The Dance of the Ice Crystals

It was a cold, crisp December evening. All the stars were out and showing off. A full moon would soon make its appearance. It was Christmas Eve. Father had just parked his car and was walking toward the church. It had been a great year and the large windows of the new Activity Center greeted him on either side of the church courtyard. He had turned the lights on in the Activity Center so the congregation would have a good look as they strolled in for Midnight Mass. Father was very proud of his accomplishment and he would give a nice, light "feel good" sermon to the folks who had so generously paid for his latest achievement.

Around 11:00pm, the church choir came in, put on their new robes and began their Christmas program. Father liked this as the choir "warmed up" the parishioners for the Mass. There were times that he felt more of an entertainer than a priest, but he had learned to ignore these doubts over time. The parish was growing. There were plenty committees to handle liturgy, music, religious education, etc. and he had got the parish on solid financial footing. What more was there to do? And yet, there had been no vocations from his church during the five years of his tenure. During vocation week, some old nag put a note in the collection basket "All leaves, no figs - Mark 11". Father dismissed this jibe with a simple "You can't please all the people all the time".

The Midnight Mass began timely and with great pomp and circumstance. The choir was singing their lungs out, and Father chose to roll out the incense at this time of year. For the older people, it reminded them of times past while the young found it an amusing anachronism. Father did not care. The incense reminded him of his days as an altar boy serving Midnight Mass and that was all that counted.

As he started his homily, he looked out over the congregation. They were a well to do lot. This was a fast growing affluent suburb and he tailored his sermons accordingly. His predecessor was too much "fire and brimstone" and had been reassigned at his own request to a rural parish. Father had done so well that the Bishop had called him earlier in the week and asked him to consider taking on an inner city parish for his next assignment. Father had begged off, saying he still had too many irons in the fire, but had concluded his talk with the Bishop that "he would think about it". He did think about it for five seconds and dismissed it from his mind.

It was near the end of his sermon when it happened. Father was doing great, telling a few jokes and keeping his homily light, when an ice storm came rushing upon the church. Snow and small ice particles starting hitting the windows and the roof. It was the wind though, that gave Father just a bit of a chill. His mother had always told him that the wind was the Holy Spirit and when Holy Spirit had something to say, you would feel the chill of the wind in your bones. For a moment, his mind went to the grassy hillside where his mother and father were buried. He would like to go there now and seek some comfort. Father quickly snapped back to reality. He closed his sermon as the church lights started to flicker. Better finish the Mass soon and get the crowd home before we are all iced in.

Father hurried through the rest of the Mass. An uneasiness settled in the back of his mind. Holy Communion took awhile as all the "twice yearly" Catholics made their way to receive Our Lord in the Eucharist. Father could hear the ice storm continue, pounding his church and the new Activity center. Father gave his final blessing and with the closing hymn, the altar boys lead the procession down the center of the church and to the rear. He followed them, smiling and shaking hands with his parishioners as he made his way to his station in the entrance foyer. Now that he was in the rear of the church, he looked out the back door to see how bad the situation was. The wind had died down now to a sigh. It did not gust anymore as if it had lost hope; the wind just sighed. Everything on the grounds and in the parking lot had a type of glaze upon it. The light of the full moon shimmered on the landscape. Even the windows of the activity center were not spared as they were covered with ice. He felt good about it all. It had been another fine Christmas Eve Mass with a good sermon, answered with a fine collection. Now, a nice cup of hot chocolate and then quickly to bed it would be. There were morning Masses to be said. Thank God, it looked like the weather was clearing.

As the congregation passed him by with smiles, nods, and handshakes, he began hearing "Oohs" and "Ahhs" coming from courtyard. Glancing out every now and then, he saw people in small groups gathered around the windows of the Activity Center. The lights of the center had gone out. The storm must have tripped a breaker, but the light of the full moon, Our Lady's Lamp, was in full splendor on the ice crystals. The occasional passing cloud would splash the light in various forms. Instead of rushing to their cars after Mass, these Catholics were glued around the various windows pointing out shapes they each could see.

Father had dismissed the last of his congregants. One of the deacons came up and said, "Father, I will lock up. Go home and get some rest". Father grabbed his coat and walked out to the courtyard. Although some of the people had left, there was still a considerable crowd gathered around the windows, pointing out the strange shapes that the storm had created. Father slowly walked up and down the courtyard, looking at all the windows. He could see something there, but could not make it out. He felt a bit of fatigue coming on and thought it best to head for home. Eight o'clock comes early and he did not want to be crabby for the first morning Mass. As he started for his car, a snowball hit him squarely in the back of the head. It was a real stinger. Father turned quickly to see a youth with long blond curly hair. The youth laughed, "Baptized again!" And ran off into the night. Father gave thought to chasing the youth but wrote the whole matter off to youthful enthusiasm and he prayed that the youth would only spend five hundred years in Purgatory!

He arrived at the apartment he jokingly called "The Rectory", had a quick glass of hot chocolate, set the alarm and then literally hit the bed. He was sound asleep in a minute.

The ice crystals came back in his dreams. He saw them, dancing, laughing, teasing him. They would swirl around him and when he tried to grab them, they danced away. When he got too close, they threw themselves on window panes. This kept happening, over and over again. Now, he was beginning to see and understand the shapes. He began to see Our Lady in the stations of her life. Here she was, alone and softly weeping in a small room. She was pregnant and alone. Joseph had not had his dream yet and suspected her of unfaithfulness. She trusted in God that He would deliver her if He delighted in her. Next, he saw her worried as she sat upon a small donkey. Joseph was straining, trying to get the donkey to move faster. She was heavy with child and Bethlehem seemed so far away. Father then saw her with her baby on her lap. The child looked about ten months old. Our Lady was smiling as the baby touched the heads of the wise men, a blessing for sojourners who came from far away. In the next scene, Joseph was pulling on the donkey, always looking back. Mary was holding the child and quietly praying; the Holy Family was fleeing to Egypt.

Father then saw Mary smiling, walking slowly with her boy. The child looked about four year of age. Joseph, Mary and Jesus were approaching Nazareth. There was peace here. In the next vision, Father saw Mary and Joseph wandering about a large city, worried looks on their faces, searching and trying not to panic; Jesus was lost in Jerusalem. Now, Jesus was a grown man. He carried a sack with Him. Mary and Jesus were on the outskirts of Nazareth at Joseph's grave. She is weeping silently as she gives Him a goodbye hug. This is the beginning of the end. Father now sees this vision giving away to something terrible. Mary, dressed in black, is waiting on the side of the road at Calvary. She is seeing her Son for the last time. He has been horribly mutilated and is struggling with the Cross. Their eyes meet; no words are spoken, no words need to be spoken. Father now finds himself inside the vision. He is at the foot of the Cross. Our Lady is holding the body of the crucified Christ, trying to wash the body with her tears. Then she looks up to him.

Father awoke in a sweat. It was 7 am and still dark outside. He knew what he had to do.

He called the Bishop's office and left this voicemail, "Your Excellency, this is Father Nicodemus. I will take that assignment at St Raphael's if you will still have me. And, by the way, Merry Christmas!"

AFTERNOTES

1. In the beginning of the essay, our priest has fallen along the road of materialism as many of us have and has neglected his own spiritual life and the spiritual lives of his parishioners. This is a trap that Roman Catholicism in America fell into in the mid to late 20th Century and that we are painfully extracting ourselves from in the early 21st Century. We have more material things but fewer vocations. The Church can no longer say "Of gold and silver, have I none" but neither can the Church say "Arise and walk" (Acts 3:6)

2. The Bishop wants our priest to take on the challenge of an inner city parish. Such a challenge would make our priest truly a priest for the people and not a priest for himself. This is what the Bishop has in mind as it would force our priest to focus primarily on the spiritual and put the material on the back burner.

3. The events that happen during and after the Mass are caused by the working of the Holy Spirit and the intercession of Our Lady. Father gets hit in the head with a snowball by the Christ Child Who baptizes him again with a second baptism, the baptism of the Holy Spirit (John, Chapter 3)

4. In the final scenes, Christ is a sort of Teaser of Knowledge, teasing His priest into a deeper understanding of the Divine Mysteries. Father Nicodemus knows that God does not promise him success on this path He is teasing him along. All that Father Nicodemus knows is that like his namesake, he must follow this Christ to Calvary and beyond. This is his calling and his destiny.

5. On Christmas morning, Father Nicodemus accepts the inner city assignment and in so doing, gives God a Christmas present of himself.

David J Sheehan davidjsheehan100@yahoo.com
Crowley, Texas