7th Day of Christmas: What Exactly is The Christmas Season?

 Merry 7th day of Christmas!  

Yes, it’s still Christmas.  It may not look it out in the world.  You wouldn’t know it from the retail stores. They were glittering with red, green, and gold, and were filled with insistent “holiday” themed music from Halloween until exactly a week ago. When those same stores opened their doors for business on December 26th, it was all gone. The only sign of the pre-Christmas frenzy now is the clearance section with “holiday” merchandise marked down to 50%. In our post-Christian culture the commercial Christmas season and its advertising sets the tone for the culture as a whole, and so for most people Christmas, sadly, is now over.

Heirloom angel on the family Christmas tree

But not for those of us who are followers of the Babe Lying in the Manger. Christmas is a season that began just a week ago and extends until . . . well, just how long does it last? Most people, even in the secular world, are familiar with the song “The Twelve Days of Christmas.” A few years back when I was new to bloggery, I ran across a pamphlet in out parish Church with ideas about how to keep The Twelve Days of Christmas. I decided that good way for me to do that would be to write a new blog post for each of the twelve days, along with a Christmas music clip. It would help me stay focused on the celebration of the Nativity, and I hoped, be a help to my readers as well. I have continued to do so for the past eight years, even during a few years when I was doing little other bloggery. I would rerun old Christmas posts (always with some revision, either minor or extensive), as well as writing at least one brand new piece (such as this year’s discussion of St. Anastasia).

  What with all this talk about The Twelve Days of Christmas, one might get the impression that Christmas ends after only twelve days, on the Feast of Epiphany (traditional date January 6^th, the thirteenth day after Christmas Day itself, although this year the official observance is on January 2nd).  In fact, the Church’s official Christmas Season extends until the Baptism of The Lord, which is the Sunday after Epiphany, and in some places (Eastern Europe, for instance), the informal celebration continues until the Feast of the Presentation on February 2^nd.  During his pontificate, Pope St. John Paul II celebrated Christmas until the Presentation, and Pope Benedict XVI did the same. I couldn’t say whether Pope Francis has followed suit, but we do so in our home, in keeping with my Lovely Bride’s Polish heritage . . . or, at least, that’s our excuse.

Warsaw, Poland during the Christmas Season (image from Travel Triangle, https://traveltriangle.com/blog/christmas-in-poland/)

     The entire Christmas Season, then, is like a series of ripples of decreasing intensity emanating from the Feast of the Nativity itself on December 25th.  Christmas Day is the first day in the Octave of Christmas, a period of eight days, all solemnities (a solemnity is a liturgical feast of the highest rank), culminating in The Solemnity of Mary Mother of God on January 1st; January 2-5 fill out the rest of the Twelve Days, but are not official feast days ; the days between Epiphany (traditionally January 6^th, now officially the 2^nd Sunday after the Nativity) and the Baptism of Our Lord on the following Sunday are included in the Christmas Season, but are observed in a much more low-key way.  Those of us who just aren’t ready to let go of Christmas can privately follow the Eastern European tradition and continue until February 2^nd, but the Liturgical Calendar has already moved on.

     There are some people who don’t see the point of all this complexity: why not just celebrate Christmas and be done with it?  But the Liturgical Calendar is not just about commemorating past events: it’s about experiencing the events of Salvation History in our own lives.  Big events require a period of preparation, such as Advent (and any of us who have lived in a household expecting a baby know how busy the preparations become in those last few weeks); likewise, the excitement and celebration gradually recede after the event, as life slowly returns to a routine.  We can’t just switch it on and off in a day or two.

     Today, the seventh day of the Octave of Christmas, we’re still in celebration mode: the Christmas candles are burning, the tree is still blazing with lights, and the joyful sounds of Christmas Carols still fill the air.  So, Merry Christmas! There’s still plenty of Christmas left.

Featured image top of page: The Nativity with the Prophets Isaiah and Ezekiel, by Duccio di Buoninsegna, 1308-1311

Music for Christmas

Today’s Christmas song is “The Wexford Carol,” featuring an all-star cast headed by Alison Kraus and the cellist Yo-Yo Ma, along with Natalie MacMaster, Shane Shanahan, and Christina Pato. I have posted the notes from the video and the lyrics below.

The Wexford Carol (Carúl Loch Garman, Carúl Inis Córthaidh) is a traditional religious Irish Christmas carol originating from County Wexford, and specifically, Enniscorthy (whence its other name), and dating to the 12th century.

Good people all, this Christmas-time,
Consider well and bear in mind
What our good God for us has done,
In sending His beloved Son.
With Mary holy we should pray
To God with love this Christmas Day:
In Bethlehem upon that morn
There was a blessed Messiah born.

Near Bethlehem did shepherds keep
Their flocks of lambs and feeding sheep;
To whom God’s angels did appear,
Which put the shepherds in great fear.
“Prepare and go,” the angels said,
“To Bethlehem, be not afraid;
For there you’ll find this happy morn
A princely Babe, sweet Jesus born.”

With thankful heart and joyful mind,
The shepherds went this Babe to find,
And as God’s angel had foretold,
They did our Saviour Christ behold.
Within a manger He was laid,
And by his side the Virgin Maid,
Attending on the Lord of life,
Who came on earth to end all strife.

Good people all, this Christmas-time,
Consider well and bear in mind
What our good God for us has done,
In sending His beloved Son.
With Mary holy we should pray
To God with love this Christmas Day:
In Bethlehem upon that morn
There was a blessed Messiah born.

5th Day of Christmas: St. Thomas Becket, Martyr and the Paradox of Christmas

Merry Christmas! Today we celebrate the 5th Day of Christmas, and also the martyrdom of St. Thomas Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury.

          It’s striking how many martyrs’ feast days we observe during the Christmas season: St. Stephen on the 2nd Day of Christmas, The Holy Innocents yesterday; on Christmas Day itself the Church used to celebrate a second mass, not for the Nativity, but for the martyr St. Anastasia.  Today, on the 5th Day of Christmas,  we find ourselves celebrating yet another martyr, St. Thomas Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury, murdered by knights in the service of King Henry II of England on December 29th, 1170.

     St. Thomas has attracted the attention of numerous authors over the years: the pilgrims in Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales are journeying to his shrine; Jean Anouilh wrote a play about him, Becket, which became a successful film starring Peter O’Toole and Richard Burton; Becket’s martyrdom is the focus of T.S. Eliot’s play Murder in the Cathedral, and the saint has appeared in not a few novels.

Peter O’Toole as King Henry II (l) and Richard Burton as Thomas Becket (r) in the 1964 film Becket

     In Eliot’s play the soon-to-be-martyred archbishop delivers a Christmas homily in which he discusses this (seemingly) odd juxtaposition between the joy of the Nativity and the mourning of martyrdom:

Not only do we at the feast of Christmas celebrate at once our Lord’s Birth and His Death: but on the next day we celebrate the martyrdom of his first martyr, the blessed Stephen.  Is it an accident, do you think, that the day of the first martyr follows immediately the day of the Birth of Christ? By no means.  Just as we rejoice and mourn at once, in the Birth and the Passion of Our Lord; so also, in a smaller figure, we both rejoice and mourn in the death of martyrs . . . So thus as on earth the Church mourns and rejoices at once, in a fashion that the world cannot understand; so in Heaven the Saints are most high, having made themselves most low, and are seen, not as we see them, but in the light of the Godhead from which they draw their being.

     Eliot’s Becket here is echoing St. Paul, who tells the Corinthians that “the wisdom of this world is folly before God” (1 Corinthians 3:19).  Becket himself enjoyed quite a bit of success, in the eyes of the world, prior to becoming archbishop: he was a close companion to King Henry II, and the king’s Chancellor.  Henry nominated Thomas to be Archbishop of Canterbury in the hopes that he would subordinate the Church in England to the interests of the Crown.  Instead, Becket threw away all the advantages that his friendship with the king brought him and became a champion of the independence of the Church from the Crown. He also seemed to embrace the spiritual life wholeheartedly, surrendering many of the comforts he could legitimately claim as archbishop and giving lavishly to the poor. Some people, at the time and since, have doubted the sincerity of his conversion, but others accepted it as genuine, and it’s undeniable that Becket had numerous opportunities to compromise with the king, and so save his life, if he had chosen to do so.  The validity of his conversion received further support when the monks who prepared his body discovered that he had been secretly wearing a penitential hair shirt under his episcopal vestments.

The Penance of King Henry II at the Tomb of Thomas Beckett, by Samuel Seeberger 1898-1899

     In recent years, as government and other powerful social institutions have been encroaching more and more menacingly on the Church, Christians have been turning increasingly to St. Thomas Becket (as well as St. Thomas More, another Thomas martyred by another King Henry three and a half centuries later) as inspiration and intercessor. We do well to remember that both Thomases lost their worldly battles against their respective Henries. And while it is true that Henry II did public penance for the murder of St. Thomas Becket just three years after the fact, Henry VIII never looked back after the execution of St. Thomas More. He never showed any remorse for the seizure or destruction of all the Catholic Church’s properties in England (including the very intentional destruction of both the shrine to St. Thomas Becket in Canterbury and of the saint’s human remains housed there as relics). Henry shed no tears at the eradication of the Catholic Church itself in his kingdom, and the British Monarch is still the head of the Church of England to this day.

     The point is not that we shouldn’t fight to defend the Faith and the Church: we should fight with all our strength, calling upon the intercession of St. Thomas Becket and all the saints to help us.  We cannot, however, pin our hopes on achieving victory over the temporal powers of this world.  Thomas Becket is not a Saint because he defeated Henry II, but because he overcame the enormous temptations of power and comfort in this world and remained faithful to Christ, even in the face of certain death.  

     Which brings us back to where we started – the intimate connection between Christmas and martyrdom.  In the Feast of the Nativity we celebrate the birth of Our Savior, who was born expressly to die on The Cross, defeated (apparently) by the temporal powers of the day. Whether or not we win our battles against the Henries, Herods, and Pilates of this world (the wisdom of this world, remember, is folly), the battles that really matter in the long run are not “against flesh and blood, but against the principalities, against the powers, against the world rulers of this present darkness, against the spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places” (Ephesians 6:12). We celebrate the birth of Christ not because he has conquered Caiaphas or Tiberius Caesar (both of whom, after all, death destroyed centuries ago) but because he has “abolished death and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel” (2 Timothy 1:10).  

  So, again, Merry Christmas! Gaudete, Christus natus est! St. Thomas Becket, pray for us!

Featured image top of page: St. Thomas Becket, by Meister Francke, 1424 

Music for Christmas

One of our most well-known Christmas hymns is “Adeste Fideles,” in English “O Come All Ye Faithful.”  Despite the fact that it was originally composed in Latin, it is not ancient.  It was first published in 1751 by English Catholic John Francis Wade.  We don’t know whether Wade composed the hymn himself, or was simply circulating the work of another composer which he had discovered in a library (which he is known to have done with other pieces).  The most familiar English version was translated from Latin by the English Catholic priest Frederick Oakely in 1852.

I’m sorry to say that I can’t tell you who performs the beautiful rendition of “Adeste Fideles” in the clip below.  it was posted to Vimeo by Piccole Note 5 years ago.

Adeste fideles læti triumphantes, Venite, venite in Bethlehem. Natum videte Regem angelorum: Venite adoremus (3×) Dominum. Deum de Deo, lumen de lumine Gestant puellæ viscera Deum verum, genitum non factum. Venite adoremus (3×) Dominum. Cantet nunc io, chorus angelorum; Cantet nunc aula cælestium, Gloria, gloria in excelsis Deo, Venite adoremus (3×) Dominum. Ergo qui natus die hodierna. Jesu, tibi sit gloria, Patris æterni Verbum caro factum. Venite adoremus (3×) Dominum.

O come, all ye faithful, joyful and triumphant! O come ye, O come ye to Bethlehem; Come and behold him Born the King of Angels: O come, let us adore Him, (3×) Christ the Lord. God of God, light of light, Lo, he abhors not the Virgin’s womb; Very God, begotten, not created: O come, let us adore Him, (3×) Christ the Lord. Sing, choirs of angels, sing in exultation, Sing, all ye citizens of Heaven above! Glory to God, glory in the highest: O come, let us adore Him, (3×) Christ the Lord. Yea, Lord, we greet thee, born this happy morning; Jesus, to thee be glory given! Word of the Father, now in flesh appearing! O come, let us adore Him, (3×) Christ the Lord.

4th Day of Christmas: Holy Innocents and the Saving Power of Christmas Carols

Then Herod, when he saw that he had been tricked by the wise men, was in a furious rage, and he sent and killed all the male children in Bethlehem and in all that region who were two years old or under, according to the time which he had ascertained from the wise men. Then was fulfilled what was spoken by the prophet Jeremiah:  “A voice was heard in Ramah, wailing and loud lamentation, Rachel weeping for her children; she refused to be consoled, because they were no more.” (Matthew 2:16-18)

Herod the King, in his raging,
Charged he hath this day;
His men of might, in his own sight,
All children young, to slay. (Coventry Carol, trad., 16th century)

How odd it may seem that today we commemorate, in the midst of our ongoing Christmas festivities, Herod’s horrific slaughter of all the baby boys in Bethlehem. And yet scripture assures us that  “We know that in everything God works for good with those who love him” (Romans 8:28).  Herod’s worldly strength was no match for the might of the little baby born in Bethlehem.  Today I’d like to look at a more recent example of the power of the the Christ Child overcoming the forces of violence and death.    

Christmas Carolers by Norman Rockwell, 1923

But let’s start with music. One of the glories of the Christmas Season is the music.  I don’t mean the schlocky secular music that’s blasted through the public address systems of retail establishments from Halloween until the close of business on December 24th.  I’m referring to the rich and inspiring treasury of beautiful songs celebrating, sometimes with a depth of religious insight, the birth of the Lord of the Universe as a little baby.  These true Christmas songs are well-known even to non-Christians, many of whom not only enjoy them, but are actually moved by the sacred story they tell. I once attended a concert in which the Jewish singer Neil Diamond (yes, this was some years ago) gave very spirited performances of the deeply religious Christmas songs “Joy to the World” and “O Holy Night.”  More recently, I’ve heard a well-known radio commentator, who is also Jewish, talk about how moved he is by many of these very Christian songs. I’ve always made of point of including a video clip of one of these sacred Christmas songs in every one of my posts during the Christmas Season (a task that is rather more difficult this year now that I’ve sworn off YouTube, along with Google and all its works and promises).  My goal is to preserve and promote this music not only because it’s traditional, beautiful, and moving, but also because of it’s evangelical power.

I ran across an eloquent witness to that power a few years ago in an article on the  Lifesitenews.com site, “Pro-life Christmas carolers save six babies in Orlando, more in other areas by touching hearts with their singing”. The piece details some amazing rescues of unborn children, not only in Florida, but across the country:

Pro-Life Action League Executive Director Eric Scheidler described for LifeSiteNews how three different couples turned around and walked away from abortion this year as carolers sang outside Family Planning Associates abortion center in San Bernardino, California.

Pro-lifers sing Christmas carols outside an abortion facility in Tempe, Arizona (LifeSite.com photo)

A compelling feature of the story is that the Christmas Carols themselves seem to have been the decisive factor in changing the minds of people who had come to the clinics intent on aborting a child:

. . . At least one couple was greatly moved by the hymns.

“What impressed me about this report is they actually stopped to tell the caroler group that they changed their mind,” Scheidler stated.

“The couple told them, ‘It was because of your caroling that we decided to keep our baby,’” he said. “The singing was the only thing that happened to change their mind.”

A group in Illinois reports similar results:

“We’re having a baby! We changed our minds,” a woman called out joyfully to Northwest Families for Life group caroling Tuesday, December 20, in conjunction with Pro-Life Action League’s “Peace in the Womb” Caroling Days in Wood Dale, Ill.

When they met the couple at the car, the group’s co-founder, Maria Goldstein, told LifeSiteNews, the man said to them with a big smile on his face, “Thank you. You’re doing a great job!”  

“What exactly was the “great job” we did?” Goldstein said. “We didn’t counsel them on the way in; we didn’t talk them out of the abortion; we weren’t able to show them pictures of developing babies.”  

“All we did was show up, pray, and sing,” she continued. “Maybe they heard our carols inside and felt God tug at their hearts. I guess that really is a “great job!” We got to bring the power of God to this dark place. God is good.”

Icon of the Holy Innocents with Christ in Heaven

     God is indeed good.  These stories of the babies saved by carolers cast an interesting light on both the Nativity of Jesus and today’s Feast of the Holy Innocents.  The Incarnation and Nativity came about because, while our efforts are necessary  – “faith by itself, if it has no works, is dead” (James 2:17) – they are not sufficient.  In the end, we can’t save ourselves, or anyone else, by our own efforts alone: only the power of God can do that.  In the Life Site story, the Holy Spirit working through sacred Christmas songs changed hearts that were not moved by human arguments.

     The fate of the children killed by Herod’s soldiers in Bethlehem likewise illustrates this point.  Nobody was able to save them from unjust slaughter, they were too young to have any intellectual knowledge of God, and, since Jesus himself was still a baby, baptism was not available to them.  And yet the Church assures us that these little ones did not die in vain, and that they enjoy the reward of Heaven (you can read a short, concise explanation here). They were beyond the help of human agency, but “with God, all things are possible” (Matthew 19:26).  If we do our part, God will do the rest.

Features image top of page: Massacre of the Innocents, by Guido Reni, 1611

Music for Christmas

     An interesting note: at one time, the story of these poor murdered children itself inspired a large number of songs.  The best known today (the only one, it appears, that is still regularly performed) is The “Coventry Carol” (lyrics below), dating from the 16th century.  The hauntingly beautiful rendition in the clip below features the unaccompanied voices of Ragnheiður Gröndal, Heloise Pilkington and Björg Þórhallsdóttir.

1. Lullay, Thou little tiny Child,
By, by, lully, lullay.
Lullay, Thou little tiny Child.
By, by, lully, lullay.

2. O sisters, too, how may we do,
For to preserve this day;
This poor Youngling for whom we sing,
By, by, lully, lullay.

3. Herod the King, in his raging,
Charged he hath this day;
His men of might, in his own sight,
All children young, to slay.

4. Then woe is me, poor Child, for Thee,
And ever mourn and say;
For Thy parting, nor say nor sing,
By, by, lully, lullay.
Lully, lulla, thou little tiny child,
By by, lully lullay.

3rd Day of Christmas: St. John the Evangelist, Love at the Foot of the Cross

So the soldiers did this. But standing by the cross of Jesus were his mother, and his mother’s sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene. When Jesus saw his mother, and the disciple whom he loved standing near, he said to his mother, “Woman, behold, your son!” Then he said to the disciple, “Behold, your mother!” And from that hour the disciple took her to his own home. (John 19:25-27)

May God bless you on this 3^rd Day of Christmas!  Today we observe the Feast of St. John the Evangelist, author not only of one of the Gospels, but (possibly) also three New Testament letters and the Book of Revelation. St. John has traditionally been represented by an eagle because he “soars” to greater heights, theologically speaking, than the other Evangelists.  He is also known as “The Beloved Disciple” because in his Gospel he often refers to himself as “the disciple whom Jesus loved”.

Beloved Disciple: St. John is to the right of Jesus (The Last Supper, by Juan de Juanes, 1562)

   Many people have wondered over the centuries why John makes such a point of depicting himself as The Beloved Disciple.  On one level, of course, it must reflect his lived experience: John the Apostle must have had an especially close relationship to Jesus during his time on Earth.  As always, however, it goes deeper.  John is beloved because he is a disciple who himself loves much – so much that he alone of the Apostles follows Christ all the way to Calvary and stands with the Blessed Mother and Mary Magdalene at the foot of the Cross.  He is our model in loving discipleship.     

     I want to focus on this last point, because so many people are suffering in various ways – in my home right now we are praying for a number of families who are experiencing illness, employment problems, divorce, and other hardships. Modern mental health professionals confirm the words that Charles Dickens put in the mouth of one of his characters in A Christmas Carol more than a century and a half ago: “it is at Christmastime that want is most keenly felt.”  This is always a very hard time of year for our brothers and sisters who are in distress, aggravated for almost two years now by the seemingly endless Covid crisis: many people, especially the elderly, are suffering from the effects of isolation and loneliness on top of whatever other ailments they might have.  I think the passage from John’s Gospel at the top of this post has a special import for those who find themselves standing at the Foot of The Cross in the midst of this festive season: all who join their suffering to His are his Beloved Disciples; the Mother of Jesus is your mother, and Christ your Brother suffers with you.  
May you experience all the joys of Christmas on this 3rd day of the blessed season!

Featured image: The Crucifixion, attributed to Gillis Congnet, 16th century

Music for Christmas

Among its other blessings, the Christmas season is a time when we hear many old and beautiful musical expressions of the Christian faith. “O Holy Night” is one of my favorites. The original French lyrics were written by Placide Cappeau in 1843, and set to music by composer Adolphe Adam.  The song was first performed in 1847.  Unitarian minister John Sullivan Dwight translated Cappeau’s words into English in 1855. The lovely rendition of “O Holy Night” below is sung by Kalean Ung Breen, with Dave Beukers playing accompaniment on the piano.

2nd Day of Christmas: Feast of the Holy Family

And he went down with them and came to Nazareth, and was obedient to them; and his mother kept all these things in her heart.  And Jesus increased in wisdom and in stature, and in favor with God and man. (Luke 2:51-52)

St. Augustine addressed our Lord as “O Beauty ever ancient, ever new.” We can see this mix of new and old in Christ’s Church as well. For example, today’s celebration of the Feast of the Holy Family, celebrating the little family group of Mary, Joseph, and Jesus. This is a very recent observance, as Holy Days go: the Church added it to the liturgical calendar less than a century ago, in 1921, because she was beginning to discern some troubling trends facing the institution of the family in the modern world.  The Feast of the Holy Family reminds us that the family as traditionally understood is an integral part of God’s plan for humanity, and also that the family was sanctified by the Incarnation of the Second Person of the Trinity when he came to us through that institution.

The happily married Belle from Dickens’ A Christmas Carol (illustration by Arthur Rackham, 1915)

   It will perhaps not shock you to hear that the trends that merely troubled Mother Church a century ago have become so powerful that they now threaten to overwhelm the institution of the family all together.  The sad fact is that even the way we commonly think of family, and children, is very different than it was for most of humanity before us. Here’s an interesting example of how attitudes are changing.  It’s a tradition in our family that together we read Charles Dickens’ 1843 Christmas Classic A Christmas Carol every year at Christmas time. We also watch the 1951 film version of the same story, featuring Alistair Sim as the main character, Scrooge (after whom the film version is also named).  The film adds some detail about Scrooge’s early life, but in general sticks closer to the original book than is common in the movies.  There is one change, however, that always makes me wonder.  When the Ghost of Christmas Past is showing Scrooge scenes from his earlier life, we see him breaking off an engagement to a beautiful woman named Belle because she doesn’t share his growing obsession with money.  The spirit later gives Scrooge a glimpse of the same woman years later.  In Dickens’ book we see her happily ensconced with a loving husband (who is clearly not Scrooge) and a big bunch of raucous, happy children; the implication is that Scrooge could have been enjoying this delightful domestic mayhem himself if he had chosen another path.  In the film, however, we see no husband or children at all: instead, we see Scrooge’s former fiancee (here named Alice), apparently never married, ministering to the needy in a shelter.  The message for Scrooge in this case is, look at the wonderful, loving woman you lost through your greed.

Rona Anderson as the unmarried Alice in the
1951 film Scrooge

Now, there’s nothing wrong with the film version of the story; charitable works are quite commendable (and, of course, required of Christians: see James 2:14-26), and charity is in fact an important theme in the original story.  But why the change? Most likely by 1951 the makers of the movie were afraid that a house full of children, with which Dickens’ mid-19th century audience would have connected immediately, simply wouldn’t have looked as appealing.

    This is something I’d noticed before, in another context.  Let’s go back (briefly) to a decade or two before the Holy Family came together, to 17 B.C.  That year saw the publication of Vergil’ Aeneid, one of the world’s great literary works  (which also claims the distinction of having made the young St. Augustine cry; look it up if don’t believe me).  At one point in the the story the devious goddess Juno is trying to bribe the wind god Aeolus to help in one of her schemes, and promises as his reward the most beautiful of nymphs, who will be his forever and, she promises, “make you the parent of beautiful offspring” (pulchra faciat te prole parentem).  Later in the same story, Anna, sister of Queen Dido of Carthage is trying to persuade her royal sibling to abandon the vow of chastity she had made after the death of her first husband so that she might marry Aeneas, the hero of the story. Anna urges her to forgo “neither sweet children nor the rewards of Venus” (nec dulcis natos Veneris nec praemia).

Aeneas and Dido, with Anna behind and to the right. Aeneas takes his leave of Dido, by Guido Reni, c. 1630

   I’ve read the Aeneid with high school students many times over the last couple of decades, and the same thing always happens.  They get the appeal of the good looking nymph, and they live in a social and media environment that is constantly trumpeting the modern version of the “rewards of Venus.” But “beautiful offspring”? “Sweet children”? In a society that all too often depicts children as mere hindrances, and where even a president of the United States is on record as referring to young mothers being “punished with a baby,” we need to explain a thing which was obvious both to the pagans of ancient Rome and Victorian Christians eighteen centuries later: that a child on the way is indeed a “blessed event.”

St. Joseph with the Infant Christ,  by Clemente de Torres, c. 1700

     The difference between the genuine pagans of 2,000 years ago and today’s neo-pagans is telling.  The family is part of God’s original plan for humanity, and people all over the world have always recognized it as a natural good. Beyond that, when Jesus chose to come into the world as part of a human family He made the institution itself holy, just as He sanctified humanity through His incarnation. When modern day secularists reject and even attack the traditional family, they are not simply denying the obvious worldly benefits of an age-old institution, they are opposing something that they, unlike Vergil and his compatriots, should know has been established and hallowed by God.  It’s of a piece with Satan’s defiant Non Serviam!, “I will not serve” . . . and is therefore diabolical.

  That’s the challenge the family faces today, and as the family goes, so goes society. It’s an all-out spiritual assault.  The Holy Family, fortunately, not only gives us the model, but also provides some powerful intercessors. We all know, I think, that we can always call on the Blessed Mother, but we shouldn’t forget St. Joseph, a Holy Advocate we need more than ever:

Glory of home life,  

Guardian of virgins,  

Pillar of families,  

Solace of the afflicted,  

Hope of the sick,  

Patron of the dying,  

Terror of demons,  

Protector of Holy Church,

pray for us.

Featured image top of page: The Flight into Egypt, by Julius Schnorr von Carolsfeld, 1828

Music for Christmas

Verbo Factum Est (The Word was made Flesh, taken from the opening of John’s Gospel). This is its most famous musical setting, by Hans Leo Hassler, published in 1591. Here it is performed by the Sanctuary Choir of the the Seattle First Baptist Church.

Verbum caro factum est
Et habitavit in nobis
et vidimus gloriam ejus
gloriam quasi unigeniti a Patre
plenum gratiae et veritatis.

6th Day of Christmas: St. Stephen, Good King Wenceslas & The Power of Christ’s Love

Good King Wenceslas looked out
On the Feast of Stephen
When the snow lay round about
Soft and crisp and even  

Merry 6^th Day of Christmas! The Christmas Season abounds with all nature of celebrations and observances. As we observed in yesterday’s post on the Memorial of St. Thomas Becket, a (perhaps surprisingly) large number of those observances involve martyrs. We usually celebrate the Feast of St. Stephen, the very first Christian martyr, on December 26th, immediately after Christmas Day.  This year, however, St. Stephen’s memorial was suppressed because the 2nd Day of Christmas was a Sunday, so we instead observed the Feast of the Holy Family.

  And yet, yesterday we heard St. Thomas Becket (as depicted by T. S. Eliot in his play Murder in the Cathedral) expound on how appropriate it is that St. Stephen’s day is the very first thing we encounter after the joy of Christmas Day itself.  Not only that, St. Stephen happens to have a connection, through a well-known Christmas song, to another martyr, St. Wenceslas of Bohemia.  Given all that, it seems appropriate to pay a visit to Saint Stephen (and St. Wenceslas) at some point during the Octave of Christmas, even if his usual day has been pre-empted.

Aside from the story of his martyrdom as described in the Acts of the Apostles (chapters 6-7), St. Stephan’s name is known from the Christmas carol “Good King Wenceslas.”  The song does not actually tell us anything about Stephen himself: it describes instead how Good King Wenceslas goes out on the saint’s day, in an act of Christian charity, to share his Christmas bounty with a lonely and poverty-stricken old peasant.  And, whether or not the incident recounted in the song ever happened, Wenceslas himself was real.  He is based on Wenceslas I, Duke of Bohemia (the title of king was conferred on him posthumously after his death in 935 AD by Holy Roman Emperor Otto I). Wenceslas’ grandfather was the first Christian duke of Bohemia, but it was Wenceslas himself who firmly established the Church there in the face of still strong pagan opposition, and aligned the church in his homeland with the Holy See in Rome.   

St. Wenceslas Monument, Prague (photo from bohemia-apartments.com)

St. Wenceslas, then, marks the beginning of Christianity among the Czechs. Likewise, St. Stephen’s feast is at the start of the Christmas season, and St. Stephen himself at the very beginning of Christianity, period. He was, in fact, the first Christian to give his life for the Faith after Christ himself, for which reason he is known as the protomartyr, that is, first martyr. We find a vivid account of his death in the Acts of the Apostles:

But he [Stephen], full of the Holy Spirit, gazed into heaven and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing at the right hand of God; and he said, “Behold, I see the heavens opened, and the Son of man standing at the right hand of God.” But they cried out with a loud voice and stopped their ears and rushed together upon him. Then they cast him out of the city and stoned him; and the witnesses laid down their garments at the feet of a young man named Saul. And as they were stoning Stephen, he prayed, “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.” And he knelt down and cried with a loud voice, “Lord, do not hold this sin against them.” And when he had said this, he fell asleep. And Saul was consenting to his death.  (Acts 7:55-8:1)

Detail from The Stoning of St. Stephen, by Giacinto Gimignani, 17th century

     Just as our Christmas joy is tempered by the realization that the child lying in the manger must someday hang on the Cross, St. Stephen reminds us, a mere day after the Feast of the Nativity itself, that following the Child of Bethlehem can mean our own Calvary.  Jesus himself tells us: “Blessed are you when men revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account” (Matthew 5:11).  How is it, then, that his coming is “Good news of great joy” (Luke 2:10)? Because, as our Lord goes on to say, “Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so men persecuted the prophets who were before you” (Matthew 5:12). Indeed, as we see in the account above from the Acts of the Apostles, St. Stephen doesn’t go to his death wailing and gnashing his teeth at the cruelty and injustice of it all, but gazing joyfully on his Savior in Heaven, and begging for forgiveness for his persecutors.  Countless martyrs since have done the same, up to the present day.  Christ our Savior didn’t come to save us from unpleasantness in this world, but instead to save us for eternal happiness with him in the next, by rescuing us from our own sin.

     Which brings us back to Good King Wenceslas, who has more in common with St. Stephen than we might at first realize. It’s true that he established a strong foundation for the Church, and exhibited exemplary personal piety and charity; it is also the case that not everyone appreciated those qualities, including other nobles still sympathetic to paganism. His own brother Boleslav was one of these, and treacherously murdered him.  

     At the time, it must have seemed that Wenceslas was the loser, and that his scheming brother had won, just as St. Stephen seemed to be vanquished by his persecutors.  Today, however, over one thousand years later, Good King Wenceslas is still loved by the Czechs, and remembered as one of the founders of their nation, while his brother carries the odious sobriquet Boleslav “the Cruel.”  Of more significance than his worldly reputation is the fact that Wenceslas is remembered by the Church as Saint Wenceslas, Martyr, whose feast we celebrate on September 28th. Saints Stephen and Wenceslas stand together among the “white-robed army of martyrs” whom we see in the ancient prayer known as the Te Deum, gathered before the throne of God, praising their Creator, and interceding for all of us.

Boleslav kills St. Wenceslas (image from http://www.prahafx.ru)

  “Good King Wenceslas” is considered a Christmas carol, although it does not seem to have any direct reference to the Nativity of Our Lord.  It does, however, encourage us to emulate the saints, such as Stephen and Wenceslas, who conformed themselves to Christ, especially as exemplars of Christ’s love [see St. Fulgentius of Ruspe’s sermon  from the Office of Readings for the saint’s day: St. Stephen – The Armor of Love]. The words with which St. Wenceslas encourages his cold and frightened page in the carol could easily be spoken by Christ himself, and addressed to every one of us:

“Mark my footsteps, good my page

Tread thou in them boldly

Thou shall find the winter’s rage

Freeze thy blood less coldly.”

Featured image top of page: The Stoning of St. Stephen, by Giacinto Gimignani, 17th century

Music For Christmas

This version of “Good King Wenceslas” is from St. Andrews Anglican parish in North Swindon, England.

Merry Christmas (and Feast of St. Anastasia)!

And an angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were filled with fear.  And the angel said to them, “Be not afraid; for behold, I bring you good news of a great joy which will come to all the people; for to you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord.  And this will be a sign for you: you will find a babe wrapped in swaddling cloths and lying in a manger.”  And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying,  “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among men with whom he is pleased!” (Luke 2:9-14)

    Merry Christmas on this joyful, blessed, Feast of the Nativity of Our Lord!  What a wonderful time, amidst the fears and anxieties of this world, to remember the words of the Angels to the shepherds of Bethlehem.

Today is also a good day to remember St. Anastasia, and say a little prayer, at least, asking for her intercession.

Anastasia of Sirmium (14th century Byzantine icon in The Hermitage, St. Petersburg)

     You may wonder, why St. Anastasia? (you may, in fact, wonder who is St. Anastasia), and why should we remember her in particular in the midst of one of the greatest and most joyful feasts in the liturgical year, the celebration of the birth of Christ himself?

     The short answer is that the Church itself has done the same throughout most of its history: from the earliest centuries of the Roman Church up until the present day (with a brief hiatus following the reform of the liturgy fifty years ago), the second mass on Christmas Day has been a commemoration, not of the Nativity, but of this ancient martyr whose memorial is December 25th.

     There’s more to it than that, of course. But first, let me take a step or two back. One of the things I set out to do with this blog is to highlight saints who are not well known, such as  St. Monegundis, or those whose memorial is overshadowed by a more prominent celebration, as is the case with St. Equitius, who shares his memorial with the formidable St. Clare of Assisi.

Last year it occurred to me that if it’s possible to all but disappear in the shadow of another saint, or by mere proximity to a greater celebration as is the case with St. Servulus (December 23rd, two days before Christmas), what happens to those holy men and women whose feasts fall on December 25th, on the very same day as the great Feast of the Nativity itself? I decided to investigate the saints who share Christmas Day with the Christ Child, and that’s how I found St. Anastasia.

     I quickly discovered that St. Anastasia is not in fact an obscure saint . . . at least she wasn’t.  She was, in fact, a very well-known saint at one time, and is still venerated in not just the Latin Church, but in the Eastern Orthodox, Eastern Catholic, and Coptic Churches.  She is mentioned by name at every mass that contains the Roman Canon (she is the last named in the list of saints invoked after the consecration). There are numerous churches dedicated to her, including a prominent church in Constantinople, the Cathedral in Zadar, Croatia (which also holds her relics), and a very ancient church in Rome with a very intriguing history.

Nave of St. Anastasia Church in Rome (photo from When in Rome, https://blenzinrome.blogspot.com/2014/03/tuesday-of-first-week-sant-anastasia.html

     I quickly discovered that I was opening up a much bigger topic than I anticipated – in fact, one cannot really adequately discuss this seemingly obscure saint without also touching upon the history of parish churches in Rome at the dawn of the Christian era, hagiography and the reliability of the oral tradition, the relationship between the Greek churches and the Latin churches, changes in the liturgy of the Mass after the second Vatican Council, and more.  Oh yes, and perhaps most of all, the relationship between the Incarnation, Passion, and Resurrection of Jesus Christ.

That’s rather a lot for one blog post, and besides, there’s celebrating that needs to be done, so I’ll just limit myself to just one further observation on that last point above.  St. Anastasia was martyred in the city of Sirmium in present day Serbia, probably in the first decade of the 4th century.  That’s all we know with certainty (although there are various accounts of her life and death dating from later centuries).  Her martyrdom connects her with the Passion and Death of Christ: as St. Paul would put it (Colossians 1:24), she completed in her own body what was lacking in Christ’s sufferings.  She shares in the Incarnation by sharing her feast day with the commemoration of Christ’s Nativity on the Solemnity of Christmas.  And how, you may wonder, is this saint connected to the crowning Miracle we celebrate at Easter? Her name, Anastasia, comes from the Greek word ἀνάστασις (anastasis), which means Resurrection.

So, a Merry Christmas to all – May you enjoy all the blessings of this wonderful grace filled season . . . but don’t forget to pause for a moment to prayerfully remember the martyr who shares our Lord’s birthday.

Saint Anastasia, pray for us!

https://www.praymorenovenas.com/st-anastasia-novena

Music for Christmas

“Of The Father’s Love Begotten” is a beautiful and ancient hymn.  Written in Latin in the 5th century by Aurelius Prudentius (translated in the 19th century by Henry W. Baker and J.M. Neale); the tune is Divinum Mysterium, an 11th century chant. The song is performed in the video below by Concordia from their album Hymns for All Saints: Advent, Christmas, Epiphany. The image is The Nativity, by Tintoretto, originally 1550s, reworked 1570s (also the featuresd image at the top of this page).

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The Christmas Conversion of St. Thérèse

In the lives of the Saints we can find some amazing stories of conversion: the Risen Lord literally knocking his persecutor Saul to ground and blinding him, in order to raise him up as St. Paul; the rich and spoiled son of an Italian cloth merchant who needed a year in a dungeon as a POW followed by a near fatal illness before he cast off self-indulgence to become St. Francis of Assissi; the vain (vainglorious, in fact) Spanish nobleman who had his leg nearly shot off with a cannonball, and then went through months of excruciating recovery, before he could begin to see God in All Things as St. Ignatius of Loyola.  How startlingly different, and yet how strikingly the same, is the conversion of the little French girl Thérèse Martin, now St. Thérèse of the Child Jesus, as she tells it her autobiographical Story of A Soul:

I had a constant and ardent desire to advance in virtue, but often my actions were spoilt by imperfections. My extreme sensitiveness made me almost unbearable. All arguments were useless. I simply could not correct myself of this miserable fault. . .  A miracle on a small scale was needed to give me strength of character all at once, and God worked this long-desired miracle on Christmas Day, 1886. . .      Now I will tell you, dear Mother, how I received this inestimable grace of complete conversion. I knew that when we reached home after Midnight Mass I should find my shoes in the chimney-corner, filled with presents, just as when I was a little child, which proves that my sisters still treated me as a baby. Papa, too, liked to watch my enjoyment and hear my cries of delight at each fresh surprise that came from the magic shoes, and his pleasure added to mine. But the time had come when Our Lord wished to free me from childhood’s failings, and even withdraw me from its innocent pleasures. On this occasion, instead of indulging me as he generally did, Papa seemed vexed, and on my way upstairs I heard him say: “Really all this is too babyish for a big girl like Thérèse, and I hope it is the last year it will happen.” His words cut me to the quick. Céline, knowing how sensitive I was, whispered: “Don’t go downstairs just yet—wait a little, you would cry too much if you looked at your presents before Papa.” But Thérèse was no longer the same—Jesus had changed her heart.

Choking back my tears, I ran down to the dining-room, and, though my heart beat fast, I picked up my shoes, and gaily pulled out all the things, looking as happy as a queen. Papa laughed, and did not show any trace of displeasure, and Céline thought she must be dreaming. But happily it was a reality; little Thérèse had regained, once for all, the strength of mind which she had lost at the age of four and a half.

     On this night of grace, the third period of my life began—the most beautiful of all, the one most filled with heavenly favours. In an instant Our Lord, satisfied with my good will, accomplished the work I had not been able to do during all these years. Like the Apostle I could say: “Master, we have laboured all night, and have taken nothing.”     More merciful to me even than to His beloved disciples, Our Lord Himself took the net, cast it, and drew it out full of fishes. He made me a fisher of men. Love and a spirit of self-forgetfulness took possession of me, and from that time I was perfectly happy.

The Lord didn’t need to knock Thérèse down, beat her up, or have her shot in order to get her full attention; all he needed was to allow her to overhear a couple of stray comments from the father she loved so dearly.  That wounded her deeply enough to reveal to her the reality of her own selfishness, and to open her up completely to Christ’s Grace.  The meaning of conversion, after all, is to “turn around”, away from a way of life dictated by our own desires to one truly centered on God.

     Now, a majority of us probably need a wake-up more like the one which was granted to St. Paul or St. Francis; perhaps not quite as dramatic, but most of us, I suspect, are much more wrapped up in our sin than was little Thérèse Martin.  But that is precisely why the Little Flower’s conversion stands out: even someone who seems to be doing just about everything right is still in need of conversion, and not just in one instant, but continuously over a lifetime (and of course she did experience much greater suffering later in her short life). Sin will always be trying to turn us back.

     St. Thérèse’s conversion story reminds us of something else.  There will always be opportunities for conversion.  We don’t need to go out looking for trouble, because we will all have ample opportunity to experience The Fall in our lives.  The more enmeshed we are in sin, however, and the higher the walls between ourselves and God, the harder our fall must be.  Wouldn’t it be better to come to Christ like Thérèse did, without too much collateral damage to ourselves and to others?

     Finally, on Christmas Day in 1886 St. Thérèse learned to turn her hurt and disappointment into generosity of spirit, her selfishness to selflessness.  What a wonderful reminder to all of us that we need to ask our Lord for the Grace to do the same. O come, O come Emmanuel!

Featured image top of page: St. Thérèse (right) and her sister Céline, 1881

Even Little Saints See the Face of God: St. Servulus, Tiny Tim, and the Nativity

“. . . but Jesus said, “Let the children come to me, and do not hinder them; for to such belongs the kingdom of heaven.” And he laid his hands on them and went away.” (Matthew 19:14-15)

Antique St. Servulus Holy Card

One understandable drawback to the great liturgical feasts, such as the magnificent celebration of the Nativity of Our Lord at Christmas, is that lesser observances can be overlooked in all the excitement. For instance, today (December 23rd) is the memorial of St. Servulus: he is worth remembering for his own sake, but his life also gives us some very fruitful matter for meditation on the penultimate day of Advent, as we prepare for Christmas itself. Let’s take a look at the story of St. Servulus, from the 1866 edition of Butler’s Lives of the Saints (an account based on a homily by St. Gregory the Great):

St. Servulus

December 23.—ST. SERVULUS was a beggar, and had been so afflicted with palsy from his infancy that he was never able to stand, sit upright, lift his hand to his mouth, or turn himself from one side to another. His mother and brother carried him into the porch of St. Clement’s Church in Rome . . .

Please click below to read the entire article and hear a lovely rendition of Hassler’s “Dixit Maria”:

Even Little Saints See the Face of God

From Small Beginnings: the 4th Sunday of Advent

“The New Testament in the Old is concealed, the Old Testament in the New is revealed,” as St. Augustine once said.*  We can see the truth of these words in the amazing event we celebrate at Christmas.  Consider the opening verses of the first reading for the 4th Sunday of Advent, from the Book of the Prophet Micah:

Thus says the LORD:
    You, Bethlehem-Ephrathah
        too small to be among the clans of Judah,
    from you shall come forth for me
        one who is to be ruler in Israel;
    whose origin is from of old,
        from ancient times. (Micah 5:2)

We can see this Old Testament prophecy (as well as other prophecies from Isaiah, et. al.) come to fruition in the New Testament in a literal way in the birth of Jesus the Messiah in Bethlehem.  As always, however, there are deeper and deeper layers of truth underneath the surface.  Bethlehem is so small as to seem insignificant, but it will produce the Christ, just as it had once produced the great King David (the last two lines of the verse above indicate that the Messiah will be of the line of David).  

Speaking of great things coming in small packages, David himself was something of a surprise.  When the Prophet Samuel comes to Bethlehem to choose a new king for Israel from among Jesse’s sons, David is not with his brothers; he has been left behind tending the sheep in the fields, since, as the youngest and the smallest, he seemed the least likely to wield the sceptre. But, as God tells Samuel, “Do not look on his appearance or on the height of his stature, . . . for the LORD sees not as man sees.” (1 Samuel 16:7) In a similar way, centuries before David’s time, seventeen year old Joseph, youngest but one of Jacob’s sons and “the son of [Jacob’s] old age” (Genesis 37:3) is sold into slavery by his brothers and taken to the foreign land of Egypt, from which lowly situation he rises to become the chief advisor of the King of Egypt himself, and the savior of his brothers and all their people.  

“Look toward heaven, and number the stars . . . So shall your descendants be.”

God Shows Abraham the Stars, by Julius Schnorr von Carolsfeld, 1860

Jacob’s father Isaac had likewise been the son of his father Abraham’s old age. Abraham and his wife Sarah were so old, in fact, that they had long despaired of ever having children. When Sarah overhears God, disguised as a traveler, tell Abraham that they will have a son, she laughs in disbelief.  Then

The LORD said to Abraham, “Why did Sarah laugh, and say, ‘Shall I indeed bear a child, now that I am old?’  Is anything too hard for the LORD? At the appointed time I will return to you, in the spring, and Sarah shall have a son.” (Genesis 18:13-14)

And indeed God had already promised Abraham that his descendants would be as numerous as the stars.  Abraham himself believed it, which was “reckoned to him as righteousness,” (Genesis 15:5-6) but who else, including even Abraham’s wife, could believe such a thing?

The examples above all involve mortal human beings who are taken from lowly, and seemingly insignificant, positions to accomplish great missions. But there is something different about the Incarnation. Jesus is not only human, but God himself, “image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation” according to St. Paul (Colossians 1:15).  How can it be that the Firstborn of All Creation was born again as a little human baby, a baby lying in a manger out of which animals feed?

     Again, the Old Testament tells us, even if we don’t want to see it, that we should expect no different.  Consider the following passage from the First Book of Kings, as God shows himself to the prophet Elijah, who is hiding in a cave:

And he [the Lord] said, “Go forth, and stand upon the mount before the LORD.” And behold, the LORD passed by, and a great and strong wind rent the mountains, and broke in pieces the rocks before the LORD, but the LORD was not in the wind; and after the wind an earthquake, but the LORD was not in the earthquake; and after the earthquake a fire, but the LORD was not in the fire; and after the fire a still small voice; And when Elijah heard it, he wrapped his face in his mantle and went out and stood at the entrance of the cave. And behold, there came a voice to him, and said, “What are you doing here, Elijah?”  (1 Kings: 11-13)

God Speaks to Elijah, by Henry Davenport Northrop, D.D., 1894

This, in its way, is as clear a foretaste of the Messiah as the “messianic” passages we read in Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel throughout advent.  We may have heard that, before the coming of Christ, people lived in fear of divine power.  Encountering God was something to be avoided: the point of praying and offering sacrifice, even sacrificing one’s own flesh and blood, was so that God (more often understood as “the gods”) would simply leave you alone.  
     We can detect echoes of this ancient attitude in the account of Abraham as he brings  his beloved son Isaac up Mount Moriah, prepared to offer him up (Genesis 22).  At the last moment God sends an angel to stay Abraham’s hand, and provides a lamb for the sacrifice. The unexpected reversal in the story of Abraham and Isaac shows us the end of Christ’s earthly ministry; the story of Elijah in the cave shows us its surprising beginning. God doesn’t show himself in any of the terrifying guises one would expect (wind, earthquake, fire), but as a “still, small, voice” (in some translations a “whisper”).  In just the same way, the second person of the Trinity comes among us in the least threatening way imaginable: a helpless little baby, cradled in a feeding trough.  No wonder, when the Angel announces Jesus’ birth to the shepherds, he first tells them not to be afraid; and then he says:

For behold, I bring you good news of a great joy which will come to all the people: for to you is born this day in the city of Davis a Savior, who is Christ the Lord.  And this will be a sign for you: you will find a babe wrapped in swaddling cloths and lying in a manger. (Luke 2:10-12).

Good News , indeed.  It is, in fact, a Great Joy, and not at all a bad thing that God is in our midst, for “God is Love”(1 John 4:8); and the Infinite Creator of the Universe makes himself finite, small and vulnerable . . . just like us.

* a remark that sounds as snappy in Latin as it does in English: Novum Testamentum in Vetere latet, Vetus Testamentum in Novo patet (Quaest. in Hept. 2,73: PL 34, 623; cf. DV)

Featured Image top of page: Samuel anointing David, by François-Léon Benouville, 1842