Southbridge Nativity scene blends the community

By Tanya Connor  | The Catholic Free Press

SOUTHBRIDGE – This year’s gift enables people to see Jesus from different perspectives.
It’s an attempt to reflect the parish community.
And it was like a Christmas present for the new pastor – from the associate pastor, who was inspired by a Holy Land pilgrimage, and from parishioners, who set an example of stewardship.
The gift? The manger scene in St. John Paul II Parish’s main worship site, Notre Dame Church.
The associate pastor, Father Juan G. Herrera, said that before his first Christmas here four years ago he learned that the Nativity figures in Notre Dame Church were traditionally displayed in a space that wasn’t visible from many of the pews.
“We need to do something,” said Father Herrera, who used to create background scenes for Nativity figures in his house and churches in his native Colombia.
So, he said, with the support of Father Peter J. Joyce, then pastor, and the help of members of the parish’s Hispanic community, he erected a platform over some pews. On it he and his helpers made a scene for the figures that had belonged to Notre Dame Parish.
What is now St. John Paul II Parish was formed in 2011 from St. Hedwig’s, a Polish parish; St. Mary’s, which had English-speaking and Spanish-speaking communities, and Notre Dame of the Sacred Heart, formed in 2010 from the French parishes of Notre Dame and Sacred Heart of Jesus.
This year, Father Herrera said, he and his helpers again made a Nativity scene for Notre Dame, the parish’s site for weekend liturgies. But this time he used the Fontanini figures that belonged to St. Mary’s Parish, where they make a smaller nativity scene. He said he switched the figures because this year he made a bigger platform in Notre Dame, and St. Mary’s had more figures.
“The Holy Spirit was leading me,” he said. “This manger scene is a reflection of our community, a community trying to be together, a community which is walking in the path of unity and peace, a community that, little by little, is realizing that we are called to be one body in Christ.”
Father Herrera said that this year he used Notre Dame’s figures in the scene in St. Mary’s, where weekday Masses are celebrated most of the year.
In St. Hedwig’s, used for summer weekday Masses, and funerals upon request, parish music director Brandon Vennink and his family set up the Nativity scene that originally belonged to that parish.
Throughout the Christmas season, which ends Jan. 8 when the Church celebrates the Baptism of the Lord, people can pray by the manger scenes in the three churches and the chapel at the parish’s ministry center next to St. Mary’s Church, which are all open during the daytime, Father Herrera said.
“Every year I try to do something different,” he said.    “I have parishioners from the Spanish community helping me out.” Making such scenes is a tradition in Hispanic cultures and the people are willing to contribute their time and talent to do this, he said.
He said this year’s helpers were Onix Melendez and his wife, Marta Maria Rojas and their daughter Sofia Melendez; Milton Soto and his wife, Ada Lozada, Brenda Villanueva and her daughter Natyarie Villanueva, and Litz Lopez.
“We give a message of beauty and hard work and peace,” Father Herrera said.
“This is not only the most beautiful creche I’ve ever seen in a church” – it’s an “example of stewardship par excellence,” said Father Kenneth R. Cardinale, the pastor. “We had people working in multiple locations every night for a month.”
It’s great as the new pastor to see parishioners so committed to their parish; “that was a great Christmas present for me,” he said. And it was great to have the scene to point to when he was talking about Jesus’ birth, “as though you were almost next to the live manger scene 2,000 years ago,” he said.
    Father Herrera said that this year his original idea was to build a fountain, but running water could be distracting during Mass and he didn’t want to cause a flood.
    After praying about it and getting ideas from others, he decided to make a structure – “a place for Jesus to stay.” He modeled it on architecture he saw on a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, which Hispanics in the diocese made in September.
    “I was just trying to reflect a community building on strong foundations – tradition and values,” he said.
    “So the four arches, they are not just giving us three dimensions, but also … different points of view to see Jesus … to see the presence of Jesus in our lives.” One can see Baby Jesus in the manger from a different perspective through each arch.