#7QT: autumn chill, charity shop finds, and Saint Rosalia

-- one --

We turned the heater on for the first time last night, on a low setting.  The temperature hasn't peaked into the 60's (fahrenheit) since {September arrived}.

(Pictured above: back when it was "summer" in Wales.  Ha!)

Fall and winter are my favorite seasons, though I'm apt to think of the season I'm in or about to start as my favorite.  Still, this Halloween-lover is stoked to see September unfold in a part of the world where the trees put on their fall finery.

Then, at the end of September, Roan and I are going back to the States for me to photograph a wedding and for John to get my immigration started.  Prayers for a smooth and speedy application appreciated.

-- two --

There's this little cat named Rosie who belongs to the couple living below us.  She always sits in the same exact spot of green lawn in the garden.  Just sits there, looking out into the little world that is her back yard, with her paws curled beneath her.  I don't know why, but it makes me happy.

-- three --

I pilfered seven!!! well-kept articles of used clothing for Roan this week at the charity shop.  For 1.75 pounds.  Good old British charity shops!

I also found the complete set of Beatrix Potter books--in their original children size formatting!--for under 5 pounds total!  They're a 1990's printing, in box sets, in pristine condition.  At a different charity shop.  Ever since listening to the {Read Aloud Revival} episode about building a personal library, my spidey senses are heightened for bargain classics.

-- four --

Afon is starting school next week!  We're meeting with the head teacher today to discuss uniforms, etc.

I always give a lot of thought to educational methods this time of year, and I have some thoughts half written out about Waldorf education, a style which has mystified and intrigued me for several years now.  Hope to get that up on the blog sooner rather than later.

-- five --

Today is one of my feast days on the liturgical calendar.  Saint Rosalia was my confirmation saint.  And while I chose her, at the time, for the way her name would sound with mine, I'm since convinced that there was providence in our meeting.  In another life, I could have been a hermitess.  I think about how she withdrew to pour her all into her vocation, and I can envision a parallel world where I live in a tiny studio apartment, poor as dirt, and write.

So, some pink moscato and a rosy cake for today's name day celebration?

Santa Rosalia, ora pro nobis!

-- six --

Lately, on Everything to Someone:

• my {baby bonnet obsession} reaches an all-time high with autumnal hues.
• I think (don't hold your breath!) I've discovered the three techniques I need to master in order to have {a good start to the day}!
• my friend Caitlin indulged my curiosity and tapped out a guest post about how to be sensitive, as a blogger, to {readers who don't have children}.
• our {life in Wales}.
• and what's {in my makeup bag}.

-- seven --

Quick and interesting clicks!  Check out:

• this intriguing {saint calendar with original portraits} commissioned by some sort of Italian fashion magazine.
• chic graphic design freebies and printables from {We Lived Happily Ever After}.
• these insanely {trendy and chic Catholic jewelry} pieces.

Linking up with Christy! this week for {Seven Quick Takes Friday}.

Liturgical Lifestyle | July

The dog days are upon us, and they are stormy, as Saint Swithin would have it.  This bishop of Winchester died July 2nd, but in the Anglican Church his feast is celebrated on July 15th.  It rained on both days.

St. Swithin's day if thou dost rain
For forty days it will remain
St. Swithin's day if thou be fair
For forty days ‘twill rain nae mair.

There was no hope for us.

It's meant a lot of slow, careful driving to and from school in the downpour, dashing into the store under lead-weight raindrops, and only just getting out to the pool in time to pack up and leave again.  Thanks, Saint Swithin.  You're the best.  ;)

Indpendence Day was rained out, but Afon had a lot of fun jumping on the trampoline (and maybe I did too, shhhh), and then we went to Sonic and continued to be in the rain while Afon lolled around on the concrete.

Saint Benedict's Day was the 11th, and since the Benedictines are our resident monks, we were able to visit the abbey to offer a little prayer.

July 13th was Saint Mildred's memorial, and this book on the {Life of St. Mildred} is free and fun to read.  Just right for little mouthfuls of rainy summer afternoon reading.  I'm bookmarking it as one of my future favorites.

Roan also turned six months old on the 14th!  I love having a January baby.

The rest of the season was stuffed with saints' days, but we had our hands full with baptisms, aunty visits, summer plans, and a stomach bug.

Early August is a time of penance in preparation for Mary's Assumption, but we've no plans to fast this year.  What do you and your family usually do to observe this solemnity?

Liturgical Lifestyle | Saint Benedict's Day

tabernacle // Benedict in the monastery shadows of Saint Leo Abbey  // his alter incensed for his special day // scholar  // Corpus Christi // saint

Saint Benedict was a scholar; his twin, Scholastica, founded the sister order to his own.  I want to believe she gives her name to the very word.  Benedict's rule was revolutionary at the time, though it has since grown familiar--the ideal of monasticism, what even the un-baptized and un-churched think of when they hear "monk."

I've not spent very much time connecting with Saint Benedict, and that is a shame, because it must be his order I am thinking of when I strive for {the cyclical rhythms of a domestic monastery}.  And medieval saints are my favorite.

Saturday was his feast, so Afon and I paid a brief visit to the Eucharist in his honor.  We found his altar lit and hung with incense, paradoxically light and heavy with the kind of contemplation that is only driven from deliberate and carefully crafted monotony.

The Kitchen Alchemist: GF Irish Soda Bread

"In which I try to make healthful, affordable, easy meals:

in other words, throwing together ingredients in hopes of creating gold."

It's a blessing that I've converted to gluten-free for my health at a time when the GF movement is picking up and running.  There are plenty of recipes to be found online, and special ingredients are becoming available even in your run-of-the-mill grocery store.  So to celebrate Saint Paddy's Day, I was able to whip up an {easy gluten-free Irish soda bread}.

I picked this recipe because it had the least ingredients, and the ones most readily available to me.  I followed the directions, but it was a little undone inside after the allotted time baking and cooling.  Still, it was quite delicious.  I just wish GF breads didn't look so grainy.

Here's the markup:

Time // A

Ease // A-

Presentation // B

Affordability // C

Health // A

Taste // A

Good scores, overall!  The only thing is that almond flour is pricey, and if you add butter to this like is traditional, you significantly bump down the health grade.

We are Catholic, and my children's great grandfather (husband's father) was named Paddy and worked as a docker in Cork, where my mother-in-law was born and raised.  My children are somewhere between a half and a quarter Irish.  But Saint Patrick's Day isn't about nationalism for us; though that is the main allure for people in Ireland and America.  For us, it's a special day to commemorate the British saint who peacefully converted the entire land of fierce and loyal people; who, in turn, preserved civilization in the so-called "dark age" abbeys and became missionaries to the rest of Europe when it was plunged into true spiritual darkness.

I love Saint Patrick's Day.  In Wales, where we live on and off, it is a high feast which calls for a break of the Lenten fast.  One day, I would like to make a pilgrimage up Saint Patrick's Mountain, or {The Reek}.  Maybe when the children are older and can come along.  But today we are keeping things low key, with this traditional bread, corn beef and cabbage, some {Irish folk songs}, and maybe a movie (I recommend {The Secret of Kells}-- more on that later--or The Secret of Roan Inish).

Saint Patrick's Day links:

• The Secret of Kells and the Art of Making at Everything to Someone
• The Kitchen Alchemist series at Everything to Someone
• Great Films for Kids: The Secret of Kells, at Ignatius Press
• 11 Irish Movies at Catholic All Year
• All Their Wars Are Merry at Everything to Someone

7 Quick Updates

-- one --

The other day I clicked over to my comment settings and saw that I had captcha and blocked anonymous comments enabled.  Gosh, I hate those when I'm trolling visiting other blogs, so I'm so, so sorry if you've been trying to comment and been turned away.  Let me know if you're still having problems so I can fix it.

-- two --

My sis-in-law gave me a $100 gift card to Anthropologie as a baby gift.  I've never shopped there before, and wow, their dresses are expensive!  They have only a limited amount of baby things, too.  I've been sitting on it for weeks now, and I don't know what I should buy with it.  Advice?

-- three --

I am eating gluten-free as of now 'til . . . forever . . . because of my health problems coming to a head after the birth of #2.  There is gluten.  In.  Everything.  Mostly because of soy.  Tainted, tasty soy.  Reading labels is tedious, but I'm desperate at this point.  I've been through a battery of tests since Roan was born, and I've finally been referred to a rheumatologist.  I know what the diagnosis is going to be: either fibromyalgia or chronic fatigue syndrome.  I'll just be relieved to have a name for what I'm going through.

-- four --

As of today, Afon has still not received therapy for his ASD.  But he was evaluated and diagnosed by the county school board, so it's only a matter of time before they get him set up in a special needs class at school.  As for private therapy, Medicaid finally approved us, but now the one group of people are no longer taking calls and the other group are no longer making appointments (until further notice).

-- five --

I'm still catching up on {Fountains of Carrots} podcast.  It's delightful.  I love feeling like I can hang out with Haley and Christy while I'm driving the car or nursing the baby.  Low-maintence at its best.  You should check it out, if you haven't already.

-- six --

So . . . this.

It would be nice to get a little bit of income, just to get the things here and there that pop up in daily life.  Like, a haircut.  A haircut would be nice.

Is anyone interested?  It would be a 30 minute session; includes all the digital photos that came out from that session, developed by me, on a CD, with rights to print and distribute.  Location of your choice, date of your choice.  From now until . . . oh, I don't know . . . Easter?

{See more of my photography here.}

-- seven --

A relic of Saint Anthony is making the rounds in our diocese, and it's at our parish today!  Going to go touch the Roan to the holy remains.  ;)  And probably a rosary or two.

I don't have a particularly strong devotion to Saint Anthony, despite visiting him in Padua, his patronage of my home parish, and his nifty help with (ALWAYS) finding my lost things for me.  ('Course, he probably hid those things to begin with, since Masha says he is mischievous.)  So maybe it's time I start?

If you have any prayer intentions, leave a comment or shoot me an e-mail within the next couple of hours and I will bring them to our Big Brother.

Linking up with Kelly for {Seven Quick Takes Friday}.

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?

Is Journalist ≠ Saint?

I know, I know.  My math skillz are super impressive.

I came upon this admittedly old but rather regrettable argument about why G.K. Chesterton shouldn't be made a saint.  First,  the distinction should be made that liking a person or his writing does not in one way or another qualify someone for canonization (I feel very warmly toward Chesterton, while many of the early Church fathers would have made me cry).  I have to put that out there.  This is not an argument in defense of the person of Chesterton or his writings, although I have been known to do that, but an argument against Ms. McDonagh's argument about why G.K. shouldn't be canonized.

The first argument against making him a saint is that he was a journalist (the profession he called the easiest in the world); it’s a contradiction in terms.

I find this argument so utterly nonsensical that I have to pause and register before rebuffing it.  Saints are cut from all clothes, across all races, genders, ethnicities, and professions.  Numbered among those who wear the crown of sanctity are prostitutes, actors, mass murderers, and queens.  I hardly think a journalist is unqualified.  How exactly a journalist saint is a contradiction in terms, our author never elaborates, except to say that, "It just doesn't go with the territory."  Does Ms. McDonagh subsequently believe herself excused from striving for sanctity because of her profession?

Nikolai Bruni, Saint Olga, source
Known to have buried and burned men alive.  Not exactly Nobel Peace Prize material.

She continues:

And canonising the man would make his output unreadable. It would invest all the pieces he wrote in railway waiting rooms and Fleet Street bars with the leaden quality of official sanctity.

Briefly, (1) canonization wouldn't so much as change a word of any of Chesterton's writings.  One would be hard pressed to vacate the over-the-top jocularity and joy of Chesterton's writings by emptying each word and refilling it with a new connotation full of all the "leaden quality of official sanctity."  Not to mention those pesky, not-open-to-interpretation denotations.  (2)  The fact that sanctification would make it less likely for secular readers to open a book of his is regrettable, but in their realm of responsibility, not ours.  If a mere title given by what they perceive as a corrupt and/or defunct religious authority turns them off of reading something enjoyable, engaging, and enriching, I can only feel for these people pity.  As I feel for pre-graduate Christie when I avoided books on their lack of orthodoxy, before I realized I didn't have to like or agree with something to enjoy reading it!  (3)  Secular people, as I recall, aren't put off the reading of St. Thomas More and St. Augustine.  (Why is Dante not a canonized saint, for that matter?)

Last, our journalist states that "G.K.'s views on Jews make him unapt for sainthood."  

G.K.'s self-portrait

Aside from the fact that his so-called antisemitism is something intelligent people are in disagreement about (I have a stout hatred for throwing around the word "racist!" at any comment or observation regarding a particular group of people . . . which makes me highly suspicious of those who throw it), antisemitism, and many other failings besides, have not prevented sanctification in the past.  Something Chesterton himself was well aware of.  In an obscure quote of his I cannot now find, but which was read in his Collected Works, Chesterton observes that particular and queer Authority of the Church as it has been granted by Christ through the Holy Spirit: that saints, while wholly good, can be wrong on dogma; and popes, while too often evil, cannot.

Blessedly, Ms. McDonagh finishes on a note of common sense:

The other thing is, he’d have hated the notion of being a saint. But that’s an argument for, not against.

Later, I want to talk about Ms. McDonagh's rationale for toting Chesterton's antisemitism and why, according to that rationale, I don't find Chesterton's views on Judaisim, so far as I have read them, antisemetic.

What do you think of this article so far?  Does the author have a point?  I'm particular interested in what non-fans think, as I am ever-cautious of personal affection getting in the way of objectivity!

For further reading, see GKC and Me on Everything to Someone (old).

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 Lifestyle: Saint Nick's Day

illustration by Elisabeth Ivanovsky // source

Happy Saint Nicholas Day!  We found candy in our shoes this morning, and picture book adaptation of the story of the three poor sisters and the saint.  We made Christmas cards for wounded heroes with friends, and topped the evening by walking downtown to watch the Christmas parade.

I've a myriad of thoughts about Saint Nicholas, Santa Claus, and Father Christmas . . . but it will have to wait until tomorrow because we. are. tired.  So please come back around then.  Our family is still young and our holiday traditions still malleable, and I'd like to hear your thoughts and feedback.

Hope your feast day celebrations and observations were fruitful and jolly!

Liturgical Lifestyle: Hallowmas

We had a good Hallowmas.  On Thursday, we feasted and went in disguise in the dark, meeting other strange but friendly folk along the way.  We knocked on doors, said magic words, and were greeted with warm smiles (as well as pumpkin grins) and plenty of sweets.  We visited with dear ones, then came home late to set up an altar for the dead--not to worship or fear, but to pray for and offer penance--with a carved pumpkin to light and welcome them, much as they had for us earlier that night; food and drink to show hospitality; and the saints to guide them home.  We lit the candle for our icons and slept safe and sound, and God let pass over us all the evil things, as we knew He would.

Oh, what did we disguise ourselves as, you ask?  I'm glad you did!

Pointy hat not pictured.

Yes, yes.  Get it out of your system.

Seriously, though?  It never gets old.

Very appropriate for the Harry Potter book club, especially Jenna's introductory post this week.

Anyway, to get the full effect of our night out and about, see the group pics:

Despite the late night, we rose again early next morning for Mass and the Feast of All Saints.  I just love this holy day.  It's only fitting that it surpass the night of old danger--the jovial mockery of mortality and the reverence for death preceding resurrection, followed by their joyful glory!  I got to finish the night off with a young friend of mine at a Michael Buble concert, so there is that.

The following Sunday, our parish youth group held a little saints' festival, with a procession, a pot-luck, saints' booths, and some games.

Can you guess which saint is which?

I sneaked in and drew Little Nellie when no one was looking because she is my son's favorite saint.  (And by favorite, I mean, she's my favorite, and am always talking to him about her.)  At the end, the older kids were admiring it and asking who drew it.  But I said nothing, and no one thought to ask me.  I sort of hope they think she came down and did it herself.  Child saints are mischievous like that!

All Souls' Day dawned wet and dreary.  We heard Mass said and prayed for the dead.  I intended to visit the cemetery but the night drew on early, and time sped away.  Later, I discovered that there are many plenary indulgences available for the souls in Purgatory during this week.  (Also see the Today section of any day between November 1st and 8th at CatholicCulture.org, at the very bottom, to get detailed information on the plenary indulgences.)  So, we've got to find our way out there before All Souls' Week ends.  We wrote the names of loved ones passed (and the passed of our loved ones) on the envelope to lie before the tabernacle all month and baked a soul cake to welcome ghosts.  But we mostly just ate it ourselves!

I didn't get to unravel my profuse and tangled thoughts on Catholic Hallowe'en . . . it may still be forthcoming, especially since it has so much to do with wonder, holy superstition, and the world of Faerie working in the Christian cosmos.  So we're rapping up Halloween Week a little bit late here on Everything to Someone, but as November is the month of the Holy Souls, it seems fitting that the macabre themes of All Hallows' Eve should follow into the last month of autumn.  November is, after all, a bare month, distilled and pensive.

The stripped and shapely
Maple grieves
The loss of her
Departed leaves. 

The ground is hard,
As hard as stone.
The year is old,
The birds are flown. 

And yet the world,
Nevertheless,
Displays a certain
Loveliness-- 

The beauty of
The bone.  Tall God
Must see our souls
This way, and nod. 

(From the poem "November" by John Updike)