To the editor:
It is seldom that I don't enjoy reading Neil Crone's column; whether it is serious, humorous, tongue-in-cheek or emotional, they are always thought provoking.
In his latest piece (Uxbridge Times-Journal, Feb. 4) about the theft of Mary, the baby Jesus and a wise man from a church crèche scene, he may be all of these, I just don't know. Did this actually happen? Anything is possible in this day and age. Whatever the case, he turns the situation into a very funny drama, endowing inanimate objects with very human tendencies. However, stealing from the nativity scene is not peculiar to Sunderland.
In the town in Belize, where I lived for 16 years, it was the custom, in the Catholic church, that someone would steal the baby Jesus figure on Christmas Day. The culprit, of course, was supposed to be secret but I think it was rather an open secret among some of the parishioners. This person kept the statue in hiding for the next 12 months. Baby Jesus was never put into the crèche until the special point in the next year's Christmas Eve mass. Somehow the 'thief' always managed to get the small statue into the right hands before the ceremony.
Maybe someone is starting a new tradition in Sunderland United Church?
Pat Asling
Uxbridge
Recommend :