By Father Seán Coyle

In Ireland and Britain the robin redbreast appears on Christmas cards and decorations. This comes from Victorian times in Britain when mailmen wore a red uniform and delivered letters even on Christmas Day. The robin too is the only bird in that part of the world that sings right through the winter.

Father Aedan McGrath, who has appeared on the cover of Misyon, died suddenly at a family gathering in Dublin, his native city, on Christmas Day six years ago at the age of 94. He had been active right up to the end, working for the Legion of Mary all over the Pacific Region from his base in Manila.

Between 1950 and 1953 Father Aedan spent three Christmases in solitary confinement in a Chinese jail. One of his very few friends was a little bird that used to fly into his cell and about which he wrote the poem we publish here.

Father Aedan was buried a few days after Christmas in the Columban cemetery in Ireland. Many couldn’t attend because of an unusually heavy fall of snow over most of the country the night before. During the final prayers at the graveside a robin redbreast kept flying around, as if to say, ‘Farewell, dear friend, who took care of another one of God’s little creatures like me when you were in a cage.’ But that wasn’t all. As the coffin was being lowered into the grave I looked up and saw a flight of birds approaching in ‘V’ formation. As they flew over the cemetery one bird moved into the middle, making an ‘A’ of the ‘V,’ a heavenly flyover to honor a faithful son of Mary.

Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? (Mt 6:26, RSV)

THE BIRD

By Father Aedan McGrath (1906-2000)
Composed during his captivity in China between 1950 and 1953.

I have one little friend within this jail,
Who comes each day to visit without fail;
And which he loves -- just me, or what I give
I should not like to be too positive.

He flies in through the outer window bare,
And nears my cell with eyes like twinkling stars,
He whispers 'Chirrup, Chirrup' from his heart
And promptly do I 'Cheer up' for my part.

His appetite for rice that has been dried,
And which must swell on reaching his inside,
did quite alarm me when I saw it first,
In dreading that my little friend might burst.

And when there is no rice, not e'en a bit,
I therefore do not move from where I sit.
He tries his best to make his presence felt
With antics that would cause your heart to melt.

He visits other friends along the line,
In case you think the privilege was mine.
But still I think he comes to me the most
-- Without intending to deceive or boast.

One day, I know not what gave him a fright
For I could not see anything in sight;
| But rushing in, his body all aquake|
He perched beside me for protection sake.

I often wonder what he thinks of me,
He must know I'm encaged and not too free.
For he comes very close beside my cell
And yet he feels that everything is well.

I know what I shall always think of him|
So free, so cheery and so full of vim:
Recalling Jesus and His words about
The birds and Man's sollitude and doubt.

'They do not sow and neither do they reap,
Nor gather into barns a stock to keep;'
And yet they fare so well just to and fro
Without a single care, God loves them so.

Ah ye of little faith: Christ's words were due,
For truly trusting souls are still so few.
Ah here's the bird again, how he trusts me:
'Dear God, please teach me how to trust in Thee.'