The monasteries about...
Christmas Eve

This Christmas group brought to us by a very lonely man with great concerns, to our first small chapel, which once had been a stable. We have a special relationship with it in its simplicity and naive expression: just as God stepped into this world.

Christmas begins quietly in our monastery, around an empty manger with straw in the crypt we gather for silent prayer in the morning. After that we prepare our house and church to meet the coming Christ. At Christmas Eve Mass, we carry a life-size carved baby Jesus and place it in the crib below the altar, with candles on the floor around, to an improvisation of Dominus dixit ad me, from the organ. On Christmas Day afternoon, we read with our guests, preferably a story by Selma Lagerlöf or another classic, related to the mystery of the Incarnation.

A day before Christmas...

In Lithuania, Christmas Eve is the day to finish cleaning the house and prepare 12 meat-free dishes for dinner.
Dinner starts when the first evening star appears. Fasting is observed until dinner.

For us this is the day when our community gathers to begin the celebration of the mystery of Incarnation of our Lord.
The celebration we start having midday liturgy in the church: we pray extended Office of Hours with three times repeeted Psalm 51: remembering the Creation, the Redemption and the vocation. The solemn proclamation of Nativity of our Lord Jesus Christ follows. After Midday Ofice we are gathering at the table with our oblates and some invited guests who need such a communion, in the monastery premises to share an oblate – a piece of bread (like altar bread) – saying our wishes and reconciliating to each other. Then solemn dinner follows.

Late in the evening we celebrate the Christmas Eve Eucharist when the Chritmas Crib in the church is blessed and the figure of Child Jesus is laid in it: so we enter into Christmas time – the celebration of the begining of our Salvation.

We love our christmas crib. Mary and Joseph seem immersed in the mystery they are contemplating. Placed under the altar, it tells us of the deep connection between Christmas and the Eucharist: Jesus, born to give us life, is there with open arms to welcome all people and to be for us 'bread of life'.

With our guests gathered around the cot, our Christmas night begins with a moment of deep adoration and we end it with our guests in our refectory, keeping this silence, filled with the joy of Christmas.

On Christmas Eve, after lunch, a silent time begins for the convent, which lasts until after the Holy Mass of Christmas Day.
The liturgical celebrations are embedded within this time. We start the 1st Christmas Vespers in the dark church with the Martyrology sung by one of our cantors, who is provided light by two sisters with candles.
For dinner we traditionally have a sweet poppy seed pudding (an original Silesian Christmas dish). Between the Vigils and night Mass, we fortify ourselves with gingerbread and red wine in the candlelit refectory. And we greet each other silently with a custom also native to Silesia: we pass to each other a Christmas wafer, from which the recipient breaks off a piece for herself.

"Pretty fir trees, cut from our heavily wooded area, adorn the entrance to the monastery.
Inside, a beautiful tree decorated with a thousand colors and a crib welcome our guests.
Some times of sharing are proposed to those who join us during this festive time.
They are mostly isolated people, who will not be able to spend Christmas in solitude.

In the church, a crib which is dear to us (and freshly repainted), associated with a sober decoration will allow guests and people passing through to meditate on the mystery of this Coming of God among us, under the features of a little Child, lying in a manger.

Christmas Eve already celebrates the mystery of the following day!

In addition to the melodious hymns and psalms, two beautiful sung pieces enhance the Offices:
the Annunciation of Christmas, at Vespers, and the Genealogy, at Vigil.

After the Office, the guests repeat with a sister the songs of the celebrations, without omitting the joy of singing some popular songs.

After the night Mass, a glass of friendship brings together sisters and guests, an opportunity to forge links.
Various homemade sweets are served: cookies, gingerbread, doughnuts, cramique... not forgetting the 0% alcohol cider...!

And, when the guests have left, the sisters who wish to do so linger to share a delicious warm wine and the joy of fraternal life...

Merry Christmas to everyone!"

Shall we... be shelter for the mystery of the Eternal, in an inhospitable world?

During 24 Dec, we meet several times in the Chapel. During the morning celebration, we sing "The Annunciation of the Incarnation of Jesus Christ”. The day itself is a day of Silence during which we prepare for the evening and night celebrations. And we receive guests -mostly people without families and lonely.

In vespers, the empty crib stands in the middle of the chapel near the baptism font on which 4 candles are lit during the 4 weeks of Advent as we pray for Light and Hope for the world we live in. In the early evening, we sing 2 nocturnes from the Vigil and continue the evening in silence. Flowers are placed around the crib as a sign of Life reviving. At 11.15pm, instead of the 3rd nocturn, we sing a small Christmas Oratorio in which large sections from Luke 1 and 2 are sung alternating with pieces of biblically inspired Christmas poetry.
In the passage to Midnight Mass, the fifth candle is lit, symbolising 'the Light of the World' and the Christmas child is laid in the crib.
Celebrating that through the incarnation a divine exchange takes place - hence also at Baptism - through which we all receive the possibility of becoming Children of God (according to EV. John.) After Mass, we wish the guests a Merry Christmas and are together for a midnight breakfast with a glass of wine.

For the 1st Vespers of Christmas, we consciously set our footsteps on the stony floor of our barn church and allow ourselves to enter this space
that surrounds us like the stable in Bethlehem.

It is quiet in these hours.
Several years ago we decided not to host guests over Christmas and, together with all those who wish to participate in the liturgy,
to dedicate our undivided attention to the celebration of this mystery of salvation.

For many of us, the highlight of this Holy Night is the Vigil, which precedes the Midnight Mass. The sung readings from the Book of the Prophet Isaiah, the icon procession with its impressive chanting of Psalm 24 - they open our hearts to the coming of God in human flesh. It becomes visible to us in our manger: a child on the stony ground bedded on a bundle of straw, holding out its hand, which has been damaged in a fire, invitingly towards us.