A CHRISTMAS IN KRALLA

By Sheila Asquith (Area 11) 

We had never spent Christmas away from home but we thought that now the children were grown up and settled it might be good to make a change and experience a different kind f Christmas community in Keralla, S. India. And so it was decided. We were to spend Christmas at Chengannur with Sister Leena. We were not to stay at the Convent of course but were lodged a short distance away with a doctor and his family. 

Christmas celebrations here are centred on the Church. Apart from church services each parish organises a procession during Christmas Eve day and singers, with accompanying drums to go round the houses up to, and then after, Midnight Mass until the day breaks. There are decorated trees outside many houses with paper or plastic streamers, balloons, stars, tinsel perhaps, and sometimes fairy lights. Every house has a large star suspended over the verandah. 

The procession I mentioned is made up of people dressed up as characters in the Christmas story; first the shepherds, then Mary and Joseph, followed by the Wise Men. After these come imitations of church dignitaries and at the tail end the Christmas Father. This character resembles Santa Claus only in dress, in fact here he is more of a bogeyman demanding good behaviour and meting out punishments. The children do not get presents at Christmas ,these are given at Harvest time earlier in the year. 

On Christmas Eve we dined with Sister at the home of one of the teachers at the nursery. A wonderful meal, with so many exotic dishes quite new to us. After the meal we went outside to watch fireworks before we left for Midnight Mass. Sister had chosen a small church in another village because she thought we would enjoy it better among a small congregation and it would add to their joy to share it with us  It was expected to be a short Mass as the priest might have to go to say Mass at another village that had no resident priest. For that reason Midnight Mass started at nine o clock. This was not a Roman Catholic Mass but Syrian Catholic and the form of service as well as the language was unfamiliar to us. 

Here the 'secret' of the Mass is preserved and huge curtains are drawn across the apse to conceal the altar, priest and servers from the congregation at various times. At one stage we were all given candles which we lit before proceeding out of the church by a side door and going in procession to stand outside the main door. A cross had been cut into the hard baked ground and palm leaves laid within it. A basket containing twists of paper with incense inside was passed round and everyone took one. The priest said a prayer, the palms we reignited, and all the twists of paper thrown into the flames. We watched until it burnt out and then went in procession again to complete our circuit of the church. Mass finished at one o clock!

Tea and slices of special cake were handed out as all the congregation came out into the warm night air of South India. This was our opportunity to socialise - if only we had known the language. However there were several young men who knew English and came over to talk with us. One had been in charge of the thurible at mass and he wanted to know what we thought to his performance. We were pleased to compliment him as he had put his heart into the swinging back, forth and out and back again showing great virtuosity.

By this time we were feeling rather sleepy, it had been a very full day. On the way home Sister told us that the priest had kept the mass short especially for us, as he thought we might be bored.

We had to be up again at five am. to get a bus for Trivandrum to keep an appointment for lunch with the Archbishop. So, there we were hurtling along the highway at 70mph watching the dawn just about the time that midnight Mass was beginning at our own St Mary's.

The staff at the Archbishop's House made us very welcome and gave us an interesting tour around the Cathedral gardens and a farm nearby where research is going on into the kinds of plants and breeds of animals which could be expected to do best in that area.

The Archbishop himself was quite a character and kept us well entertained throughout dinner with a fund of jokes and anecdotes. A lovely, unassuming man who, we discovered was the head of the church in India, and we were assured was second only to His Holiness, the Pope. We are now aware of the honour and privilege it was to be received and to dine with him.

Nothing was quite the same on our Indian Christmas: cake, tree, the Christmas Father. There were very few Christmas cards to be seen in the shops, no last minute panic shopping, We were fortunate to be given another perspective on Christmas where commercialism has not taken over the real reason for celebration. An unforgetable experience.