Exclusive for Newsletter Subscribers: A Celtic Christmas

Greetings! If you found your way here, that means you are a valued newsletter subscriber. Thanks for reading. I’m sharing a wee story I wrote just for you!

There are festivals, market days, feasts of saints days. There are church calendar days that are important for remembering the saving grace of our faith. But to Brigid nothing meant more than Christmas. Emmanuel, God with us. God save us. The Word became flesh.

Tugging her dark woolen cape across her shoulders, she stepped out into the night. There would be no mass, no celebration, no worship tonight, the night of Christ. Not for her. Not for her followers. The flame needed tending.

Many of her sisters were sick and those who weren’t were exhausted from having to do the work of two or three women. Brigid understood the need for sacrifice. When someone needed something, God used her to bring it forth. Milk, butter, livestock. She’d asked for sustenance for her fellow human beings, asked for dead cattle to be restored, asked for the dying to receive grace. And God had heard and answered her prayers. She hadn’t minded doing these things. She’d always been willing to be a vessel for God. So why now was she disgruntled about skipping mass and tending the flame? She shouldn’t be. But she was.

Arriving at the sisters’ perpetual fire, Brigid dismissed the lone woman there. “May the love of Christ warm you on this holy night,” she told her.

There was only a small fire burning. Brigid would need more timber. A lot more. The men at her monastery had scattered to the far corners of the province to eat and drink with others on this holy night. As abbess and bishop, Brigid had allowed their departure. Now, with a lack of wood and wolves howling in the distance, she questioned her decision.

In fact, why do this at all?

She reminded herself why she’d maintained the fire from the moment she built her church under the massive oak. To allow the pagans to join her. To let them know what they worshipped was more than they realized. To celebrate the God of life-saving fire, so important to keep the wild animals away and to have a source for cooking and heating their living spaces, to light the deepening darkness.

Ah, yes. Those things were still important. Gathering as many twigs and small branches as she could carry, she remembered a scripture that she now recited aloud to the unseen shrieking wind.

In Him was life, and that life was the light of men. The Light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.

John 1:5

The light of women, too.

With a heavy sigh, Brigid tossed her bundle on the small flame. With horror she watched as the pile smothered the fire. Out it went with a wee puff of smoke. She’d been careless. Tending meant to take care of, to take great care with something and not to do it begrudgingly. Quickly she glanced around. In the pitch black she couldn’t be sure no one watched. Even so, she had to start the fire again. Should she admit her mistake? Or would it be better to allow the myth of the perpetual flame to continue. For the good of everyone. She had a flint stone in her cloak pocket. That alone was a testament of unbelief, wasn’t it? Perhaps it had been a nudging from God, just in case she failed. Like now.

Before long Brigid had a torch burning. Lifting it to the dark night she saw faces, blinking eyes beneath hooded cloaks. People of the forest. People who depended on this fire. Too late. They’d seen her. As she turned to the pile of smoldering ashes, a wee light glowed from its depths. Not a reflection of her torch, but a spark from deep within the ruins. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. The fire hadn’t gone out despite her inability to see it. Despite her inadequacy and lack of tending to her task. Despite her lack of faith.

Lifting her torch over her head to make sure the others could see her, Brigid danced around the wee flame that quickly grew and burst through the sticks she’d thrown into the pile. With a great hunger the fire crackled and sizzled, sending a charcoal odor into the frigid air. The fire did not seem to consume her little offering. It had been enough. She was enough. Lifting her head and arms to the stars in the ebony sky, Brigid sang praises to the Keeper of the Light.

This had been a mass after all, for the people, for Brigid’s heart. A celebration of God With Us that she would never forget.

May the fire of this Christmas Eve burn perpetually in the hearts of all who think of her.