Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 38, Number 29, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 22 December 1905 — CHRISTMAS EVE IN BETHLEHEM. [ARTICLE]

CHRISTMAS EVE IN BETHLEHEM.

Observances in the Christian Town Set in the Heart of Mohammedanism. Bethlehem, the central spot of interest in the Holy Land at Christmastide, is a Christian town set in the heart of Mohammedanism, where i once a year the Greek church gratits the use of the grotto of the Nativity to the Latin church, says London Sphere. The ceremonies begin on Dec. 24 by the image of the youthful Christ being carried from the basilica of St. Helena to the sacred grotto of the Nativity, where the traditional spot of Christ’s birth is marked by a silver star set in the rocky pavement. The service begins at 10 o’clock In the evening. It opens with the chanting of psalms without any musical accompaniment. The patriarch of Jerusalem usually officiates in the grotto, but on this occasion he is represented by the Latin bishop. The interior of the church is most picturesque, for there are only a few chairs provided for foreign visitors, while the bulk of the congregation is made up of the Bethlemite women in their blue dresses with red frontlets, wearing peaked caps when married and flat caps covered by white veils when single. As they enter the church they at first kneel down and then sit upon the ground in true oriental fashion. “In the dimly lighted church,” says one who has seen the service, “these squatting varicolored figures, with their beautiful faces lit up by fits and starts by flashes of the candles, intent on devotion, seem like so many modern Madonnas come to celebrate the glory of the first Madonna.” Precisely at midnight the pontifical high mass is celebrated, the figure of Christ is brought in a basket and deposited upon the high altar, and the procession forms to accompany it to the crypt. As the long, chanting procession winds through the dimly lighted church there is something weirdly solemn about the ceremony, and as the sacred image passes various acts of worship are performed by the devout attendants. On the procession moves through the rough hewn, dimly lit passages from the Latin church to the grotto of the Nativity. When the procession of richly robed ecclesiastics reaches the silver star set in the pavement the priests pause nnd stand in a group about the basket, which is deposited upon the star. Around this star is the inscription, "Hie de virgino natus est” (“Here he was born of a virgin”), for this is the spot upon which tradition places the actual birth of Jesus. There the impressive narrative of the birth of Jesus as found in the gospels is slowly recited, and when the passage (Luke ii„ 7), “And she brought forth her firstborn Son aud wrapped him in swaddling clothes and laid him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn,” is read the figure is reverently picked up from the star and carried over to the opposite side of the grotto, where it is put into a rock cut manger. This concludes the service.