Solstice

I was walking the seaside route home with Roan asleep in the pram this evening.  It was dark and quiet, but for the sea, which made sounds agains the stone wall like a monster swallowing.  Then I saw a lady step out of the foam onto the rocks.  When I looked again, it was only the crashing waves.

I had a feeling.  When we got home, I looked it up.  Turns out today--not the 21st--is the winter solstice.

Superstitions, Sacraments, and the Incarnation

Bonnie has a good post about the use and abuse of Saint Joseph statues when trying to sell a home.  I don't disagree with what she writes: putting Saint Joseph in a place of honor where you can see him and remind yourself to ask for his intercession seems like a better idea than burying him upside down and out of sight.  Poor, cold Saint Joseph!  And it's certainly not recommended that people with no faith or only passing faith partake of the superstition when they've no personal relationship with Jesus, let alone St. Joseph!  But it got me thinking about superstition in Catholicism, what it means, where it came from and why, and what its place is in our Faith.

I've always been a Catholic, and there's never been a time when I haven't been.  There are no moving reversion or conversion stories to be told, though I certainly came to a greater understanding of my faith as I grew older, and that "conversion" is still happening today, and much needed.

I'm also a poet.  I've been a poet as long as I've been a Catholic.  I'm also a poet because I'm a Catholic; and this is why.  I remember feeling as a child what the poet feels (and have since discovered others who have experienced the same): the stirring of the soul where the divine reaches into nature and seeing with some hidden, heightened sense, but for a moment, as one whose vision has suddenly cleared, how things really are.  C.S. Lewis called it joy.  We partake of this joy in the Mass, the Communion of Saints, though it doesn't always feel so obvious to us.  Now, imagine that kind of earth-splitting revelation occurring in the everyday.  An Annunciation of nature, as it were.  When the certain slant of light on the grass or a glimpse of cloud or a line from a song shatter one's mundane existence and show the true face of the world.  It's so beautiful it hurts.  And it disappears just as quickly as it came, or else one would die from the joy of it.

To those familiar with this world, superstitions make a good deal more sense.  There are connections between the reality outside our physical world and this one, and we aren't able to fully understand them, not until we're in heaven.  It was these seemingly unconnected connections that helped Chesterton to believe in orthodoxy, which he expounds upon in the book of the same name in the chapter titled "The Ethics of Elfland."

To grasp the essence of superstition one need only read fairy tales.  Fairy tales are infested with them!  Why else should cutting off a cat's head save a princess from a wicked witch?  There's no natural connection between the cat, the cutting of its poor head, and the princess and the magic of her evil stepmother.  And yet, intuition accepts the precept without question.  It is the kind of intuition that we see in children, which survives past childhood, if we are lucky and humble enough to let it.  If we don't let accusations of "what superstitious nonsense!" tell us to stop looking for otherworlds in the back of wardrobes or down rabbit holes.  (Or stop hoping that a dying god somehow killed death.)

Through this lens, superstitions make a little more sense.  I don't think it's coincidence that the Catholic Church is accused of having superstitious rituals.  Why should lighting a candle somewhere halfway round the world usher God's grace to a friend in need?  Why should chanting an ancient conversation between a girl and an angel at twelve noon each day be more appropriate than at other times?  Why, for that matter, should repeated words work as a spell and transform simple bread and wine into divine Flesh and Blood?

John Collier, The Annunciation

Here is what dictionary.com has to say about the word superstition:

su·per·sti·tion [soo-per-stish-uhn]
noun
1. a belief or notion, not based on reason or knowledge, in or of the ominous significance of a particular thing, circumstance, occurrence, proceeding, or the like.
2. a system or collection of such beliefs.
3. a custom or act based on such a belief.
4. irrational fear of what is unknown or mysterious, especially in connection with religion.
5. any blindly accepted belief or notion.

Let's look at the first definition, which I think is what most people mean when they are talking about it in context with Saint Joseph.  "A belief or notion not based on reason or knowledge."  Well, then what is it based on?  A feeling?  How about an instruction, from an authority you trust?  Ah, now we're getting somewhere!  As Catholics, we know that the authority of the Church grants legitimacy to what might otherwise be superstitions--things not based on reason or knowledge per se . . . like the example of the candle I mentioned above.  But we also know that God reveals Himself through his creation, and so those who have not been born into the faith, or who lived and died before the faith was available to them, can come to know Him through nature, and in this way are not exempt from salvation.

Materialists say that men imbue things with meaning willy-nilly, but we know that meaning is there, whether we are granted the sight to recognize it or not.  Some people, I think, are more sensitive to this "sight" than others.  Particularly the mystics.  St. Thérèse of Lisieux was given a superstition of roses.  St. Teresa of Avila, a castle.  Other saints were sent animals as messengers.  Many of them talked.  These "superstitions" repeatedly point to relationships.  One relationship in particular.

A "custom or act based on such a belief" arises in solidarity with these saints, and those devoted to her ask, with St. Thérèse, for a rose, which may or may not be given.  And people who wear a little vestigial garment around their necks are promised heaven.  Not  because scapulars have any rational connection, in and of themselves, to eternal life, but because something, someone, beyond our understanding has designated it so.

All of the sacraments are superstitious in this sense.  A splash of water repels the devil like the Wicked Witch of the West.  Making a sign in the air and saying the words, "You are forgiven," actually makes it so.  The laying on of hands apprentice young men to the profession of Christ.  And it's a very physical thing that consummates a marriage.

A name causes the very rocks to cry out.  God becomes a man and suddenly, nothing physical is ordinary.  Nothing is coincidence.  Everything is significant.

So, why put Saint Joseph on his head?  Is that just a meaningless superstition?  Perhaps.  But I like to think it came from somewhere, from some shrewd, pious, superstitious old lady, who knew him well.  Perhaps she said, "Put him on his head, turn him upside down!  That'll give him a headache, and remind him to pray and pray for you!"  And as she cackles and walks away, you fancy you can see the vague figure of a Jewish carpenter, as she swings an arm around him in what can only be the most intimate of affections.

A closing note for the concerned: should the Church ever make a definitive pronouncement against all things superstitious, I shall drop my stance at once, at a single word from the Magisterium.  How superstitious of me!  c;

♥

If you liked this post, you may also be interested in:

• The Flower of the Imagination: a Case for Dragons
• The Secret of Kells and the Art of Making
• Three Reasons I Love Catholicism
• Liturgical Living: What to Do about Father Christmas?

Liturgical Lifestyle: What to do about Father Christmas?

I grew up acquainted with Santa Claus.  Christmas Eve was better by far than even Christmas Day because the expectation and the ideal of the luxurious presents in colorful disarray beneath evergreen boughs was by far better than the reality--though that was pretty good, too!  And what could have incarnated and represented this sweet expectation better than Santa Claus?  That mysterious resident of Faerie, good-natured but not permissive, who defied all science (though not the logic of the human heart) and visited every single house in the world in one breathless night, bestowing gifts to good children in homage to the Christ Child?

I knew Santa was sometimes called Saint Nick, but I learned of the historical saint much later.  As I fell deeper in love with the Faith, I was tickled and proud that our own dear bishop should be the source and inspiration for my beloved childhood friend.  Interest in foreign cultures and anthropology introduced me to many delightful traditions regarding Nicholas and Christmas--including the medieval liturgical celebration of his feast on December 6th, still observed in some European countries.

Meanwhile, Father Christmas, understood to be more or less Santa Claus's British counterpart, endeared me to him in the sacred stories of my adolescence.  To this day, the phrase "always winter, never Christmas" gives me delicious chills, causes me to crave Turkish delight, and attracts me to wardrobes.

Now my own son is coming of age, that holy age of unbridled imagination.

Last year, Father Christmas left him candy and presents in an over-sized stocking; last week, Saint Nicholas tucked sugared oranges and miniature candy canes into his little shoes.  I want to submerge him in the alternative lifestyle that is the Church calendar and teach him the mysteries of human story; for for me, the realm of Faerie and the Truth of the Faith are not mutually exclusive.  On the contrary, I don't believe I could even approach one without the other.

an illustration of Father Christmas at the North Pole by JRR Tolkien

So I was a little dismayed to read this article on CatholicCulture.org, one of my favorite resources for liturgical living:

Many people think that Santa Claus is St. Nicholas "in disguise." Actually the two figures have nothing in common except the name.

That threw a wrench in my dewy-eyed, fanciful plans for integrating the magic of my childhood with the magic of the Incarnation.  If Santa Claus is merely a sanitized, Protestant-scrubbed, secular shell of the real Saint Nicholas, how can I justify continuing the tradition that weakens the life-giving and salvific richness of the Catholic Faith?  Yet I wouldn't deprive my own son of that poignant joy of Christmas that nurtured my imagination and cultivated my soul in preparation for greater mysteries.  Who, indeed, says it better than Chesterton:

What has happened to me has been the very reverse of what appears to be the experience of most of my friends.  Instead of dwindling to a point, Santa Claus has grown larger and larger in my life until he fills almost the whole of it.  It happened in this way.  As a child I was faced with a phenomenon requiring explanation.  I hung up at the end of my bed an empty stocking, which in the morning became a full stocking.  I had done nothing to produce the things that filled it.  I had not worked for them, or made them or helped to make them.  I had not even been good–far from it. And the explanation was that a certain being whom people called Santa Claus was benevolently disposed toward me. . . .  What we believed was that a certain benevolent agency did give us those toys for nothing.  And, as I say, I believe it still.  I have merely extended the idea.  Then I only wondered who put the toys in the stocking; now I wonder who put the stocking by the bed, and the bed in the room, and the room in the house, and the house on the planet, and the great planet in the void.  Once I only thanked Santa Claus for a few dolls and crackers, now, I thank him for stars and street faces and wine and the great sea.  Once I thought it delightful and astonishing to find a present so big that it only went halfway into the stocking.  Now I am delighted and astonished every morning to find a present so big that it takes two stockings to hold it, and then leaves a great deal outside; it is the large and preposterous present of myself, as to the origin of which I can offer no suggestion except that Santa Claus gave it to me in a fit of peculiarly fantastic goodwill.

I think Chesterton would also agree that what the article on Catholic Culture finds distasteful is that which makes Santa endearing and recognizable in a profound way.

Behind the name Santa Claus no longer stands the traditional figure of St. Nicholas but the pagan Germanic god Thor (after whom Thursday is named).  To show the origin of the modern Santa Claus tale let us give some details about the god Thor from ancient Germanic mythology. 

Thor was the god of the peasants and the common people.  He was represented as an elderly man, jovial and friendly, of heavy build, with a long white beard.  His element was the fire, his color red.  The rumble and roar of thunder were said to be caused by the rolling of his chariot, for he alone among the gods never rode on horseback but drove in a chariot drawn by two white goats (called Cracker and Gnasher).  He was fighting the giants of ice and snow, and thus became the Yule-god.  He was said to live in the "Northland" where he had his palace among icebergs.  By our pagan forefathers he was considered as the cheerful and friendly god, never harming the humans but rather helping and protecting them.  The fireplace in every home was especially sacred to him, and he was said to come down through the chimney into his element, the fire. (See H. A. Guerber, Myths of Northern Lands, vol. I, p. 61 ff., New York, 1895). 

Here, then, is the true origin of our "Santa Claus."  It certainly was a stroke of genius that produced such a charming and attractive figure for our children from the withered pages of pagan mythology.  With the Christian saint, however, whose name he still bears, this Santa Claus has really nothing to do.  To be historically correct we would rather have to call him "Father Thor" or some such name.

The article dismisses the modern American Santa Claus as drawing his identity from "the withered pages of pagan mythology," which, I must admit, stupefies me.  Are we talking about the same powerful mythic tradition that taught Tolkien to glorify God Almighty in Middle Earth; that gave C.S. Lewis cause to pause and consider the existence of Truth and the Fall in the soul-shattering phrase, Baldur the beautiful is dead, is dead--?

But surely if Santa Claus has his origins in Thor, he can be found earlier than the 1800's poem and capitalist propaganda.  What about Father Christmas?  He has a totally different name.  Could he have been adapted from Santa Claus, or Santa's predecessor, Saint Nicholas?  And who was that guy in Dickens who appeared with long beard in laurels and robes, with rosy cheeks, calling himself the Ghost (read "spirit") of Christmas Present?

the Ghost of Christmas Present in Charles Dickens's A Christmas Carol

References to a spirit of Christmas go back to the early renaissance.  Ben Johnson has a character appear in a masque reminiscent of medieval mystery plays, in which abstract ideas and attitudes were personified.  He wasn't a giver of gifts--that element belongs to Saint Nick--but a merry-making lord of sorts, a mysterious emissary from an Otherworld that occasionally overlaps with our own during a liminal time (an acceptable time)**, the threshold of winter.  In this guise, he is reminiscent of an enchanted Bertilak in Sir Gawain and the Greene Knight*--which would put his origins back even further, overlapping him with the likes of the Green Man, who is interpreted to be a symbol of the cycling back of life to rebirth in spring.  And what a fitting role for Father Christmas, who heralds the crowning glory of Advent--Advent meaning "coming," and a sometimes synonym for "beginning."  What is the coming of Christ if not the new beginning?

What I found is that the article was right, after a fashion.  Santa Claus, e.g. Father Christmas, and Saint Nicholas are not the same.  Nor does either benefit from the mistaken identity of Macy's famous fat man.  Each is significant, and each has his role to play in Christendom.  Before Advent of this year, I had a sketchy but certain idea that Saint Claus would be our family tradition.  Now I feel differently.

Both are important to the kind of formation in Faith I want for my son: Saint Nicholas, the friend in Heaven and model of Christian charity and steadfastness; Father Christmas, the amalgamation of that most accurately and truly expressed in a benevolent and sometimes dangerous man who, like nature, God's own creation, points to mysteries beyond himself and a reality not yet fully grasped.

We'll have both visitors in my home this year--and, I hope, many, many years to come.  Now all I have to do is figure out the Easter Bunny.



*  Also, Harry Potter's Hagrid, anybody?
**  Kairos tou poiesai to Kyrio.  "It is time for the Lord to act."  When time touches eternity; eternity reaches down into and pierces time.

Liturgical Living: an Alternative Lifestyle

This was {originally posted here} on Oct. 1, 2013.

Hope you've noticed--I've been making note of the feast days for each blog entry these past weeks.  It's a habit I first encountered in a young adult book (highly recommended), Catherine, Called Birdy by Karen Kushman.  In this journal of an English adolescent and daughter of a poor country knight, Birdy conveys her society's saturation with the liturgical seasons.  The book made a lasting impression on me: first, as a novel worth emulating, if I ever wanted to write and publish a story of my own one day; and second, as witness to the beauty and rhythm of the seasons observed by the medieval Church.

In my desire and resolutions to live a more liturgically-focused lifestyle, I've found an excuse to take up Birdy's practice.  And though we've been extremely busy these past few weeks, what with new jobs, colds, fundraisers, and speech therapy appointments, I'm not unhappy with my novice's attempt to live liturgically this Ordinary Time.

Making hot cross buns for Holy Cross Day.  I substituted maple syrup and almond milk, and left out the currants.

They came out delicious!  Even though the crosses made them look more like fortune cookies.

So how does one incorporate the feasts of the Church into everyday life?  In this, I've found two main sources helpful: CatholicCulture.org is an excellent online resource to the liturgical year, with brief introductions of saints and feast days and links to recipes, activities, crafts, and prayers; The Year and Our Children is also helpful to have on hand.

This September, there were hot cross buns for the Exaltation of the Holy Cross (Sept. 14).  I cooked up a huge pot of farfalle with peppers and Italian sausage in memorial of Saint Padre Pio (Sept. 23).  We sang "Good King Wenceslaus" on St. Wenceslaus's day (Sept. 28) and baked tea cookies to honor the English tradition of free tea shop treats on this old saint's feast.  And though I would have liked a devil pinata for Michaelmas (Sept. 29), we made do with Saint Michael's the Archangel's prayers for attacking our colds and defending our good health.

While the secular world moves through its cycles, we are aware of the deeper meanings behind berries and bonfires.

The Harvest Moon is always the full moon nearest to the autumn equinox--this month, Sept. 19, Feast of Saint Januarius.

My son is still young, so we've set aside the crafts for next year.  And while the recipes have been hit or miss, depending on the amount of time they take to prepare and my wellness that day, merely being aware of the liturgical season has placed a peace on me--as one who inhabits a country or climate is more secure, more aware of the lively world around her, assured of her place and role in Creation.

I still read Catherine, Called Birdy about once a year, incidentally, completely by accident.