The Christmas Stories We Never See

‘Tis the season of Christmas movies. I love to watch my favorites, but I’m always intrigued to check out the newest holiday films, too. Last year, for instance, I came across this incredible Brazilian film on Netflix, Just Another Christmas, in which the lead is cursed to live only on Christmas, while the rest of the year the normal, colder version of him is making all the choices. It’s sort of Groundhog Day meets Christmas with a twist. And it’s fantastic. 

You know one thing you almost never see at Christmastime? A movie with a nun or a member of the clergy in it. I know, you’re thinking I’m wrong, right? Bells of St. Mary’s gets played at Christmas, but it’s not a Christmas story. The climax of A Charlie Brown Christmas is a reading from the Gospel of Matthew. The presentation is almost liturgical, but it comes from Linus. Meanwhile It’s a Wonderful Life is definitely a Christmas movie and has major Christian elements, especially Clarence the Angel. But there’s not one single religious institutional figure in the whole film.   

And this lack of religious figures in Christmas stories is a little bit weird. Not that every Christmas movie needs a Christian hook, or that the pinnacle of Christianity is being a cleric or religious. But for many Christians, Mass is a central part of the celebration. (Ya think?) And yet some of the people most intimately involved in that celebration, the clergy who preside at the liturgy and the sisters who are so often involved with formation in parishes, are almost always — no pun intended — left out in the cold. 

Recently the Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby complained about just this situation. Welby, leader of the Church of England and the worldwide Anglican Communion, told the National Farmers’ Union that vicars on television “are portrayed as rogues or idiots … the reality is very different –- it is actually of hard-working normal people, caring deeply about what they do and working all the hours there are to do it.”

“[Clergy on television] are portrayed as rogues or idiots … the reality is very different –- it is actually of hard-working normal people, caring deeply about what they do and working all the hours there are to do it.”

Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Webly

I have to say, I sort of shrivel up inside whenever someone in authority in the church — even if it’s not not my exact denomination — complains about media presentations of clergy. We  know exactly why clergy are often presented as villains today. And every time a church leader claims the victim status it just presents further evidence of how far we still have to go in accepting our role in systemic abuse. 

I was also surprised to read Welby’s comments in light of some recent portrayals of clergy and nuns, many of them from the United Kingdom, where Welby lives. 

If you’re reading this and you haven’t seen Broken yet, the 2017 six-part BBC series about a poor parish in northern England, starring Sean Bean as the priest (spoiler: he doesn’t die), consider it my Christmas gift to you. Some of it gets a little dark, but it’s one of the most poignant and rich portraits of the priesthood and Christianity that I’ve ever seen. Or there’s the 2019 second season of Fleabag, in which Andrew Scott plays a priest who has an openness and vulnerability that I wish I had. His story is a fascinating exploration of the struggle to be a priest and still be loving. 

The priest in Midnight Mass, which Netflix released this past October, is maybe not the guy you want giving you Communion. But what he wants, to give everyone in this small struggling island community not only hope but the life they might deserve, bespeaks the aspirations of many good clergy. Like Fleabag, Midnight Mass is a story that really tries to take seriously what it means to be both a priest and a Christian and the struggles which come with those commitments. Personally, I found the series really sinks its teeth into the questions of our faith. 

For the last two years in the States, we’ve also had the Paramount+ show Evil, which stars Mike Colter as a Black seminarian working with a team to evaluate supernatural phenomena. The show has done deep and interesting dives into many Catholic topics, including confession, cloistered communities, and the struggle to be celibate. The second season also involves a truly badass nun (played by the great Andrea Martin) who is the voice of courage and truth for main character David Acosta. Exorcism is not everyone’s bag, and I get that. But this is another show that really is trying to take religion and religious life seriously. Plus, at a time when nuns are so often the real heroes and prophets of our Catholic community, how nice to see someone offering stories for them. More nun shows, please! 

Here’s the other thing, though, that I feel as if Archbishop Welby’s comments point to and also maybe miss: being a cleric is a weird job, a lot weirder than we who have spent our lives as clergy can sometimes appreciate. I can’t tell you how many times people apologize when they swear in front of me, or insist on calling me Father. And not just older people who were raised in a pre-Vatican II church — these are people who have known me for decades, or who aren’t even fans of Christianity themselves. 

And in my experience it doesn’t really matter if we correct them on this or other things, such as whether we possess some special mystical relationship with God (we don’t) or don’t get lonely (we do). The things we’re taught from a young age about clergy and religious by our families, the church and the broader culture are just really hard to let go of. People need more than a word of correction about their notions; they need different stories with which to fill in the gaps.

My first Christmas as a priest I was assigned the Midnight Mass at the parish where I was working. I was so nervous. For me, that liturgy was like getting to do a tight five on Carson or getting called up to the Majors. It was The Big Show. I’d been preparing my whole life for it. 

But somewhere just after the homily, as I started into presiding at the Eucharistic prayer, I suddenly realized, Christmas Eve is just another Mass. I mean that literally—unlike the liturgies of Holy Week, Christmas doesn’t have any extra parts to it. It’s a normal Sunday. And a bit of a sad Sunday, too—every parishioner who came up after Mass asked me when I was going to see my family before leaving to be with theirs. But the fact was I couldn’t see my family precisely because I was there working.  

I know, not exactly the Hallmark Christmas movie any of us want to watch. (“But then I saw a reindeer, and it changed everything.”) And to be clear, I’m not complaining about being a priest at Christmas! I’ve had other experiences that were wonderful, such as  the time I concelebrated at an outdoor Mass in a park in Perth, Australia and watched kids in yards surrounding the park fly up and down on trampolines behind the praying congregation. 

What I am saying is this: when it comes to being a cleric or a sister, there are a lot of unexpected stories still to tell. What I wouldn’t give for a deep dive into what it’s like to be the religious sister, clergyperson, or lay minister struggling to continue to serve in a church that has protected or hidden violence. Why do they stay? How do they live with that struggle? Or the tale of a nun or cleric and their nephew or niece. In my experience, those are such special family relationships, the more so at the holidays! Kind of like your family, only different. Or what it’s like trying to decorate for Christmas in a community of thirty nuns or priests who all have their own family traditions and ornaments they want respected. (Things get VERY REAL and also very silly.) 

I don’t think any Christian community has the right to demand greater sympathy from the media at this point. Certainly not the Catholic Church, anyway. But I am grateful for writers who can push past some of the cultural assumptions about religious life to offer a glimpse of our frailty, good humor, and humanity. After all, the drama of being, and becoming, human is what Christmas is all about.