from the door as he told him in ringing tones, "There is no room in the inn!" Once more, Joseph pleaded for clemency and for a place for his wife to have her baby in safety. 

Desperately I clutched the back of my actor-husband's shirt, saying, "No, no! There is room!" The lad turned back to me, perplexed. Gamely he remained in character, and said to me, "There is no room." I replied, "But there is!" Sweating slightly under the outraged eyes of the co-producer, the innkeeper improvised, "All the rooms are full."

By this time, we had wildly gone off-script, and as I opened my mouth to remonstrate, he said, "Even the dining-hall has people with pallets on the floor. Our inn is full!"

As I looked upon sweet Mother Mary's face, I was struck with a moment of brilliance. Once more, I clutched my actor-husband's sleeve. "No, it's not," I answered in clarion tones, "there is one room!"

By now the lad was resigned. He simply stared at me. I said, "She can have my bed!" The cast collapsed in gales of laughter, the co-producer roared in frustration, and the donkey and lady in blue and white, and her husband in brown and cream clothes, stood quietly looking at me.

Don't let her speak

I could not be kicked out of my role because they had no-one else to replace me. On the three nights of the play, rows of seats around the stadium twinkled with candles as the audience held their melting wax with cardboard  sleeves and sang carols from carol-sheets. Overhead, the stars gazed on us. The weather was mild and perfect, and even the wind did not blow out the candles.

We were all in our Israelite clothing from the time of Christ. Before the Nativity play began, the co-producer told the innkeeper to keep me under control. "For heaven's sake, if she opens her mouth, just don't let her speak," he begged.

When Mary piteously looked at me from the donkey, gripping her abdomen, and Joseph pleaded for help, I couldn't help myself. "There is . . . " I began. Before I could complete the sentence, "... room for you," the innkeeper hastily pulled me by the back of my robe and pushed me behind him, hissing from the side of his mouth, "For pity's sake, be quiet." 

"There is no room in the inn," he intoned loudly, then quietly told the actor playing Joseph, "Get away quickly before she tells you to come in." Joseph went away, and I burst into tears as I watched the sad actor lead Mother Mary and the unborn Babe away from our inn where we could have offered comfort in their plight.

The rest of the play went perfectly. Afterwards, some members of the audience told me how well I had acted. However, they were slightly puzzled because I had wept so piteously. "I can't remember the Bible saying the innkeeper's wife cried," one lady said to me.My eyes swollen and red and I was heartbroken at how the poor Holy Family had been turned away.

After repeated curtain calls, we all prepared to go home. The lovely actress who had played Mother Mary came with the realistic swaddled doll which she had carried as the Baby Jesus, to talk to me. "I know you got into trouble for not sticking to the script," she said to me. "But I'll tell you one thing: when I looked at you from where I was sitting on the donkey, I said to myself, if I were really Mother Mary and needed a place to stay, I know you would have made sure that I got a bed."

So that is Christmas. Tears and joy: happiness and pain. That, too, is life. 

So many years ago we sang Carols by Candlelight, yet the lesson I learned in my young years was that we all have a choice.

The Christmas question is: Do you have room in the inn of your heart for Jesus?

https://lumierecharity.blogspot.com/2025/12/a-christmas-choice-is-there-room-in-inn.html

Image "The Christmas Choice" designed by Chatgpt

HAPPY CHRISTMAS AND A BLESSED NEW YEAR TO ALL COFFEE BREAK READERS

 

Happy Christmas and a Blessed New Year

to all Coffee Break readers.

May blessings be with you and your loved ones

at this time of peace, joy and goodwill.

We pray for an end to war.

We thank Almighty God for His Graces

and Blessings over the past year. 

A candle has been lit by Lumiere in 

remembrance of all who are suffering

or have lost their lives due to war.

Our thoughts are with their families,

colleagues and friends.

TRUE BEAUTY IS NOT ONLY IN THE EYES OF THE BEHOLDER. IT LIES WITHIN THE HANDS . . .

 

Luky:

I REGRET to admit that I had a boyfriend when I was only 11. He was an altar boy and used to fetch me for Benediction, if that makes it any better. Later it turned out that he was keen on my sister and used my affections as a sort of stepping stone into her good graces. In the end I gave him his freedom and her my blessing. The whole thing tinged that summer with a rather melancholy joy.

But why do I remember this  boy? Because the only personal remark he ever made to me was: "You've got such cute fingers, just like little bunches of sausages."

He wasn't fooling. I have fingers like sausages and they're just about as much use to me as sausages. They never hampered my career, but they impair my housewifely skill, rendering me incapable of performing most of the arts considered necessary in a woman.

I myself have daughters, whose fingers resemble mine less than those of their two extremely capable grandmothers. They play the piano with them, crochet, paint pictures and bake sponge cakes that rise. I'm very pleased about it, I'd rather struggle with clever kids than vice versa, but when I see with how comparatively little effort they master arts all women are supposed to be born with ( a fallacy if ever there was one)  I shake my head and look sadly at my sausage fingers.

In some ways it is relaxing not to be able to do things like other women. When my sheets become thin in the centres I just pass them on to friends and buy new ones. They, on the other hand, get that peculiarly feminine glint in their eyes that says: "A half an hour's work on these and they'll do me for five more years." To the uninitiated, she snaps them lengthwise across the centres, then stitches the sides together, hems the new sides which once were the centre and hey presto! You could use the sheet as a hammock.

How do I know? Well, I told you there is something unusual with my fingers but my brain is OK.

Contrary to what you might expect, my husband laughs at my undomesticated ways. I think they fill him with that sense of superiority, so indispensable in a successful husband-wife relationship. Whenever a domestic catastrophe occurs, he bursts our laughing, and all afternoon I can hear him repeating softly to himself, "Oh, I could write a book about that girl."

My mom is a dressmaker by profession and you never saw a garment of any description with a button missing or a tear in it. Once when she was away, I discovered a hole in a table cloth. I don't know what possessed me, but I quickly darned it. Later my mother told me that this was the only time in her life anyone had ever done any sewing for her. Yet, when Sausage Fingers here was expecting a baby, the only one who was not knitting for him or her, was herself.

Catherine Nicolette;

Well now. Mom denigrates her fingers, comparing them to Vogue beauties who model nail beauty aids for a living. I have news for her. Their hands may be lovely, but she has the most beautiful hands in the world.

All I can ever remember is those hands cooking meals for us, cleaning the house, washing clothes and curtains, weeding the garden and holding us close to comfort us. Those hands typed countless letters, documents and newspaper articles, in order to put food on the table when times were tough. They typed church newsletters and theological education by extension courses, to help priests spread the Word of God. Those hands stamped books in the library to bring in a salary, when Dad nearly died and was bedridden for close to a year.

Most of all, those hands held babies and brought us to church, held books to teach us to read and worship. Her hands, later plagued with arthritis, prayed the rosary. In later years Mom learned to play the piano and organ, and played hymns of praise to God during Mass. 

I have always admired Mom's hands and some years ago told her so. She was genuinely surprised and held them up. "These?" I nodded. I told Mom I was planning to write about prayer and the holy rosary, and asked if she would pose for the illustration. She agreed. And here, gracing the page, are the most beautiful hands in all the world: Mom, praying the rosary.

How to pray the rosary - may be found on pages 68 to 68 of the book below, "Three Little Shepherds meet Our Lady of the Rosary" 

Read "Three Little Shepherds meet Our Lady of the Rosary"

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B_JEo1vAsAPsWi1kcU1fT2c2bnc/view?pli=1&resourcekey=0-YzObQjw2dvIHG5zLaY9aHg

Pray at the holy grotto of Our Lady of Lourdes

https://directfromlourdes.com/lourdes_live_tv

With thanks to directfromlourdes.com

LET'S TALK ABOUT THE DOMINICAN SISTERS WHO TAUGHT ME AT SCHOOL . . .

 

Freepik

So the Dominican Sisters who taught me at school still live on in my everyday life. My teachers had profound influence on my developing values, and I often think of and pray for each one. It's not easy being a teacher . . . 

I was six years old, in Sub B. We had a visiting Dominican Sister who was invited to give us a catechism lesson. This Sister gave an impassioned class on God and ourselves as individuals. 

"Why," she cried out, the words wrung from her heart, "Do we spell 'his' in relation to God with a small letter? Why do we always refer to ourselves as 'I' with a capital letter? Is it that we consider ourselves to be more important than God? That is the very thing that led to the Fall in Eden."

My throat constricted as I considered this. I was arduously learning the intricacies of the English alphabet, as well as nuances of upper-case letters and lower-case letters. I was stricken as I realized that what Sister said was true.

"Remember," Sister ended her talk, "that Jesus came to teach us that our pride should not place us at the centre of our lives. God, the greatest, became the most humble, to save us from our sins. 

Look at the Cross. The bar across the wood on which the Saviour hung as reparation for our sins is the cancellation of the "I".

Become humble. Always keep God at the centre, and make sure you use His Name and all pertaining to Him, with capital letters."

Many's the time I have been told I have too many capital letters in my writings about God. Apparently this does not make for easy reading.

I don't care.

I'm still in Sister's camp.

The Congregation of Dominican Sisters of St. Catherine of Siena of King William's Town

https://kwtdominicans.org/

With thanks to kwtdominicans.org

Image 'The Cross of Christ' courtesy of Freepik with CN Whittle

SO WHY IS THERE A FUSS ABOUT A DE-CONSECRATED ALTAR IN A BAR-RESTAURANT IN MARYLAND; ALLEGED NEWS?

 

Freepik - Through Christ to the Father

SO WHY IS THERE A FUSS ABOUT A DE-CONSECRATED ALTAR IN A BAR-RESTAURANT IN MARRIOTT VISITATION HOTEL IN MARYLAND; ALLEGED NEWS? The High Altar serves as backdrop and shelving for liquor bottles; Alleged News. [1] Liquor thus would appear to be served for financial gain in front of a sacred altar which was used to celebrate Holy Mass.

The chapel was de-consecrated in December 2024, Alleged News. [1] Yet in the minds and hearts of the faithful, the chapel remains the sacred remembrance-site of many holy Masses. Moreover, the altar continues as architectural spiritual symbol of the Body of Christ. 

The altar is the Alter Christus

Spiritually, the altar is considered the Alter Christus. As children, many of us were taught the long-standing theological maxim that Christ is the Eternal High Priest, the Sacrificial Victim [2] and the Altar of His own self-sacrificial offering. 

The Redeemer is the Priest, because He is the One Who offers. He is the Victim, because He simultaneously is the One offered. Christ's Body is also the very place of this sacrificial offering in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, and so follows another traditional saying, "the altar is Christ."

The altar is Christ

Jesus is symbolised as the altar, the place of sacrifice. Through Christ we are able to approach the Presence of God to offer our own sacrifices through Jesus to the Father. 

"Those who desired to offer sacrifices to God, had to do so necessarily through an altar. But Christ, the Victim of Salvation, approached to God through Himself. Hence, He was also the altar of His own sacrifice. For us too, in like manner, He is the altar of every one of our sacrifices, for we can bring no offering to God except through Christ."  Maurice de la Taille, S.J. [3] 

Altar is Christ rendered in architectonic form

Since the liturgy is Christ's action expressed in the symbol system of the rite, the altar is Christ rendered in architectonic form which rightly takes on the attributes of Christ Himself. [4]

Christian Altar is the symbol of Christ Himself (CCC)

The Catechism of the Catholic Church states that the "Christian altar is the symbol of Christ Himself, present in the midst of the assembly of His faithful." (CCC 1383) [5]

St Ambrose asked, "For what is the altar of Christ if not the image of the Body of Christ?" The saint asks elsewhere, "The altar represents the Body [of Christ] and the Body of Christ is on the altar." (CCC 1383) [5]

The sacred altar

The altar is not a remote and isolated image of Christ, but one standing in the midst of His people. For this reason the altar is given the most prominent location in a church, occupying a place which is the centre toward which the attention of the whole congregation of the faithful naturally turns. 

Christ's eternity and never-ending commitment

For similar reasons, the Church's legislation strongly encourages that altars be fixed to the floor to indicate Christ's eternity and never-ending commitment to His people.

Christ is the rock and cornerstone

Further, at least its mensa (top surface of the altar) is to be made of stone, echoing the scriptures which repeatedly call Christ a rock and cornerstone (1 Pt 2:4, 1 Cor 10:4, Eph 2:20). Stone is meant to indicate Christ's strength and permanence. 

Christ is the living Altar in the Heavenly Temple

An altar, then, gives a foretaste of the table of Heaven because Christ is "the living Altar in the Heavenly Temple," [6] Who "serves the Heavenly meal." [7] Many Christians revere the sacred symbol of the altar as a symbol for Christ's Body.

The altar now hosting liquor for a bar

Many feel distress regarding the altar being used as shelving for liquor in a bar-restaurant in Maryland; Alleged News. [1] and [8]

Further option

Would the restaurant-bar consider the option of making a small chapel around the altar? This would offer the option of a sacred space for spiritual prayer. The altar thus could continue in a setting suitable for such a spiritual gem.

Petition to ask for relocation of the bar

There is a petition to ask for relocation of the bar from the High Altar to another area of the hotel. 

WHY NOT SIGN THE PETITION?

https://americaneedsfatima.org/petitions/marriott-visitation-hotel-hosts-liquor-bar-in-former-chapel-petition-ee25602

                                           https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4QslmNU8iwQ

[1] America Needs Fatima. Marriott 'Visitation Hotel'  hosts liquor bar in former Chapel; Alleged News

https://americaneedsfatima.org/petitions/marriott-visitation-hotel-hosts-liquor-bar-in-former-chapel-petition-ee25602

[2] John 1:29 and Hebrews 4:14-5:10; 9:23-10:18

[3] St Joseph Parishioner. Jesus Christ: Priest, Sacrifice (Victim), Temple and Altar. 2024

https://www.saintjoseph.ca/blog/jesus-christ-priest-sacrifice-victim-temple-and-altar/

[4] Denis R. McNamara. Altar as Alter Christus: Ontology and Sacramentality 

https://adoremus.org/2016/06/altar-alter-christus-ontology-sacramentality/

[5] Catechism - 1383

https://www.catholiccrossreference.online/catechism/#!/search/1383

[6] RCDA, "The Order of Dedication of An Altar," 1.

[7] RDCA, Decree

[8] Foxnews: A Maryland hotel has a bar at the altar of a former school chapel, and critics want it removed: Alleged News.

https://www.foxnews.com/media/maryland-hotel-has-bar-altar-former-school-chapel-critics-want-moved

With thanks to americaneedsfatima.org, saintjoseph.ca, adoremus.org, Catechism, RDCA, Foxnews and youtube

Image 'Through Christ to the Father' courtesy of Freepik AI generated content with CN Whittle

EVERY MINER'S LIFE TELLS A STORY

 

Catherine Nicolette:

MY MINER FATHER was once trapped underground for thirty-six hours. As his daughter, I know the agonies a family goes through awaiting the return of the loved one. As well as the uncertainty of knowing whether your beloved Dad will return as breadwinner or - as other miners did - in a body bag.

As I watched the billowing smoke from the mining shaft roll in darkened clouds into the skyline from underground fires, casting a pall of dark smoke as day shifted to night, I prayed with every fibre of my being for my Dad to be returned to us alive.

He was. Not all were.

Stilfontein

Against this background, my heart was so sad when I heard of the deaths of miners at Stilfontein. 

Pathos

The pathos of body bags being lifted to the surface from mine shafts as well as the plight of emaciated miners stumbling to the surface led me to realize that each miner is a child of God.

Unemployment

Every life tells a story. Every plight which arises from unemployment tells a tale. The saddest of all are the stories of bodies underground, burial areas under the surface.

Rest in the Arms of God

May all who have died in the depths of the earth rest in the Arms of God. Let us remember all who struggle to earn a living and sacrifice their lives and safety to ensure shelter and sustenance for their loved ones. 

And may all of us who have benefited from the use of gold, gems and minerals, pause in silence in remembrance of those who mined them.