FIDELITY play-dance-skit

CFC play-dance-skit presentation @Holy Family Parish Kamias QC.
Parish Organizations Night Competition. Feb 11, 2011.
First Prize Winner! Yey!

The Voice of Christmas

(forwarded email, thanks Ernie.)
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"The Voice of Christmas"
By Bob Perks

He had been a long time member of the church but refused to show up for services let alone join.

He was an integral part of the Christmas Choir, but would not attend rehearsals.

Still, everyone looked forward to seeing him once a year. So much, in fact, they would hold a seat for him at the candle light service everyChristmas Eve.

Many of the congregation would arrive early to get a good seat nearby the gentleman.

Was it his personality? No, he really kept to himself rarely sharing a word with anyone.

It was his voice. "Oh Holy Night" was his song.

Throughout his life he often wished for the chance to perform it at a local church. Although the spirit of Christmas had left his heart years ago with the passing of his wife, this one song, those special lyrics, belonged to him.

It was said that it was her favorite song and although poor, the richness of his voice was his gift to her. This church, that night, was always theirs.

As the service progressed anticipation would build. Everyone joined in singing "Silent Night," "Oh Little Town of Bethlehem" and others.

Then the big moment would arrive.

The choir would stand, the church organ would begin to play. "O holy night, the stars are brightly shining" was the intro sung by the 12 member choir. Then, as if Heaven had open its doors, the choir softly faded and the man began to sing...

"It is the night of the dear Savior's birth!
Long lay the world in sin and error pining,
Till He appeared and the soul felt its worth.
A thrill of hope, the weary soul rejoices,
For yonder breaks a new and glorious morn."

You could feel the excitement as music began to build to the refrain...

"Fall on your knees, O hear the angel voices!
O night divine, O night when Christ was born!
O night, O holy night, O night divine!"

By this time there was never a dry eye.

After the service the man would blend into the crowd and exit the rear door.

The tradition lived on until a month before Christmas that year.

He had joined his love, his reason to sing.

"What will they do?" one of the elders asked. "Who could take his place?"

No one. No one would dare attempt to fill his spot. It would be difficult indeed to come close to that long treasured moment.

"We will do the song in his memory" the choir director declared.

"But who among us will sing his part?"

"God had blessed us with his voice and His earthly choir is not made of only one single voice," he assured them. "He will bless us again."

That Christmas Eve, as everyone filled the church, you could hear the choir warming up in the basement.

A small piano began playing followed by, "O holy night, the stars are brightly shining" then silence.

The minister began by welcoming everyone and in particular the visitors, "Family and friends who return home each year." "In the center of the church you will notice a single seat holding a bouquet of Christmas flowers. It is in memory of a man we called, "The Voice of Christmas."

The service began building to that very moment they all waited for. Lights dimmed and a young child holding a single candle in his hand walked toward the front.

The organist began the intro and the choir stood to sing, "O holy night, the stars are brightly shining.."

There was a sudden hush and the faint sound of one small voice singing...

"It is the night of the dear Savior's birth!
Long lay the world in sin and error pining,
Till He appeared and the soul felt its worth.
A thrill of hope, the weary soul rejoices,
For yonder breaks a new and glorious morn."

The organ stopped. The choir remained standing as everyone looked to see where the voice was coming from.

"Over there! I couldn't believe it. That beautiful voice was the child. The child holding the candle."

He slowly, nervously turned around toward the crowd and said, "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to..." and he began to cry.

The choir director rushed to his side and assured him everything was fine.

Then the young boy said, "I always sang along but no one could hear me. Some man was
always louder than me."

Laughter filled the church.

The minister declared, "God has indeed answered our prayers. We are blessed once again with "The Voice of Christmas."

The organist began again as the young boy was lifted up to sing and they all joined in...

"Fall on your knees, O hear the angel voices!
O night divine, O night when Christ was born!
O night, O holy night, O night divine!"

We are each called to be His Voice not only at Christmas but all year long.

-o0o-

Peace amidst the storm

First of all, we give praises and thanks to the Lord for steering super-typhoon "Peping" away from the still grief-stricken Metro Manila.
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The German Jesuit Alfred Delp, who was executed by the Nazis, once wrote:

"Bread is important, freedom is more important, but more important of all is unbroken fidelity and faithful adoration".




There was this story of a king who offered a prize to the artist who would paint the best picture of peace.
Many artists tried.
The king looked at all the pictures.
But there were only two he really liked, and he had to choose between them.

One picture was of a calm lake. The lake was a perfect mirror for peaceful towering mountains all around it. Overhead was a blue sky with fluffy white clouds. All who saw this picture thought that it was a perfect picture of peace.

The other picture had mountains, too. But these were rugged and bare. Above was an angry sky, from which rain fell and in which lightning played. Down the side of the mountain tumbled a foaming waterfall. This did not look peaceful at all.

But when the king looked closely, he saw behind the waterfall a tiny bush growing in a crack in the rock. In the bush a mother bird had built her nest. There, in the midst of the rush of angry water, sat the mother bird on her nest – in perfect peace.

Which picture won the prize?

The king chose the second picture.

Why?

“Because,” explained the king, “peace does not mean to be in a place where there is no noise, trouble or hard work. Peace means to be in the midst of all these things and still be calm in your heart. That is the real meaning of peace.”






Serenity is not freedom from the storm, but peace amidst the storm.






...When the oceans rise and thunders roar
I will soar with you above the storm
Father you are king over the flood
I will be still and know you are God...

Cory - One More Time

Come together, right now

Ah one, two, three, fah...

Thank God my son has now recovered (more on that later).

While whiling away the time at the hospital room, I picked up an old copy of Readers Digest lying around. There was this interesting article that featured 13 tips on how to cut greenhouse gases. One curious item says that what we choose to eat has the biggest impact on the environment. Rebecca Blackburn, author of "Green is good", says that farming uses more resources than any other industry. Farming also produces one-fifth of our greenhouse gas emissions, and that one-third of an average person's carbon footprint is due to the intake of animal meat. Carbon footprint is defined in wiki as "the total set of GHG (greenhouse gas) emissions caused directly and indirectly by an individual, organization, event or product"

Now I recall Paul McCartney and Yoko Ono were in the news lately for advocating "Meatless Mondays" precisely to help stop global warming. Strange bedfellows, these two coming together, but a laudable cause. Looks like a fashionable cause too.

I wonder if it occurred to today's current crop of meatless campaigners that abstaining from meat is old, old hat as far as Church history goes. Cultivating spiritual discipline in the journey to holiness does not appear to be as trendy a cause as stopping global warming, but I guess two birds are hit as far as religious abstinence goes. Apparenty, there's more wisdom in periodic meat abstinence than meets the eye. When St. Paul said in 1:Cor 9:25 that "everyone striving for the mastery must abstain from all things", greenhouse gases must be farthest from his mind.

While environmentalists are at it, I hope that eliminating food wastage ranks high up there in today's trendy causes. For instance, the magazine reports that the UN Food Programme declares that just 5% of food leftovers in the U.S. alone can feed 4 million people in Africa. Once while travelling in North America, I personally witnessed with some shock that all good leftover food after meals in households are immediately flushed down the food compactor. Now if we can only save all our excess food and somehow channel it to the starving people, then world hunger will be eradicated. Oh, and greenhouse gases will be greatly reduced too. It is of no minor importance that after the multiplication of the loaves of bread, Jesus directed that all leftover food are gathered and saved. Again, there's more there than meets the eye.

Now I hope all people will sing: "Come together, right now". This time, with feeling.

Used to be?

I keep a number of oldies but goodies songs.
One of them is "Used to Be" performed by Stevie Wonder and Charlene Duncan back in the 80's (or was it 70's?).
Check out the lyrics, especially the last two stanzas.

A blast from the past?

USED TO BE

Superman was killed in Dallas
There's no love left in the palace
Someone took the Beatles' lead guitar
Have another Chivas Regal
You're 12 years old and sex is legal
Your parents don't know where or who you are

Used to be the hero of the ballgame
Took the time to shake the loser's hand
Used to be that failure only meant you didn't try
In a world where people gave a damn

Great big wars in little places
Look at all those frightened faces
But don't come here, we just don't have the room
Love thy neighbours wife and daughter
Cleanse your life with Holy water
We don't need to bathe, we've got perfume

Used to be a knight in shining armour
Didn't have to own a shiny car
Dignity and courage were the measure of a man
Not the drugs he needs to hide the scar

Can your teacher read, does your preacher pray
Does your president have soul
Have you heard a real good ethnic joke today
Mama took to speed and daddy ran away
But you mustn't lose control
Let's cut the class, I got some grass
The kids are wild we just can't tame 'em
Do we have the right to blame them

We fed them all our indecisions
We wrecked their minds with television
But what the hell, they're too young to feel pain
But I believe that love can save tomorrow
I believe the truth can make us free
Someone tried to say it, then we nailed Him to a cross
I guess it's still the way it used to be.
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