GREENSBORO — Every year Catholic families around the Triad look forward to Francis and Patty Disney’s Posada celebration. Over 140 adults and kids create a joyful throng each December to prepare for Christmas together and reenact Mary and Joseph’s journey through Bethlehem to the stable.
More than 30 years ago, Patty’s sister began a family tradition of acting out the Christmas story with all the children of the family. In 1995, the family moved their annual celebration to the Disney home in North Carolina, and a few years later, the Disney family began to invite friends to join them. Their daughters, Ana and Nadia, enlisted the help of their Challenge Girls Club to build a cheerful backdrop and create props. Now, the celebration has expanded to an event that encompasses multiple families and communities that transcend parish boundaries.
“We know that today many families live distant from each other,” Disney says. “And we have come to love and enjoy these young families who share with us in offering of this tradition ... to pause, gather, and share in the reason for the season and the gift of the Christ Child.”
The evening begins with Patty Disney’s warm smile welcoming the families in from the brisk winter air. A barbecue dinner follows, and everyone brings a dessert to share. Then, after a bustle of costuming, small shepherds, angels, kings and the Holy Family jump onto a long trailer edged with hay bales, and Francis Disney drives them to the large barn at the back of the property. The hay ride passes doorways strung with lights to represent the many doors closed to Mary and Joseph as they searched for room at an inn. When everyone arrives at the stable, it is filled with blinking star lights, fresh hay and a manger. Some years, the Disneys have even borrowed a live donkey to tie by the barn door. The families huddle inside and the costumed children circle the empty manger.
This year, Thomas Markun, a student at Bishop McGuinness High School, served as the narrator. Brief, rhyming segments of narration alternate with well-known Christmas carols to tell the story of Jesus’ birth. A somewhat reluctant Joseph and an attentive Blessed Virgin Mary kept careful watch over Baby Jesus this year, while throngs of enthusiastic angels joined in for every chorus. Several of the actors are the Disney’s grandchildren. Many years, Patty Disney also shares the Catholic meanings behind each of the 1”2 Days of Christmas.” While the atmosphere is celebratory and theatrical, she has a gift for teaching through play. When the evening wraps up with a bright rendition of “O Come All Ye Faithful,” it is clear that each participant feels a little more keenly that the time is approaching to adore the Incarnate Son of God in their hearts and homes.
The event serves as more than an outdoors Christmas pageant. It is a sort of pilgrimage. The value of pilgrimage, a journey of the soul, is an integral part of the Disneys’ spirituality. They have traveled on many pilgrimages including one to the Holy Land, recent trips to Lourdes and Fatima, and a month walking the Camino in Spain.
Patty Disney says these prayerful visits facilitate “a deep encounter with Christ. We have found our Catholic faith to become to enriched and alive through pilgrimage and Camino experience. It has made our lives together as a married couple more deeply united in these shared experiences.”
This is why they embraced the Latin American Christmas tradition of a “Posada,” a walk in the footsteps of the Holy Family as they look for a place to stay.
The Disneys also provide their fellow pilgrims with an immediate opportunity for opening their own hearts to welcome others. The event collects donations for Room at the Inn, a local maternity home that houses, educates and supports homeless single mothers before and after their children are born.
The Disney family invests deeply in these “life-giving programs,” after a tragedy of their own led them to reach out to others in need of healing.
Patty explains, “Francis and I, after losing our daughter Amy, had a deeper understanding of the gift of each child. Francis, in his background with home construction and support in community, has been involved in the renovation of the Mary Nussbaum Maternity Home for Room at the Inn. We also helped to support and establish the Amy Elizabeth Disney Home that now is used to support the college program for Room at the Inn.”
The Disneys see their contribution as only a part of the larger work of supporting families and say they “feel a strong sense of supporting the family unit.”
On the scenic route back to the house in the hay wagon, the kids shake jingle bells and the parents attempt to remember all the lyrics to “Jingle Bell Rock” and “Rudolph.”
This evening spent with community in prayer and preparation has become an annual tradition for many of the Disneys’ friends. The Disneys have provided a joyfully reflective break in the midst of a busy season for young families, although they would be the first to assure you that “In the end, this story is not about us but about all those who respond to the invitation.”
— Kelly J. Henson, correspondent
GASTONIA — Clergy of the Diocese of Charlotte have a powerhouse of prayer in the growing community of the Daughters of the Virgin Mother.
The community, formed by Sister Mary Raphael and approved by Bishop Peter Jugis in 2015, attends to the practical and spiritual needs of men preparing for the priesthood, as well as those already ordained.
The community now includes two novices: Sister Mary Elizabeth and Sister Mary Veronica. A postulant, Taylor Marie Halbig, joined the community eight months ago.
That growth prompted the Daughters to search for a permanent home, and through the generosity of donors, they bought a small home on Belvedere Avenue in Gastonia last August.
Pictured: The Daughters of the Virgin Mother attended the land blessing for St. Joseph College Seminary Oct. 22 in Belmont. Pictured are (from left) Father Matthew Kauth, seminary rector; Bishop Peter Jugis; Sister Mary Raphael; Sister Mary Elizabeth; Sister Mary Veronica; and Taylor Marie Halbig, a postulant. (SueAnn Howell | Catholic News Herald)
The group’s charism and mission are in response to a 2007 appeal issued by the Congregation for the Clergy to spur a movement of prayer in the Church intended to encourage priestly vocations as well as unite priestly vocations to the support of spiritual maternity, particularly on the part of consecrated women religious.
Through much prayer, spiritual direction and discernment, Sister Mary Raphael – who spent many years discerning religious life cloistered as a Poor Clare of Perpetual Adoration – heard the call to form the community to provide care for bishops, priests and seminarians under the patronage of Our Lady, Mother of the Eternal High Priest, and of St. John Paul II.
“Feeling a call to respond to that initiation, over the course of years I sought spiritual direction,” Sister Mary Raphael says. “What evolved was this rule of life that says how consecrated women religious of the Diocese of Charlotte can respond to this call.
“I think that’s an important aspect. Just as a young man feels called to a diocese, a local Church, I also felt called to a local Church. This rule is written for sisters in the Diocese of Charlotte.”
The community’s rule of life centers on living in imitation of the Blessed Virgin Mary through their consecrated life, spiritual motherhood and prayerful penance, Sister Mary Raphael says. They strive to be visible reminders and witnesses of the relationship between Christ the High Priest and His bride, the Church.
Their rule revolves around Calvary and the priest as both priest and victim, she explains. “If the priest is the alter Christus, called to stay on the Cross, then you have Our Lady at the foot of the Cross. The consecrated religious woman is meant to imitate her.
“You have Christ the High Priest offering the sacrifice. Like Our Lady, we want to say to the priest, ‘Stay on the Cross where you belong.’ Why do I have the audacity to say that? Because I promise to stay on Calvary, too.”
The community strives to encourage seminarians of the diocese through prayer and practical help where possible.
The Daughters wear a habit carefully selected to reflect their Marian charism. The main part of the habit is white, signifying Our Lady’s purity and their call to chastity. The tichel, or head piece, is also white and resembles what Our Lady would have worn. The veil is a deep, midnight Marian blue, as is the fascia (a long sash worn around the waist).
“The Daughters also wear a medal of the Sacred and Immaculate Hearts. It is in and through Cor ad Cor – the pierced and Sacred Heart of Jesus and the pierced and Immaculate Heart of Mary – that the members of the Daughters are formed in the charism to which they are called,” Sister Mary Raphael explains. “Meditating upon and growing in devotion to the Two Hearts impels each Sister towards greater love and unreserved self-giving.”
As part of their initial training in the postulancy and the novitiate, the Daughters assist mothers and children at the MiraVia residential home at Belmont Abbey College by preparing meals, assisting with child care and providing love and emotional support.
Sister Mary Raphael also prepares meals four days a week for the 16 men studying at St. Joseph College Seminary. After the sisters make their first profession, they too will assist in the practical needs of the college seminary, currently located adjacent to St. Ann Church in Charlotte.
Sister Mary Raphael notes that while living as visible witnesses, the Daughters do so in recognition that a woman most profoundly gives of herself through the veiled mystery of silence, hiddenness and gentle availability.
“She watches for the needs around her, but does not forcefully impose herself on them. Always ready to respond in joyful evangelical availability and humble readiness to assist in the needs of the priests and seminarians, she also is docile to the powerful surrender that gave Our Lady the grace and courage to say, ‘Do whatever He tells you’ (John 2:5).”
— SueAnn Howell, senior reporter. Daughters of the Virgin Mother contributed.
Help the Daughters of the Virgin Mother
At www.daughtersofthevirginmother.com: Get more information on the Daughters of the Virgin Mother or offer financial assistance to help them pay off their mortgage and provide practical support to the priests and seminarians of the Diocese of Charlotte. Donations may also be mailed to: Daughters of the Virgin Mother, Our Lady of Loreto Convent, 1112 S. Belvedere Ave., Gastonia, NC, 28054. Questions? Email Sister Mary Raphael at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..
