Author: gerryadmin

December 25

Home / Today in Church History / December 25
by gerryadmin

An astonishing number of church-related actions took place on December 25. Here are a few of them:

  • 336 earliest recorded celebration of Christmas in Rome
  • 567 Beginning of the “Twelve Days of Christmas” as decreed by Council of Tours
  • 597 Augustine baptizes thousands of Saxons in Kent
  • 634 Sophronius, Patriarch of Jerusalem, warns of Islamic menace
  • 1000 St. Stephen crowned first Christian king of Hungary
  • 1100 Baldwin of Edessa crowned King of Jerusalem in Bethlehem
  • 1131 Anglo-Saxon Chronicle uses “Cristemesse” for first time as one word
  • 1170 Archbishop Thomas Becket preaches in Canterbury Cathedral and prophesies his own murder (he is killed 4 days later)
  • 1223 St Francis of Assisi assembles first live Nativity crèche at Greccio, Italy
  • 1430 Joan of Arc imprisoned in a tower at Rouen
  • 1521 Protestant Reformer Andreas von Carlstadt shocks Wittenberg by performing Mass in German
  • 1535 Jacques Cartier and crew celebrate first Christmas in Canada at Stadacona
  • 1648 Riots break out in Canterbury over attempts by the Puritan government to suppress Christmas; King Charles I spends his last Christmas under guard at Windsor Castle.
  • 1667 Kateri Tekakwitha, Iroquois mystic, has her first communion at the church in Kahnawake, Québec.
  • 1734 J.S. Bach’s “Christmas Oratorio” first performed at Leipzig with Bach conducting.
  • 1760 Jupiter Hammon, New York slave and first black American poet, published “An Evening Thought: Salvation by Christ, with Penitential Cries”.
  • 1781 First lighted Christmas tree in Canada erected by Baroness Riedsel
  • 1818 “Silent Night” sung for first time in Oberdorf, Austria
  • 1836 Alabama becomes first US state to recognize Christmas as a legal holiday.
  • 1867 Christmas a holiday in Canada for federal workers
  • 1902 Pope Leo XIII endorses European Christian Democratic movement as alternative to socialism
  • 1980 Archbishop Oscar Romero of El Salvador murdered
  • 2005 Benedict XVI issues his first encyclical, “Deus Caritas Est”

 

Merry Christmas from a real Grinch

Home / Something Wise / Merry Christmas from a real Grinch
by gerryadmin

In our racist, sexist society, Christmas is the 8 hours when we stop killing each other and gratutious over eating is encouraged so that the starving and other people in the world can die!
— Lloyd Kaufman

Let’s see if we can do better than that for Christmas:

God never gives someone a gift they are not capable of receiving. If he gives us the gift of Christmas, it is because we all have the ability to understand and receive it.

— Pope Francis

December 22

Home / Today in Church History / December 22
by gerryadmin

 

dominicspanish

1216

The Dominican Order is officially confirmed.

In the early thirteenth century the power of the papacy was at its height but the reputation of the Church was not. New heresies were springing up among the people and the clergy had a reputation for being rich, unlearned and aloof. Two young men responded: in Italy, Francis of Assisi; in Spain, Dominic de Guzmán.

As a priest Dominic encountered the Cathar heretics of France who were well supported by local nobles and popular with the poor. This led Dominic to realize that the Church required itinerant, well-educated preachers who could combat religious heterodoxy and that this new sort of clergy should embrace poverty. Living off charity and working among the common people was the ideal of this new order, called Dominicans after its founder, but chartered by the papacy in 1216 as the Order of Preachers. Clad in white robes with a black cloak they became highly effective exponents of Catholic doctrine in markets and churches. They also came to staff the great new universities of Europe, especially Paris where its members included Albertus Magnus and Thomas Aquinas, and to be among the directors of the Inquisition. In Italy they produced famous mystics such as Meister Eckhart and Henry Suso; in Italy they included fierce opponents of papal corruption such as Girolamo Savonarola.

A Latin pun on their name, Domini canes, has caused them to be known as the “Hounds of the Lord”.

 

December 19

Home / Today in History / December 19
by gerryadmin

1-great-swamp-fight-1675-granger

1675 The Great Swamp Fight

It was inevitable that the arrival of European colonists on the shores of North America would result in warfare. Though relations between natives and colonists could be peaceful and local treaties made, the expansive nature of European settlement would assuredly pit the peoples against each other in violence.

In 1675, a vicious conflict known as King Philip’s War was raging in New England. King Philip was the English name given Metacomet, the chief of the Pokanoket tribe, who had built a coalition of various native tribes, who began attacking settlements in Connecticut and Massachusetts. The war would prove the deadliest threat ever faced by colonies on the eastern seaboard. Twelve towns would be over-run by the tribesmen and a tenth of the male population killed in battle.

Though the Narragansett tribe had declared themselves neutral and retreated to a fort in the middle of a swamp near Kingston, Rhode Island, their warriors had attacked a nearby colonial garrison, killing at least 15 people. On December 19th, a colonial army and its native allies attacked the over 1,000 Narragansetts at the fort. Over 300 were killed  and over 150 militia men were killed or wounded. The Great Swamp Battle was a crucial turning point in the war. Before too long the chief of the Narragansetts and King Philip himself had been killed. The war lasted until 1678, after which tribal threats to the colonies severely diminished.