The Most Silent Night

Philippine Panorama
Manila Bulletin
Volume 40, Number 52
25 December 2011
Page 17


The Most Silent Night

By Prospero Pulma Jr.


Children singing carols, Christmas greetings exchanged so generously, the tearing of festive wrappers hiding Christmas presents, and squeals of delight upon discovering the concealed gifts will fill the ears of some people this Christmas. In most of the world’s continents, the cacophony of gunfire and exploding bombs will rent people’s hearing on Christmas, making one wonder if wishing for peace even for just the most silent of nights is more derisory than wanting to meet the real Santa. Peace however did reign amidst war and in the unlikeliest of places.

On December 24, 1914, “Stille Nacht” and other carols supplanted gunfire and cannon fire at Europe’s World War I Western Front. Men deeply engaged in the business of war left their trenches and weapons to freely step into land that nobody would have yielded without bloodletting hours before. Land that shuddered from the rapid footfalls of thousands of soldiers rushing their enemies’ positions relaxed from the footsteps of the same men advancing to greet their foes a Merry Christmas. The combatants swapped gifts and home addresses, posed for photographs, buried their dead, and played football.

Kurt Zehmisch, a German participant in the Christmas Truce of 1914, wrote in his journal, “How marvelously wonderful, yet how strange it was. The English officers felt the same way about it. Thus Christmas, the celebration of Love, managed to bring mortal enemies together as friends for a time.” The ceasefire ended tragically the same way that all wars begin – with violence.

At the height of the Battle of the Bulge, Fritz Vincken and his mother experienced a silent night on December 24, 1944. Foul weather forced three Americans, one wounded, and four Germans to take refuge in their cabin. His mother sheltered the soldiers, provided all would lay down their weapons. They complied and shared a Christmas dinner, turning the cottage into a little dot of peace in a continent burning with the fires of World War II. The next morning, the Germans built a stretcher for the wounded American and guided the Americans to their camp before returning to German lines. Former President Reagan remarked that it “needs to be told and retold because none of us can ever hear too much about building peace and reconciliation.”

Endless news of war at home or abroad makes wishing for a visit by the real Santa less ludicrous than dreaming of peace on Christmas. However, if combatants in two world wars could forget about killing on the most silent and holiest of nights, then wanting to hear nothing but peace on Christmas may not be a mad romantic’s dream after all.

END

TO GOD BE THE GLORY!!!