About Tanja Cilia

as retold by Tanja Cilia

The woman was looking around her furtively.  She was feeling uncomfortable, knowing that she did not “belong” where she was. This woman was from Samaria, and Samaritans were the mixed race of the Assyrians and the Jews of the former northern kingdom.  So they were neither one, nor the other.

She was a woman at a time when women were treated as second-class citizens.  She was a foreigner, living in a strange country.  She was not married, but she lived with a man, and this meant that the other women looked down upon her.

This is why we find her at the well in the oppressive noon heat, “the sixth hour”.  This well was dug on the plot of ground that Jacob gave His son Joseph.  The other women used to fetch the water in the early morning, or in the evening, when it was cool.  So in order not to meet them, she used to go when the sun beat down mercilessly upon her; but at least she did not have to avoid the eyes of the others, knowing that their malicious whispers were gossip about her.

This story happened when Jesus was traveling to Samaria. Now we must realize that the Jews avoided all contact with the Samaritans, and even with their country, if at all possible.  For a Jew to call another Jew “A Samaritan” was a grave insult – in fact, in the Gospel of John [8:42] we find how during a quarrel, some of His fellow countrymen told Jesus “You are a  Samaritan, and you are possessed by a demon.”

Jesus could have taken another road, skirting past Samaria, but He did not.  He wanted this event to happen. He and the disciples came to a town called Sychar.

So, imagine her surprise when a man comes to the well, and talks to her.  From His clothes, she realized that He was a Jew – and at that time, men just didn’t walk up to women and engage them in conversation – not even if the women were related them and especially so if the women were foreigners.

So it is to be expected, somehow, that the conversation which follows is not one that would have occurred between a Jewish man and a Jewish woman. For instance, there was the quasi-theological discussion about where God prefers to be worshipped – in Jerusalem, or on Mount Gerizim.

Jesus tells her “Believe me; the hour is coming when we will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. Indeed, the hour is already here when true worshippers will worship the Father in spirit and truth.”

Jesus, of course, knew all the answers.  But He had a lesson to teach her – and us. That is why when the disciples had gone into the town to buy food, Jesus stayed behind.

He asked the woman to slake His thirst – and she was taken aback.   This would entail her lending Him a cup – and that was unthinkable. “What? You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan!”

The Gospel explains that ‘Jews will not use the same cups or dishes that Samaritans use’, because Jews considered themselves as pure, whereas to them Samaritans were racially impure. Then He told her that He, too, had water, but His water was special because it gave eternal life.

She could not comprehend the deep meaning to His words.  She stated the obvious – that He could not bring up water from the well, because He did not have a bucket.  Perhaps with a bit of sarcasm in her voice, she asked whether He was greater than the forefather Jacob; who, it was said, had constructed the ancestral well, used by generations of people, each father and mother taking the children to it as a necessary part of tradition.

Then, she though better of it.  How much better it would be to have the water that this person would give her, and never thirst again. Oh, this would mean she could steer clear of the well, and she would never, ever, have to see those women again.

Then, something inside her moved, and she realized that Jesus was special.  She told Him, not asked Him, whether He was a prophet. She stated adamantly that she knew the Messiah was coming, and that when He came, He would make known all the things that until then would have been hidden. It is pertinent to note that the conversation between Jesus and the woman takes up nearly 40 verses in the Bible.

At this point, Jesus said the beautiful words that she treasured forever after: “I am He, the One who is speaking to you.”

Can you blame the woman for being so excited?  She dropped everything – and this is an important thing – and ran into the village, telling everyone what had happened.  She begged them to go to the well and meet Jesus. “He told me everything I have ever done!”

Later, when the disciples returned with food for Jesus, He told them He had food they didn’t know about. They assumed the woman had shared her lunch with Him.

Exactly because she was a Samaritan, people from her nation went to look for Jesus, something they might not have done if the Good News had been told by a Jew.

We do not know the name of this woman – but the Eastern Orthodox Church gives her the name Saint Photina (from the word for “light”), and celebrate her feast on February 28. The well is re-named as The Well of Jacob and Jesus.

The woman, like Saint Paul, is honored as an Apostle and as an Evangelist who spread The Good News, and there are apocryphal stories about her that say she went to Carthage and Smyrna in Asia Minor.

This is the hymn sung in her honor:

The water of eternal and blessed life.

And having partaken thereof,

O wise Photina,

thou went forth proclaiming

Christ, the Anointed One and the light of the world.

Great Photina, equal-to-the-Apostles,

Pray to Christ for the salvation of our souls.

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as retold by Tanja Cilia

It is a traditional in some communities to touch the priest’s liturgical vestment (the chasuble or phelonion of the Eastern Rite) ever so slightly, as he passes by.  Some people bend down to touch the hem.  Both customs recall the woman – whose name we do not know – who bent down to touch the hem of Jesus’s garment, and was instantly healed of her illness.

This beautiful miracle happened just after Jesus and his disciples landed at Capernaum, having sailed across the Lake. There was a mass of people waiting for them on the shore – and one of them, whose name was Jairus, moved forward and knelt down in front of Jesus.

Jairus was a very important man at the Synagogue, so the people were surprised at this, and even more so when they heard what he had to say. We must remember that the leaders of the Synagogue did not really like Jesus.  But when faced with the death of his daughter, Jairus became desperate enough to seek out the “enemy”. He told Jesus that his daughter was at the point of death, and that he knew that if Jesus visited her, she would be well once again.

Jesus agreed to go to his house – but when they were on their way, with people crowding around Jesus to hear His teachings, a servant came up to Jairus with he news that his daughter had died.  Jesus simply said “Don’t be afraid; she will be saved.”

It is at this point that we meet the woman who had been ill for twelve years.  The Gospels tell us that she had been to many doctors, but none of them could cure her.  She had spent all her money on the cures they suggested, for nothing. Because of her sickness, she was shunned by people. It was partly for this reason that she came up to Jesus “from behind”, because she thought that if people saw her, they would shoo her away from Him and she would never get to see Him, let alone be cured by Him.

The story is told slightly differently in the Gospels; it is said that the woman touched the tassel, the fringe, or the hem of the clothes of Jesus. It does not matter; what matters is that she had unconditional faith – she believed that touching even the edge, or the trimming attached to it was enough for her to be cured.

Some commentaries tell us that it was not the edge of the robe that the woman touched, but the fringe of the talit (the prayer shawl) that Rabbis wear. This fringe represented the Names of God, and this is why the woman wanted to touch it.

And she was – the woman realized immediately that she had been healed. For twelve whole years, because of her illness, the woman had not been able to enter the temple to worship, as it was ruled in the book of Leviticus.  Touching someone would mean they would be considered ritually unclean, as well.  Nobody would have anything to do with her, because they would become “tainted”, like her.  Everyone ignored her, and shunned her.  She was sad and lonely, and Jesus was her last hope.

Some apocryphal versions of the story say that this woman was none other than Veronica of Caesarea Philippi, who later wiped Jess’s face on His way to Calvary.

She knew that she was not allowed to walk in the streets when there were people there. She could have been killed for breaking the law. But she knew she had nothing to lose – she had already lost her health, her money, and her friends.

Some people may question how, exactly, she “knew” that she was cured instantaneously.  Well, the illness of the woman was such that she felt pain and discomfort every single moment of her life.  Suddenly, she felt whole again, and she also felt that the bleeding was staunched.

There must have been scores of people milling around Jesus and his Apostles, jostling one another.  And yet when the woman touched His garment, Jesus felt the power go out of Him. He stopped, and he asked “Who touched me?”

The reply was one that we, too, might have given him.  The Apostles pointed out that there was a big crowd, so they could never, ever, be able to identify one specific person who had touched him.  But Jesus knew that something special had happened, and he looked around to search for the woman. He said “I asked who touched me, for I perceived that living energy has come out from me.” She was ever so embarrassed and frightened, because she thought people would accuse her of touching someone when she knew she should not have done it!

But, somehow, she plucked up courage, now that she was no longer “unclean”, to talk to Jesus and admit that it was she who had touched His clothes.  He blessed her and said “Daughter, your faith has made you well. Go in peace. You have been healed.”  It is important to note that Jesus used the phrase “go in peace” to show us that it is important to have peace in our hearts as well as healthy bodies.

Jesus did not become “unclean” because the woman had touched him.  We have seen Him touch lepers and dead people, and yet he remained holy. Just to make things clear, because there was a superstition that the clothes of a holy person, in themselves, held power – Jesus explains to her that it was not by touching His clothes that she was cured, but because she had believed it would happen.

Jairus was fidgety and perhaps a little angry as well because this incident had made Jesus “too late” to help his daughter. But when they got to the house, Jesus said “She is not dead; she sleeps.” Later, when Jesus brought the little girl back to life again, he asked the people in the house to give her something to eat, to show that for her and her family, life was now back to normal.

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as retold by Tanja Cilia

“Hey dad!”

“Yes, my son?”

“I was thinking, Dad… I’m sick and tired of living in this house, being the younger brother, I mean. I want to see the world; I want to be someone, not just a small fish in a small pond…”

“Oh, my son, what are you saying?  These words of yours are breaking my heart. Why do you want to leave me?  Have I not always taken care of you, and given you all that you need, and all that you want? You have never been without nice clothes and good food. I always let you bring your friends over, and yes, I am strict but loving…”

“Oh, papa, you do not understand. I have to play second fiddle to my brother, and he is always telling me that you love him more because he is your Firstborn. I want the money I would have gotten after you died, as my inheritance. I want to make it in the Great Big World, not stay cooped up forever in this tiny town…”

And the argument went on and on, day in, day out. Finally, the father consented, against his better judgment, to give his younger son a bag full of money and sent him on his way. “Be careful, my son!” he said, as he wiped a tear or two on the long sleeves of his robe.

“Thank you dad! I shall be thinking of you when I am far away. I want you to know that I will make the family name known around the world… I will become famous, and I will never forget you!”

So off went the younger son.  His father watched him until he was a spot in the distance, and then broke down, sobbing.

The young man had never seen so much money at once, and so he did not know how to handle it properly. He spent and spent, and bought stuff for people whom he did not even know. So of course, these became his “friends.”

He dressed himself in expensive clothes, and bought the best foods and the finest perfumes and shoes for himself – and for those who flattered him.

One day, he could not hear the jingling of money in his bag any more.  He put in his hand… and drew out one solitary coin. He looked at it sadly – and suddenly noticed that he was all alone – everyone had slunk away. They did not want to be with a loser, so he couldn’t even ask for pay-back to tide him over. He sold all his fine things in order to eat, but soon even those were gone. For the first time in his life he had to get a proper job.

But since he was – or at least he used to be – a rich kid, he had never had to work for a living, and so he did not know how to do anything. The only job he could find was taking care of pigs. Oh, how they stank! Oh, what bad manners they had. They jostled, they fought, and they even knew when he was going to steal a carob pod from their trough, because they head-butted him out of the way. But at least he got to sleep in the smelly barn.

He began to dream – when he was asleep, but more so when he was awake – of the fine time he had when he was at home. He remembered the silk clothes and compared them to his current sackcloth ones. He remembered the fine foods and compared them to the nasty-smelling swill of the pigs, some of which he nipped for himself in order to avoid starving to death.

Finally, he could take it no more. He thought again about his father and his home. The servants at his father’s house were well taken care of. They had comfortable beds and ate good food. Suddenly, he had a thought. “I will arise and go to my Father,” he said. “I will tell him to keep me, not as a son, but as a humble servant, because I deserve no more than that.” But at least the servants in my father’s house have proper food and proper clothes….

So the Prodigal Son began his journey home. It was many miles away, and he had to walk because he could not afford a donkey. He was tired, sweaty, and hungry, but he walked on and on and on, in a hurry to see his beloved father again. But the closer he came to the borders of the town, the more ashamed he felt. He kept off the roads and ducked behind bushes when travelers passed by. He wondered in anguish what sort of greeting he would receive at home.

Finally, he reached a place he recognized and  he heard a shout! His father was actually running out from the city gates toward him. How embarrassed he was! He felt like one of the pigs he used to tend; unwashed and smelly, with matted hair and dirt caked under his fingernails.

But, incredibly, his father did not notice any of this – all he saw was a son that had been lost, but was found. The young man fell to his knees and apologized, and instead of being angry his father told the servants (who were keeping their distance – not out of respect but because of the smell!) to prepare a barbecue and kill the fatted calf! They were ordered to bring the father’s robe and put it on the boy, to get him shoes because he was barefooted. They put a ring on his hand, and prepared him a bath. Soon, a great celebration was in full swing.

The elder brother heard the noise of the party, and saw people dancing. He was livid.  He went to his father and complained bitterly that he had never been allowed to throw a party for his friends, and yet, for this wastrel, the father had killed the fatted calf. The big brother did not want to go to the party, because he was angry and jealous.

But the father laid a hand gently upon his older son’s arm and said, “My firstborn, you only had to ask me, but you never did. All that I have is yours! Come, now, let us be happy because your brother has returned. He was dead, but now he lives! He was lost, but now he is home.”

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as retold by Tanja Cilia

Matthew 20:29-34; Luke 18:35-43 Mark 10:46-52

You will remember we mentioned Jericho, that place with wonderful gardens and world-famous date palms, when we spoke about Zacchaeus. In fact, this story happened just before the one where Jesus met Zacchaeus. In this story we see Jesus called “The Son of David” for the first time – Jesus accepts this title, and we know that it is a reference to the fact that Our Saviour had to come from the House of David.

Bartimeus was a blind man who also lived in Jericho; he spent his days begging for food or money with which to buy it. At the time, it was a common thing to see beggars out in the street – there were no such things as pensions or insurances.

Mark and Luke tell us that one of the two blind people whom Jesus cured was called Bartimaeus; perhaps they knew him, or his father Timeus (Bartimeus means “Son of Timeus” like we would say Johnson), or perhaps the people told them who he was. The other beggar was an “also-ran”, and I have no doubt that he, too, could see again when Jesus laid His hands on him.

Jesus, His disciples and many people arrived in Jericho. They heard a commotion, and realized that Jesus was being called upon to perform a miracle. But since the men who needed Jesus were not “important” in society, they were being told to be quiet and not interrupt Jesus and waste His time.

Now there are plenty of things to think about in this story. Bartimeus was a poor beggar, and this means he did not have many possessions. When he heard the hubbub made by the people who regularly followed Jesus, he asked what the matter was. The people told him that Jesus was near, and so he “took off his cloak” and went towards Him. He needed his one and only cloak, to use as a sunshade, an umbrella, and blanket at night – and yet he cast it off because it would slow down his progress as he ran towards the Lord. Bartimeus had faith – he knew that Jesus would cure him – but he had to make his presence known to Him, first! The beggars wanted Jesus to open their eyes – which here means to give them sight – and so they grasped the opportunity that came their way.

If you read the story, you will see how the people tried to stop Bartimeus from shouting out. You sometimes get people, even these days, who do not want others to be better than themselves. As it was, they thought Bartimeus was “worse off” than they, because he did not have the sense of sight.

But funnily enough, when they saw that Jesus wanted to speak with Bartimeus and his friend, they changed their tune. They told him “Cheer up! He wants to talk to you – go!”

Why do you think that Jesus asked the blind man what he wanted? Jesus knew the answer to that question already – but he wanted the man to ask him specifically, just as He wants us to call on Him and pray to Him with our needs. If Bartimeus did not believe that Jesus had the power to cure him, he would not have told him “I want to see!” He would have said something like “If you can do it…”

In fact, Jesus told Bartimeus “Go! Your faith has made you well…” and sure enough, Bartimeus could now see perfectly, and he joined the throng that was following Jesus on the road. All the people praised Jesus when they saw the wonderful miracle that had happened in front of their eyes.

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as retold by Tanja Cilia

Before we begin our story, close your eyes and imagine a country where all the buildings, stretching for miles and miles, are made of stone, and have flat roofs! Now, can you imagine your favorite bed-sheet, about ten times its actual size floating down from heaven?

Let us begin our story with Cornelius the Centurion in the city of Caesarea.  He was called a centurion because he was in charge of one-hundred soldiers in the Roman Army.  He was a kind man, and his family helped the poor.  One afternoon, an angel called Cornelius by name and told him that God had heard his prayers. He also told him to send to Joppa for Peter to come and bring salvation to his household.  Now this was a wonderful thing, because until that time, it was thought that only Jews were going to be saved. This was a misunderstanding, because Isaiah was one of the prophets who had insisted that Israel was to be a light to the non-Jewish people, like Cornelius, who were at that time called Gentiles.

Now let us return to the flat roofs of the houses.  These sometimes had steps leading up to them from the street, as well as from inside the house, and one could go from one roof to another. The roofs were – and still are – used as an extension of the house.  People may even have picnics or hang clothes to dry, or sleep there in summer, or dry straw or cure salted tomatoes and capers and pickles, on them – or even have some “quiet time” to pray.

You can imagine what they are like if you imagine a patio on the top of a house, rather than as a balcony.  By law, the roofs have a low sill or ledge at the edges for safety, about four feet high.

One afternoon, Peter was very hungry, and while downstairs a meal was being prepared, he went up the steps to the roof to be alone in prayer.  This house was in Joppa, by the Mediterranean seaside, and it belonged to a tanner, a person who cures hides to be made into leather items. The work created a lot of nasty smells, and the sea was a handy source of salt water needed for it. This tanner was called Simon.  His was not a holiday house – it was by the sea because in Biblical times, anyone who did this kind of job was considered not good enough to live in the centre of the city. Tanners worked with the bodies of dead animals, and they were considered “unclean.”

Did you notice how often people in the Bible are referred to by their names and their jobs?  The fact that Simon is a tanner is mentioned twice, as if to show us that Peter decided to go to the house of a Jewish person who would have had to wash himself ceremonially several times before going to the Synagogue to pray in order to become “clean!”

There, on the roof, Peter had a vision.  A cloth that was much, much larger than a sheet, something like the sails of a yacht, came down from heaven.  Inside it, he could see all kinds of animals. This huge sheet was lowered and raised three times.

Peter heard a voice that told him “Rise, Peter! Kill and eat!”  Now the Jews have a lot of rules that concern which animals may be eaten, and which may not, and if you want you can look for it in the Book of Leviticus, chapter eleven, verse one, and Deuteronomy, chapter fourteen, verse three.

The food that is “good to eat” is called “kosher.”  Unclean food is not kosher. For example, unclean animals include the camel, badger, rabbit, lizard, pig, shark, catfish, snake, bat, eagle, hawk, vulture, owl, gull, and stork.  But in Peter’s vision, the animals that he could eat were both kosher and non-kosher. This was a powerful symbol that Peter understood immediately. It showed that Jesus was the Savior of both the Jews and the Gentiles, who at that time were considered unclean.

When Peter’s vision was over, guess who came to see him?  That’s right – Cornelius’s messengers – two servants and a soldier – to invite Peter to his home in Caesarea! They had been traveling for about thirty miles, having left after Cornelius had his vision. This incredible “coincidence” confirmed that the Word of God was for everybody, not just for the Jewish People. Think about it! Peter saw a vision on the roof of Simon’s house and the Romans promptly came in through the door of this very house asking him to preach to the Gentiles.  The house itself became a symbol of God’s welcoming love for the whole world!

Simon the tanner actually invited the Romans inside (they were just in time for lunch!) – and this, too, was a wonderful thing that had never happened before, because Jews and Gentiles did not usually mix together, socially. They certainly never ate together!

Peter later went to Cornelius’s house and brought them the Good News of Jesus Christ. When he returned from Joppa to Jerusalem, he began preaching that non-Jews were also a part of God’s family.  Some did not like it, but Peter chided them, saying, “If God therefore gave to them the same gifts as He gave to us also after believing in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I that I could stand in God’s way?” (Acts 11:17)

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as retold by Tanja Cilia

It was a cool, crisp, spring morning in Jericho; a beautiful town that lay in the valley of the River Jordan, right between the river and the hills. There was a smell of baking in the air as the women made bread for breakfast, and everyone else was yawning, stretching, and getting out of bed.

“I’m so excited!” said Zacchaeus to himself. He knew that on that very special day, Jesus, the person they called The Prophet of Nazareth, was going to pass through his town on His way to Jerusalem. “He must be a special person, to have so many followers leave everything and follow him!”

Zacchaeus, whose name means “pure, clean, just, and righteous,” was very, very short. He realized that in order to be able to see Jesus, he had to leave his house early; otherwise with people standing in front of him would block his view. So he had some breakfast and put on his best clothes, an expensive cloak and new leather sandals. Zacchaeus was a rich man, so he could afford the best of everything. He had the best house in the street and ate the best food that money could buy. But Zacchaeus did not have many friends. This is because he worked for the Romans, and the Jews did not like either the Romans or the people who worked for them.

Jericho was a very important town, because anyone who wanted to go to the Big City had to pass through it. So people like Zacchaeus, who worked for the Romans, made a lot of money.    They were called publicans. They collected the tax from everyone who used the toll gates and the people who lived in Jericho, but they also asked for more money than they were supposed to, and kept it for themselves. Zacchaeus loved his money, and the more he collected, the better he felt. Sometimes he minded that his fellow Jews did not really like him, but at other times he was not worried at all — just as long as he had money to buy all the things he wanted.

Like everybody else, he had heard about Jesus the Galilean, and what a good man He was. But there was something else that made him curious. He had heard that Matthew, one of the disciples of Jesus, was a publican like himself. He wondered how it was possible for a rich man to be a disciple of someone who didn’t even have a house of his own, and who owned only the clothes on his back. “How could a publican live without money, and lots of it?” he wondered.

He kept asking himself questions like this as he huffed and puffed and bustled his way towards the main road, where Jesus was going to pass.

“Oh! Bother!” he exclaimed, as he saw the crowds that had already gathered.  Even though he was an important man – or so he thought – nobody would be willing to give up his position at the edge of the street to let him stand in front. And Zacchaeus knew that he was too short to catch a glimpse of Jesus from the back of the crowd, even if he stood on tip-toes. He did not want to ask people who lived along the main roads for permission to look out of their windows – he was sure they would not let him do so. His heart filled with sadness, he nearly returned home. But then he thought of something.

“I have a brilliant idea!” he exclaimed, as he struck his forehead. “I know what I’ll do; I will climb a tree and see Him from there. I will see what all the fuss is about! So the short man bunched up his robe and his cloak, not even minding that he was creasing the expensive fabric. He started climbing up a sycamore tree and the people looked at him and laughed, passing silly comments about him. Now the sycamore tree is a big tree, and at the time it was a very important tree because the poor people used to gather its fruit and eat it. Some people even used to boil the leaves and eat them like we would eat lettuce or cabbages. Poor Zacchaeus! He snagged his clothes on the branches of the tree as he climbed, and scratched his arms and legs on the twigs as he struggled to find a comfortable perch.

“He’s coming!” exclaimed Zacchaeus, when he heard an excited babble of voices and saw people’s heads turning. And indeed, Jesus and His followers were walking slowly along the street, talking amongst themselves. Although he had never seen Him before, Zacchaeus could immediately make out which one of them was Jesus. Although He was dressed in a simple robe like all the others, He had regal dignity and bearing, like a King.

Suddenly Zacchaeus wanted to reach out and touch Jesus, and to follow him like all the others were doing. But that would mean giving up all his money and his lovely house and all his things, and Zacchaeus did not want to do that. His mind and his heart were telling him different things, and he was feeling so mixed up!

Jesus reached the sycamore tree where Zacchaeus was hiding between the branches. He stopped.  “What’s happening?” people began asking one another. “Is the Master tired? Does he want to sit down? Does he want a drink of water? Shall we fetch him something to eat?”

Jesus stood right beneath the branch where Zacchaeus was, and looked up. He said “Zacchaeus, come down! I want to eat at your house today!”

Zacchaeus gulped, and nearly fell out of the tree in his excitement. “He knows my name! How can this be?” he wondered, and almost slid down the branches in his hurry to get closer to Jesus.

Some of the people were angry when this happened, because they thought that Jesus should not go into the house of someone who worked for the Romans. They muttered nasty things about Zacchaeus, and said that he did not deserve to have Jesus as his guest. They all thought he was a bad man because he stole money from others. Many other people grumbled because they thought they deserved to have Jesus in their house more than Zacchaeus did. But Jesus did not judge, accuse or criticize Zacchaeus. He just invited himself over for lunch.

Zacchaeus felt special. He had been singled out by Jesus from the hundreds of people present.  He bustled along the street, holding his head up high with Jesus by his side. But he had heard the grumblings of his neighbors and a new thought came to him. Suddenly, Zacchaeus was sure of what he had to do. He turned to Jesus, and in front of all the people, he said to Him “Lord, right now I am promising you that I am going to give half of my belongings to the poor. But that’s not all. If I have cheated anyone by taking more taxes that I ought to have done, I will give them back four times as much as I took extra from them. I promise you this, Jesus.”

Jesus smiled calmly as the crowd fell silent, and said “Salvation has come into this house today, because Zacchaeus is also a son of Abraham. And because the Son of Man came to look for the lost, and to save them.”

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Fleur and Lee are twins, who live, of course, in the lovely, tiny hamlet of Fleur de Lys in Malta, that tiny island in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea.

This year, Advent is a special time for them, because their Nanna Kitty let them have the set of clay figurines that used to belong to Nannu Paul when he was a kid.

But, what’s so special about a box full of tiny old statues, you may ask. Ah! But these are the ones that are traditionally used in Malta and other European countries during Christmastide, to decorate their presepju (grotto). This particular set was made from clay, and then painstakingly painted, by a famous artist, so long ago.

The twins’ dad helped them make the grotto for the models. They got an oblong of three-ply wood from the carpenter’s workshop around the corner, and set to work. Before, the grottos used to be made from sackcloth; these days, since sacks are usually made of nylon, it is easier to use thick brown paper. This is slightly moistened and crumpled, and then, placed on the plywood so that it meets one of the long sides and the two shorter ones, leaving a slight space in the front. Then, it is pressed down to form some “caverns” with the largest one in the centre. In a basin, in the time-honoured way, dad had mixed some Elmer’s glue, sand, plaster of Paris and water. They took turns at “painting” this over the construction, taking care to see that the mixture covered everything.

They took it out on the roof, but out of the direct sunlight, to dry. Some people cover the finished grotto with varnish, but Fleur said it looked more natural without, so they left it like that. Le had spent a lot of time cutting up bits of dried grass, hay, and straw for the “floors” of the caves, and he sprinkled them on when the glue mixture was still tacky.

The grotto was finally ready! It was beautiful now, go figure when the statuettes depicting the Biblical personages completed the picture.

On the Saturday before the First Sunday of Advent, the doorbell rang, and the children ran to the door. Imagine their faces when they saw it was a neighbour, asking whether they had a lemon, so that she could grate a bit of the peel into her chocolate squares! The doorbell rang again – and this time, it was the postman, delivering some books for the twins’ mother.

But the third time the doorbell rang, it really was Nanna Kitty – and in her hands she had a large mysterious box, wrapped in a tartan tablecloth. Carefully, very carefully, she walked towards the kitchen. While Mom prepared some coffee and sandwiches, Nanna undid the ribbon and spread open the tablecloth.

A smell of dry straw came out of the box, and, one by one, the twins and Nanna took out the fragile figurines.

There were shepherds and sheep, farmers and their animals, all in exquisite detail. There were angels with translucent wings. There were the Magi on their camels and their servants, and a number of extra camels too. There were men and women and children dressed in traditional Maltese clothing, a baker with a tray of bread, and a woman with a bowl of maize, and some chickens. There were the ox and the donkey, both in a kneeling position.

But best of all, inside another, smaller box, were the beautiful statues of Mary, Joseph, and Baby Jesus, holding His right hand up as if in blessing, and lying in a manger.

By this time, Fleur and Lee and uttered Oh! and Ah! at least a thousand times. Their fingers were itching to put the “tiny people” in the grotto, which Dad had placed in a prominent place in the family room. But first, they cleared up the loose hay, and folded the tablecloth, placing it inside the box.

The adults drank their coffee, and Mom squeezed some tangerines and oranges for Fleur and Lee.

The children each got a large bowl from the cupboard and shared the statuettes between them, so that they wouldn’t have to take several trips too and from the kitchen. But when lee put out his hands for Melchior, Caspar, and Balthazar, Nanna Kitty said “Not those please!” She then explained that it was a part of the observance involved placing the Magi and their entourage as far away from the grotto as possible, and then, each Sunday, moving them a little towards the main cavern. By the time Epiphany comes around, they are there, presenting their gold, frankincense and myrrh to Baby Jesus… although as we know, the story didn’t really happen that way.

What a fine morning this was. The children couldn’t wait for Sunday, to move the camel-caravan a few inches along the sideboard, towards the Crib Scene.

Nanna Kitty cried with happiness, to see the joy her gift had brought Fleur and Lee. She was glad to see that the Christmas Story was coming alive in the family room of her daughter’s family, just as it was in thousands of homes in Malta.

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