Nies: “Happy Peace!”

Evergreen garland, pastel ornaments, the Beach Boys’ “It’s the Little St. Nick” and Paul McCartney’s “Simply Having a Wonderful Christmastime.”

These were downright jarring to me nearly a month into the Year of Our Lord, 2016.

Christmas may have been already hibernating for weeks in attics and basements back home, but it hadn't even begun to not look like Christmas in that far-flung airport concourse in Delhi.

That was just the beginning. Several hours after catching our connecting flight, our intrepid band of Missouri pilgrims had landed in the Indian city of Ranchi and were being driven down the long, rambling road to Konkuri, seat of the Diocese of Jashpur.

We stopped in several Catholic churches (there were no other kind) along the way. The ornate sanctuary of St. Francis Xavier, the oldest church in the district, shouted “Joy to the world!” with garland and colored lights.

Each of the other churches followed suit in its own way, culminating with the network of metallic bunting that crisscrossed the sprawling ceiling of Konkuri’s Cathedral of the Holy Rosary.

Our gracious hosts throughout the Jashpur diocese were having Christmas to the fullest, right up to Feb. 2, the Feast of the Presentation.

That feastday, often referred to as Candlemas, commemorates the Holy Family’s arrival at the Temple in Jerusalem, where Joseph and Mary presented her firstborn Son to God in keeping with the Mosaic covenant.

Mary and Joseph did what the priest does on our behalf at every Mass: offer Jesus up as a perfect gift to the Father — exactly what Jesus Himself would eventually do on the cross to bring the covenant to fulfillment.

Pleased with the gift, the Father offers the Son back to us as the way to salvation.

Therefore, the people of the Jasphur diocese observe the Presentation as the conclusion of Christmas.

On that feastday during our visit, they blessed the candles for the cathedral, prayed for Bishop Emmanuel Kerketta on the fifth anniversary of his episcopal ordination and honored the countless religious sisters, brothers, postulants and novices who call that diocese their home.

After Mass, we shook hands with hundreds of the sisters and exchanged robust tidings of “Happy Peace.”

Actually, it was “Happy Feast” with a Tribal lilt. We should have listened more closely, but how we heard and repeated their greeting suited the situation perfectly.

That evening, we joined in by far the largest and brightest candle-lit procession I had ever seen, with school children, teens and sisters filling the massive courtyard outside the cathedral, singing hymns and carrying flickering candles.

Many of the people who welcomed us at every stop in that rural area were of cruelly modest means. But any material poverty was overshadowed by their joy-filled fidelity to the Gospel that had been preached to their Oraon ancestors only three and four generations previously.

We recognized in their faces, voices and dancing figures the same faith, hope and joy that once startled shepherds with celestial choruses of “Holy! Holy! Holy is the Lord, God of Hosts!”

Never before had I seen the light of the Incarnation radiate so brightly. Never had I seen such faith.

It’s been two years now, and some of my recollections from that sacred pilgrimage have already faded. But I pray for the brightness of those buntings and lights, those candles and saris to remain permanently fused to my memory.

Even as theirs and my protracted observance of Christmas winds down, may their hymns and anthems, their smiles and laughter, their genuine concern for one another, their radical hospitality and their seemingly endless reservoir of “happy peace” resonate in my soul forever.

Jay Nies is editor of The Catholic Missourian.