I never feel the spirit of the festive season until the Carol Service in our Church. As someone once said… “There is one night when the spirit of Christmas makes an advance assault. It happens unfailingly at the Carol Service in Monkstown Parish Church on the Sunday night before Christmas: Each year it happens the same: There is the same distracted atmosphere as the congregation fills into the church - a sort of end of year babble – as I look down from my seat in the gallery. Then that sound, as of expectation, swells up from the aisles below. Then the lights go down; each member of the congregation holds a lighted candle – children let theirs wobble while through the flames they see what only children can see. Then all goes finally quiet. And the lone voice is heard. “Once In Royal David’s City…” Like a shaft of light in the dark. And the hairs stand in the back of my neck…….”

This year it is Caer Smyth’s singing of “Oh Holy Night” which is hair-raising. Other favourite carols the choir sings: “Still Still Still” a German one from 1937 (sang in the vernacular) and “Sing this Night “(John Rutter). Readers include Mary Hanafin the Minister for Education and our very own Jarda Svedjar who surprisingly isn’t the Parish Priest of Monkstown. The congregational carols are particularly rousing this year as we enjoy a huge swell of people. Then that magical Light and the mighty “Hark the Herald Angels Sing” augmented by the triumphant sounds of the Stedfast Band end the Service. The miracle has happened… It has happened here as it will happen in a stable (to quote John Betjemann): ‘That God was Man in Palestine And lives today in bread and wine’.

The Service at Monkstown Church becomes more popular each year, the professionalism of assistant-organist Simon Stroughair and organist & choir leader Siobhan Kilkenny, more evident. Thanks to Jenny Shultz and Grainne Dempsey for the mulled wine reception.

C.C.

Last Year’s Little Tree

Every year after the Christmas
I take down the little tree
And always I think I should write a poem
But I never know what the poem should be.

The baubles fall off; the cat pounces
On the robin, then paws off, aloof
And I think again of my poem, and sense
In the robin, the cat, some proof.

My tree I carry out to the back
I axe it small, limb by limb
And I think when only the scarred trunk remains
Of my little tree poem again

Blood of resin is on my hand
On my yard, pine fall of Tsunami
Again I haven’t known what my poem should be
Again it is the end of January.

Leo Cullen