Pageant renews long-standing holiday tradition
A Christmas tradition was renewed Christmas Eve at St. Saint Michael the Archangel Roman Catholic Church, 432 Center Ave.
Ten children, a narrator and two musicians put on “A Christmas Pageant.”
The sanctuary of St. Michael was transformed into Bethlehem and the surrounding hillsides and children from All Saints Parish became shepherds, wise men, angels and Mary and Joseph to enact “the greatest story every told” before the 4 p.m. Christmas Eve, Dec. 24, Mass.
Herb Nichol, a lector at St. Michael and a member of the pastoral council of All Saints Parish, is the director/producer of the pageant and has been for the past 25 years.
He said the number of young actors varies from year to year, but “basically it’s the same pageant narrated by a student every year.”
“I adapted it many, many years ago from a faith formation class,” Nichol said. “The children don’t have any lines to remember, they just have to know where to stand.”
Nichol said this year’s cast, drawn from St. Michael and the other four churches in the parish, had a two-hour rehearsal to go through the maneuvers before Saturday’s performance.
The pageant has such a long history that the accompanying flutist Nicole Laborie, a senior early childhood and special education major with a minor in music at Slippery Rock University, once was in the pageant herself.
“I played the part of Mary,” Laborie said. “I was in the play from kindergarten through 6 or 7 years old. I started playing the flute probably in the seventh grade.”
Laborie was joined in musical duties by pianist Matt Nocera.
The pageant was as much a family tradition as a holiday tradition for this year’s narrator, Kamryn Martin, 13, the daughter of Tom and Kristie Martin. In the past, her older brother, Brodie, narrated the pageant.
Kamryn said, “I was Mary last year, and the year before that and before that, I was an angel.”
“My older brother was narrator when I was an angel and Mary and he just kind of walked me through it. I’m feeling pretty confident.”
As narrator, she said, “I have a script to read. I like reading. I’m in the forensics class at my school, Butler Catholic School.”
Jackie Baptiste, 7, was admiring her green wise man’s costume in the fitting room in the minutes leading up to the pageant.
“I like turquoise, and I’m carrying the frankincense,” the first-grader said.
Playing a wise man was no problem for Sydney Karnes, 9, of Petrolia.
“I was a wise man last year. I like being in the play,” said Sydney, a fourth-grader at Dassa McKinney Elementary School in West Sunbury.
Her mother, Selena Karnes, said they made the 30-minute drive from Petrolia for the pageant and the following Mass at St. Michael.
“Her two brothers were in the pageant last year,” said Karnes adding they attend several different churches in the parish.
“St. Paul’s, St. Michael’s, depending on the time of the Mass. We have a lot of options,” she said.
Despite the single-digit temperatures Saturday afternoon, by the time the music from Laborie’s flute and Nocera’s piano heralded the beginning of the pageant, the sanctuary was full.
In a preamble, Nichol told the congregation, “Ten children are going to tell a very special story that we have done for nearly a quarter century.
“The pageant is a beautiful tradition dating back to St. Francis, who used live animals and people to tell the story of Jesus,” he said.
And with that, Kamryn Martin ascended the pulpit and began to tell the “greatest story ever told,” accompanied by traditional carols and child actors to illustrate the Christmas story.
