I remember a story when I was young. I have searched for it through the years. It was about 2 poor children - brother and sister. Barely able to feed themselves, and even more rare, to have a morsel for a journey of several miles, still, the children were loving and humble. Their momma gave them a small loaf of bread to eat on their way to Midnight Mass. They were eager to go because their church had a great legend: The bells had stopped ringing years before and it was said that one Christmas they would ring again when a great gift was made at the nativity in honor of the child Jesus. The children knew a very wealthy king had come to town to attend the services there and they were anxious to see all of the majesty of his troupe. Dressed in rags and only sandals they made their way through the snow to the small village church. Once the procession began, the tradition of laying gifts at the manger would begin. Merchants would lay their finest wares on the straw, fine linens from the tailors, fine leather shoes from the cobbler and mighty weapons from the blacksmith. Each time a gift was presented everyone would pause and tip their head to listen to see if their gift might be the one. Finally at the end of the entrance procession was the royal king. As he approached his velvet robes rustled the floor. Even the organist and choir had gone silent. Surely his gift would be magnificent enough to break the silence of the bells. At the end of the aisle, the king knelt and bowed his head in prayer. After a long moment, he took from his head his very own crown. It was beautifully crafted; encrusted with dazzling gems and designed with an intricate crest of lions. The crown! It was ancient and priceless - Surely it would bring the music back to the chapel. The whole congregation held their breath and waited.
Silence came and nothing more.
Finally the pastor urged the king to take his place in the church and allow the service to proceed. It was a rather ordinary Christmas Mass with all the usual prayers, greetings and wishes. As it concluded everyone in the town was headed out the heavy wooden doors on their way back home when someone shouted - STOP! LISTEN! All the chatter died down and all the red nosed and rosy cheek towns people began to hear a beautiful sound...ding - ding--ding---Ding-Dong-Ding-DONG- DIN,DIN,DON,DON,DON and before long the whole valley was filled with a clamor and sweet chiming sound of those bells high up in the tower. Everyone was memorized for a few seconds listening when the pastor said "What sort of gift could have brought the bells to ring?" He could barely get inside of the warm church for all of the others pushing behind him including the king and all his servants. As they approached the nativity, their eyes wandered over all of the gifts, the shoes, the swords, linens, crown....but no one understood. Just then, the pastor saw and picked up a small loaf of bread and said, "Could this small gift of food, be the greatest of all the sacrifices made tonight?"
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Well, that's sorta how I remember it! I hope you liked the story. I have many wonderful Christmas books filled with stories like this one. One of my favorite is "The Gift of the Magi" by O Henry
There are great legends associated with the 3 Wise Men, and with many others, like Good King Wenceslas and The Nutcracker. (I have collected nutcrakers each Christmas since 2004.)
Maranatha is made of two Aramaic/Syrian words, maran'atah, meaning, "our Lord comes," or (treating the -a(h) ending as if for speed) "Lord, come quickly". ... December is almost here, and my 12 blog entries are almost finished - I hope you have enjoyed them!
