Does it ring a bell?
Recently many of us were awakened by the
sound of our chapel bell ringing out loud and clear into the silence of the
calm night. With deliberate confident strokes it spelt out
the Angelus pattern: 3 strokes by 3 and then the long uninterrupted 9 strokes, as
it always does, but... this was Midnight! This had never happened before... What could
be wrong??? What must the neighbours think of us disturbing them at this hour
of night???
Relieved that the striking had stopped we
returned to bed , but I was sleepily beginning to wonder...What was the
meaning? Who could have rung the bell? For me it had special significance because
this Advent I‘ve been struck as never before how this prayer of the Angelus draws
us into the whole mystery of the Incarnation...of God becoming Man, which is
what Christmas is all about...
And the Word was made
flesh...and dwelt among us
As we pray the Angelus together in
community three times every day, I want to stay with those words and let the
wonder of them take hold of me...Yes, Jesus the Son of the Father, truly became
Emmanuel, God-with-us... and He is still Emmanuel, God
with us in the here and now of our lost, anguished, violent, upside-down
yet beautiful world...
Doesn’t that mind-boggling reality call
for the ringing of bells to let the world know this Good News? It wouldn’t be the first time that someone
rang her Monastery bell to alert everyone and call them to ’wake up’ to the
astounding fact that ‘Love is not loved’ (St. Mary Magdalene de Pazzi, Carmelite
mystic of 16th century!)
I will never forget the emotion that
welled up in my heart when I heard church bells ringing in the distance for the
first time after the deadening silence of the long Covid lockdown. Back again too are joyous wedding bells and
the slow grave toll of funeral bells...
But Christmas is above all the season of
bells.. .Every child knows the sheer magic of ‘Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells’
and the tinkling of sleigh bells. Bells
feature big in Christmas decorations, cards, stamps etc...
Each evening at 6 p. m. RTE TV and Radio
mark a respectful pause for the Angelus...fittingly before the daily news. How appropriate, because this is the greatest
Good News there is, and it’s a new reality every day: the Word is made flesh
and dwells among us, Emmanuel...
But to get back to our mysterious nocturnal
Angelus bells...we never discovered the cause. Could it have been the Angels reminding
us of the greatest news ever told? In
the coming days when you hear the Angelus bell, I hope something of the wonder
of the real meaning of Christmas will fill your heart with Joy and peace...
When I apologised to our neighbours for
the intrusion, they kindly made light of it saying they thought it must have
been to mark ‘a special feast day’ How
right they were!
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