“Mom, don’t forget the wafers!” Matthew reminded me as we rushed out of church. Advent was flying by at top-speed and no matter how many quiet moments I tried to steal, even at mass on Sunday, I couldn’t slow its pace.
Wafers? I glanced toward the table of stuff for sale in the front of the church, wondering what he had his eye on.
“Over there! Oplatek!” He pointed in the opposite direction, to a quiet table off to the side. Brightly colored envelopes containing Christmas wafers sat unattended in a large basket. It was a stark contrast to the commotion of the sale on the opposite side of the room–an irony that escaped me until just now.
Leave it to my little guy to help keep me focused. We placed a small donation in the basket and he selected an envelope.
“Remind me on Christmas Eve,” I told him. “Don’t let us forget the wafers.”
Sharing the Oplatki is a relatively new tradition for our family, but one we cherish and want to continue.
I took a deep breath and reminded myself–simplify, simplify. I considered using the crockpot more, buying gift cards instead of shopping and even thought I’d ditch the idea of sending out Christmas cards. I was a mom with two active kids just before Christmas, a new grad student and the owner of a new puppy. Life was beautiful chaos–but chaos nonetheless.
Christmas Eve came and a quiet calm fell over our house. I know for some other families that Christmas Eve is the crescendo of the season. But for us, it’s a wonderful pause for our little family of four to be together, share a good meal and settle into the holiday. We usually celebrate with the rest of our family and friends throughout the following week.
As I set the table for dinner Matthew reminded me again, “Mom, don’t forget the wafers!” I lit the candles on the table, he found the envelope and then he passed out a Christmas wafer to each of us.
I squinted to read the prayer on the back of the envelope. The print seemed way too small for my 40+ year old eyes. As I let my eyes fall into focus, I recalled that an eye appointment was still on my list of things to do. The words of the prayer were well worth the effort though. My body relaxed, and with an exhale of all the stress that lead up to that point, I read the prayer. This is the prayer that draws us back to this tradition each year…
“We share the holy wafers. Through this sharing we are God bound to forgive each other all the wrongs, real and imagined, which have been committed through the year…and promise never to return to them. Only then do we have a valid sharing of the holy wafers. As Christ forgives us, so we forgive each other. Then Bethlehem, the House of Bread, where the True Bread from heaven was born, is born from above, among us, in us. For this reason the Christmas wafer is called the Bread of Unifying Love.”*
We broke the wafers and each shared a piece with one another. We also shared a “peace” with one another…a peace that I sorely needed that night. One might argue that without the preceding chaos, I may not have been able to appreciate that very moment. I’ve committed to safeguard this tradition and to make a special place for it in our home each Christmas Eve. To add to that commitment, I promise to remember whenever I can, to heed the voices in my life that say, “Don’t forget! Look over there!” Especially if it’s the voice of a kid.
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*Prayer Excerpt from Oplatek Christmas Story Wafers, The Christmas Wafers Bakery, Lewiston, NY, 2007.
For more information on the tradition of sharing Oplatki, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christmas_wafer
