Christmas Eve
2022 Memories of Frank and Missy
McClain
“How pretty the
paper, the lights and the snow/How precious those memories of long long ago”
-John Prine
There was a time in my life when every Christmas my mother
would give me the new John Prine album. John grew up in her neighborhood, and
just a couple of miles from where I did. John is correct in linking Christmas
with memories. Which is, of course, the basis of nearly all Christian liturgy:
“do this in remembrance of me,” we say, twice a week, week after week.
Christmas is no exception
Which explains why every Christmas and Easter I wear this
old, well-worn, somewhat tattered white stole. It’s for the memories it carries
from long long ago. For it was just before Christmas, the year 2000, when I
learned that my first rector and mentor, Frank M. McClain, had died suddenly in
Charleston, South Carolina, where he and his wife Missy had retired after his
tenure as rector of Christ Church, Winnetka, IL where I was a curate fresh out
of seminary. I took a train from Baltimore to Charleston to be with the family
at Frank’s funeral. Before going to the church, we stopped at the funeral home
for Missy and their three daughters, Rebecca, Mary Lee and Kate, to say their
goodbyes before closing the casket. Frank was dressed in the vestments in which
he had been ordained a priest. After everyone had had a moment with Frank,
Missy suddenly raced back to the casket, nearly dove in, head first. When out
she came, like the old table-cloth trick, she pulled out his ordination stole,
gently folded it, walked over and presented it to me, saying, “The girls and I
want you to have this.” I was overwhelmed to have this precious stole which
Frank had worn through decades of parish ministry, a tangible reminder of the
man who taught me nearly all I know about parish ministry. I wore it that
Christmas when I got back to Ellicott City, and have done so ever since. Just a
week to the day before Frank died, two weeks ago, Missy left to join him.
An even longer ago memory of Frank was that first Christmas
I was a priest, 1983, when Frank scheduled me to celebrate the Holy Eucharist
at the late Christmas Eve service in the Church on Sheridan Road. Frank
preached what to this day remains my most favorite and perfect Christmas
sermon. I asked him for a copy, here is what he said:
“Can you remember those days of budding sophistication when
you began to doubt Santa Claus? Probably you had been challenged by older, more
worldly-wise friends. There was, you recall, one last fleeting moment of
wanting to believe, and yet wanting to test reality.
“That year for me, as a late developer, I determined not to
tell anybody what I “wanted for Christmas” – until I sent the letter up the
chimney. (We still had fires and fireplaces in those days.) Believe me, I told
no one and I decided to “want” the most outlandish item that no one could
imagine – not a chemistry set to make bombs (that came later); - not a Monopoly
board (I’m getting one this year from myself with English street names and utilities
and railroads). I asked for a motion picture projector and some films, this in
the days of silent pictures.
“How it ever happened has never been explained, because no
one in all honesty knew how it happened. But, there under the tree on Christmas
morning was a motion picture projector, with a film of Mickey Mouse, and some
jerky, sepia-colored scenes of Venice, San Marco’s, pigeons, gondolas, and all.
I’ve never wanted to go to Venice since, needless to say.
“It was a day of mixed emotions.
“First of all, there was stunned surprise. Was it really
true that this wonderful gift was mine? There was, as well, a kind of
embarrassment, not knowing what to do with such a great treasure.
Embarrassment, too, because it was the height of the depression; I had a
fleeting suspicion of what the gift had cost and that it really hadn’t come
from the North Pole.
“But there was also a welling up of unutterable joy and
gratitude, - which appears to have lasted because here that Christmas
morning is swirling up out of unconscious memory over a half century later.
“Each of you can test that same experience tomorrow.
Surprise, embarrassment, or some similar word, joy and gratitude.
“The special gift you receive will be a surprise. You will
gasp. You will draw in your breath. Ahhh. The diamond like in the DeBeers
advertisement, the scarf carefully knitted by a six-year old, the box of bitter
chocolate wafers you never expected to see again, a letter of gratitude which
arrived this very morning from someone who had found strength and spiritual
help at Christ Church who no longer lives here.
“Then, is it embarrassment or a sense of unworthiness? Why
me” How much effort and skill went into that six-year old’s green and red and
orange knitted scarf? How many hours of research and looking went into that
out-of-print edition of Emily Dickinson’s poems! Why all this for me?
“But finally, joy and gratitude! It is as if those tight
bands about the heart (which most of us know) are unloosed. There may even be a
tear or two. I hope there will be at least a hug, of genuine, warming,
bear-type quality. And a final deep breathing sigh of utter completion. It will
be of the kind of fulfillment which allows a new beginning, facing the
afternoon of Christmas Day or the twelve months ahead of newly invigorated
life.
“Christmas, we have often emphasized, has been a time of
giving. The letters that come in the mail, stack upon stack of them, tend to
underline those words of Jesus, “It is more blessed to give than to receive.”
This is recorded in the Book of Acts and not in the Gospels.[i] That
of course is true – and yet, never forget it, Christmas is also a time to
receive a gift, a wonderful truth.
“We will each of us receive some special gift tomorrow from
someone who loves us. More wonderful even, we will each of us, singly and
together, receive a gift from someone who loves us even more, from God.
“In any of our lives there is a manger, now doubtless empty,
cold, malodorous, surrounded by beasts – the heartbreaks, tragedies,
disappointments of our lives. But it is there that you will find the child, new
born, if you will look on him and be open to receive God’s gift.
“It can come to you this Christmas, that gift, that birth
within you of the Christ Child, when you become aware of and touch, perhaps
only fleetingly, the whole and complete person God intended you to be, that God
intends you to be. It can happen here, at this present Bethlehem, this
Holy Table, when and where you receive tangible evidence, symbols of bread and
wine, God’s Body and Blood, God’s Life.
“As in receiving any real gift, your response will be
astonishment, humility (Why me?), and deep, restorative joy – to which you can
only say Gratia, Thank You, Eucharisto, Grace!
“Be open tonight to receive that gift, open-handed, offering
nothing but your need, your empty manger. Centuries of experience assure you
that God’s gift is being offered, God’s Son, born within you. Arise and go out
into the world with astonishment, with humility, with joy. Respond in whatever
language you may know. Thank You, Eucharisto, Gratia. Your gratitude will show
forth – and – a Merry Christmas!”
So, that’s why I wear this well-worn, somewhat tattered
white stole. And why I re-read Frank’s words every Christmas: for the memories,
and to remind me of the gift that makes me who it is God intends for me to be.
One other Christmas ritual for me is to end each Christmas
proclamation with the immortal words of Charles Dickens’s Tiny Tim Cratchit, God
bless us every one! [ii]
[i] Acts
20:35
[ii]
Tiny Tim Cratchit in Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol, added by this
curate and scribe.
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