The Christmas Truce In Kansas City

TKC NOTE: This morning, Kansas City Professor Dr. Ernest Evans offers a powerful invocation of faith in the face to despair. Check it:

The Eternal Meaning of the "Christmas in the Trenches."

On Christmas eve in 1914 the continent of Europe was sunk into despair. The world war that the governments and peoples had so eagerly rushed into in late July and early August of 1914 had not gone as expected: Instead of the troops being home "before the leaves fell" the Europeans found themselves engaged in a bloody, seemingly endless military stalemate. And the terrible realities of trench warfare made a mockery of the visions of a "quick, glorious struggle" that most had expected a few months earlier. Too late, the Europeans realized that British Foreign Secretary Sir Edward Grey had been right when, on the eve of the war, he prophesized: "The lamps are going out all over Europe; we will not see them relit in our lifetimes."

Then, something truly miraculous occurred that shows the power of the Christmas message can bring light into any situation, no matter how gloomy. In northern France on a section of the Western Front German and British troops faced each other across a frozen "No Man's Land." On Christmas eve the German soldiers began singing Christmas songs; one of the songs that they sang was "Silent Night". The British soldiers knew the tune of this internationally famous hymn, so they began to sing along in English. The soldiers spent the rest of the night singing back and forth across "No Man's Land."

At dawn on Christmas day first one, then a few and then the whole force of soldiers from both sides came out of their trenches and moved toward the other trench. They met in the middle and began wishing each other a blessed Christmas. Gifts of food and liquor were exchanged, the men showed each other photos of their families, and several improvised soccer games took place. The festivities lasted all day--then the troops went back to their respective trenches--and on the following day the fighting resumed.


One of America's most painful wars was Vietnam--we suffered over 58.000 killed in action and hundreds of thousands wounded physically or psychologically; and as a nation all too many of our fellow citizens disgraced themselves by taking out their anger about the war on the men and women who served. This war left deep scars on the town of Leavenworth: In the 1965 graduating class of Leavenworth High School there were eight young men who were killed in Vietnam. Yet, even it that terrible war, as in Europe at Christmas in 1914, there were stories that show that the message of the Christ child can bring joy anywhere. One of those stories is from Sen. John McCain--a man who served five and a half years as a POW. During his imprisonment, McCain was allowed a few minutes outside of his cell on Christmas day. A North Vietnamese guard came up to him, silently drew a cross in the sand, left it for a moment, then erased it and moved away. McCain said that for a brief moment he and that guard were fellow Christians celebrating the birth of Christ.

Another story of the triumph of Christ's message even in wartime involves a professor at the School for Advanced Military Studies at Fort Leavenworth, Dr. William Gregor. Dr. Gregor is a retired Army officer who served in Vietnam in 1970-1971. In one of the skirmishes he was involved in in Vietnam he saw a wounded North Vietnamese soldier who had been captured by the Americans make the sign of the cross. Dr. Gregor reached into his pocket and pulled out his rosary beads and handed them to the wounded enemy soldier, and then said to him: "This war is between our governments, not between you and me." (Dr. Gregor is a strong Catholic who fully accepts the Church's teachings about how we live in a falled world and that all humans are marked by Original Sin; so it goes without saying that while he was performing this act of ministry he kept his 45 caliber pistol pointed directly at the head of the enemy soldier!!)

So, the miracle that took place 100 years ago on the Western Front shows us a profound truth about the miracle that took place two thousand years ago in Bethlehem: The lamps of Europe may have been extinguished for many years after 1914, but the light of Christ will never be extinguished.
############