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Two international priests share their stories of christmas customs
Story and photos by LIZ QUIRIN
Messenger editor
He walked into the library at Gibault Catholic High School in Waterloo with a big smile.
“Good morning, good morning,” Father Urban Osuji said to the students there. “Come and be in a picture with me.”
The students gathered around the Vincentian for a photo, as pleased to see him as he was to see them.
The Nigerian priest, administrator at St. Mary’s in Valmeyer, also celebrates the Eucharist with students and keeps office hours at the high school.
“We love him here,” principal Russ Hart said.
And Father Osuji said he loves being at the school. “The students are life-giving,” he said.
Father Osuji sees the various classes, taking time to prepare for the liturgies, and students sometimes stop by his office at the school to talk.
In January, it will be one year since he was appointed administrator at the Valmeyer parish. He said he appreciates the parish’s dedication and the community spirit that exists among the churches in town.
It may be a small reminder of his own village in Nigeria. Although he was born in Lagos, the former capital of Nigeria, he grew up in a small village in the eastern part of the country.
What was Christmas like in his village as he was growing up?
“Very busy,” he said. In a family with eight children — seven boys and one girl — everybody would be cleaning, getting ready for Christmas, he said.
No sledding in the village because in that temperate climate it never snows. “I saw sleet once when I was 4 years old,” he said.
Families would be preparing for friends and relatives who lived in the large cities to return to their native villages for Christmas. The village could double in size during the Christmas holidays, he said.
At Christmas, the harvests would just have been completed, and farmers could relax a bit.
However, tailors are working overtime because children receive new clothes for Christmas, usually one or two outfits, depending on the family’s resources.
Both Father Osuji’s parents worked. His mother was a teacher at his school, and his father worked for the railway, he said. His father died 22 years ago, and his mother, now 84, continues to live in the village.
While she doesn’t use the internet, she does have a “mobile phone,” he said, so he can talk with her frequently.
He loved going to school with his mother who was his second-grade teacher. His status, he said, was improved by having his mother as a teacher in his school.
During Christmas break, young people would practice for performances they would give in their village.
“We would dance for families,” he said, explaining that the boys would wear masks, something like Halloween masks and go to homes and dance.
While the girls are not permitted to wear masks, they also dance.
“They move from family to family dancing and collecting gifts,” Father Osuji said.
The gifts were often foods that the families prepared. These gifts of food were also exchanged among the adults, he said. Sometimes it would be an entire meal.
This goes on throughout the season, not just on Christmas Eve or Christmas Day, he said.
“You could get five or six different dinners on one day,” he said and laughed.
Those families who receive dancers are expected to feed their performers, so the gifts of food could be a welcome addition to the family’s food supply.
This celebration of the season brings “moments of joy and rejoicing” to the families who receive the gifts of food and the performers.
The Christmas liturgy is also a time of great rejoicing, with choirs performing specially prepared music, the dancing, and everyone bringing up their gifts during the Offertory.
People may bring up “agricultural products or animals,” Father Osuji said.
The animals could be chickens or goats which are brought to the altar. If the animal is too big to bring into the church, like a cow, the owner will bring in the rope and present it so that people know the gift is outside.
The priest who receives these gifts takes only what he will need for himself and distributes the rest to the poor.
This liturgy would last a minimum of two hours, he said.
In addition, the priest may take this opportunity to talk to the congregation about special projects being considered for the parish or village. “They do fund raising,” he said.
Because so many people return home for Christmas, many more donations are possible. “The church is always packed,” he said.
This year, Father Osuji will be celebrating his first Christmas liturgy at St. Mary’s. He is looking forward to the liturgies. “We will have a Mass for the children who will have their own choir and play their own music,” he said.
On New Year’s Eve, Father Osuji said he will have a liturgy as well. This one will begin at 11:15 p.m. so that he and those who come can begin the new year with the Eucharist.
“I will have it for the people who want to be in church at that time,” he said.
Father Victor Silva sits in his office for an interview about Christmas customs in his home country of Sri Lanka.
The island country in South Asia is smaller than the state of Illinois with a population of about 20 million people, 650,000 of whom are Catholics.
Father Silva is a priest of the Archdiocese of Colombo, the country’s capital. He will return to Sri Lanka within the next two months to receive an assignment from his archbishop.
He has been in the Diocese of Belleville almost three years, and has spent much of his time at the Newman Center in Carbondale.
The center was a good fit for Father Silva, who was the principal of a boys’ Catholic school with 3,600 students, he said.
Although the majority of Sri Lankans are Buddhist, Catholics “are very powerful,” Father Silva said, because of their educational system. They have the best schools in the country.
Father Silva was in Sri Lanka Dec. 26, 2004 when the Tsunami hit the island. He said his family escaped without loss of life, but it was truly a frightening experience. At least 1,500 Sri Lankans died in the disaster.
Thinking about Christmas in his home village, Father Silva said he sometimes mi
sses being near his home where his 89-year-old mother lives. He has six sisters and brothers, one of whom has died.
With summer weather all of the time and the seasons changing only from dry to wet, snow-covered Christmas trees do not come to mind when remembering the season in his country.
The crib “plays the main role in church,” he said, and the people spend a lot of time in church where Nativity plays are performed.
The children dress as characters from the nativity scene, much the same way youngsters dress in special clothing or dress as Juan Diego for celebrations in honor of Our Lady of Guadalupe.
Liturgies start at 11:50 p.m. on Christmas Eve so the Gloria can be sung at midnight, he said. At that time, church bells ring and fire crackers are lighted.
“It is the biggest holiday in the country, a national holiday,” he said. Other religious denominations make no complaints about the Christian celebration.
Like many other countries, including this one, churches are packed. “It is the most attended liturgy,” he said.
Gifts come in the form of “something new, mostly new clothes,” Father Silva said.
Poor children go to the homes of the rich where they are given food and gifts. “It is something like Halloween” with children asking for treats.
After midnight Mass, carols are sung and Nativity plays performed. Santa Claus comes to the church after Mass but not to the homes.
On Christmas Day, “everybody goes to their mother’s house, the house where you were raised. You spend a day and a night there,” he said. Depending on how many children in a family, more than 30 people could be staying in one house.
Meals are always important, and the special food on Christmas day would be chicken, since most people have fish on other days.
Children in the family “pay homage to their elders at Christmas,” he said. “They take a handful of Betel leaves and give them to their grandparents and godparents. They prostrate themselves before their elders.”
This is a way of showing respect to the elders, who in turn lay their hands on the children’s heads.
During the Christmas season, “carolers carry lamps and visit all of the homes in a particular zone (area),” until Dec. 31.
All of the homes are open and the communities “are very united and connected,” he said.
“As a priest, Christmas brings unity among other religious groups, and I like that,” he said. “Sometimes I miss it very much.”