Christine Chan
I had been part of the Archives Team saving and chronicling Church history in Singapore and Malaysia in 2024.
During my first visit to the La Salle Provincialate at Petaling Jaya in June 2024, I had the opportunity to pack the belongings of Religious Brothers who had passed away.
One of them was Br Augustine Julian, who had been the Brother Archivist at the Provincialate. He had suddenly passed away in 2022. His room had been left untouched since then, but we were told that soon there would be a newly arriving Brother who would be using that room. We volunteered to pack Br Augustine’s belongings, returning his personal items to the community, while making sure that any archival material was properly gathered and kept aside to be archived later.
As we were packing Br Augustine’s room, we found a large collection of blank Christmas cards. Initially, we were not sure what we could do with them since there were hundreds of them. However, it seemed like a waste to throw them away. In any case, the team leader felt that some good could be done with them. I was not that sure if these old cards which no one sends anymore would have any further use. Nevertheless, we gathered and brought them back to Singapore.
It took a few months before I realised that these cards meant something to someone once. So, I took these cards to my choir practice in December for a weekly sharing session that we all took turns to do. Beginning with a picture of the nativity scene on a Christmas card, I asked my choir members what they thought the card was about: “The nativity”; “Jesus’ birthday”; “the wise men came to give gifts to Jesus”; “the Holy Family” — these were the answers I received the most. For every answer, I handed out a blank Christmas card.
Finally, someone looked at it and said “that’s our family” – for that excellent answer, I gave 2 Christmas cards.
So my sharing began. I shared a poem that told our Christmas story — how Christmas is also our birthday, and told them that it was the reason why we give each other Christmas cards. It was on this day Our Father gave us the ultimate gift of His son in order that we can become Christians – His children. So, when we celebrate the Nativity, the day of the Incarnation, when God became Man, we also celebrate the day we became the children of God. It is also the day We were Born!
On this day, we also became part of the Holy Family, the Church. In any family, in almost every culture, there is always a day everyone come together to rejoice and have a meal together. This is the time to restart and repair relationships. So, I shared how Br Augustine had bought so many cards with the intention of sending them to so many people, his extended family in Christ, but never got the chance to do so before he passed – we could now complete his journey by taking some time to write on these blank cards – using them as they were intended, by giving to each other the thoughts in our hearts, the messages of Christmas Day.
In the week following the sharing and card writing, there were requests for more cards. Some choir members told me that they used to write cards every Christmas, but had stopped that practice since the digital age. Some were glad that they had the chance to write Christmas cards again. By the next choir practice, I had given out more than seventy of Br Augustine’s cards. I too received a Christmas card, and it was a wonderful feeling to know that someone else was thinking of me and congratulating me on my birthday, this Christmas Day.
