A remarkable protest took place in Cologne Cathedral during the 2013 Christmas morning service. A woman who had been sitting in the pews suddenly leapt onto the altar, bared her breasts, and revealed a message scrawled across her torso: “I Am God.”
Closer inspection determined that she was not, as she had claimed, the Supreme Being but was, in fact, Josephine Witt, a member of the international provocation group FEMEN, upset at the conservative hierarchy of the Catholic Church. After her arrest, Witt told reporters: “Cologne is the capital of Catholics in Germany, and [Cardinal] Meisner stands for a very conservative orientation.”
Cardinal Meisner was unfazed, saying “I’m 80 years old. I’ve lived through so much: first the Nazi period, then the entire Communist period – something like this can’t shock me after that.”
An outraged parishioner who slapped Witt as she was pulled from the altar was fined 100 euros while Witt was found guilty of disturbance of the free practice of religion – a crime which could have seen her imprisoned for up to three years but she got off with a mere 1,200 euro penalty.
In 2014 a topless blonde, inscribed with the message “God Is Woman” and shouting anti-Catholic slogans, tried to steal the image of the Baby Jesus from the Nativity scene erected by the pope in front of St. Peter’s Basilica. The act was a protest against “the centuries-old Vatican stance on women’s rights for [their] own body and reproductive function.”
The perpetrator was a member of the international feminist provocation squad named FEMEN famous for their bare-bosomed stunts drawing attention to their opposition to various manifestations of the patriarchy. The 2014 kidnapping attempt was part of FEMEN’s anticlerical “Massacre of the Innocents” campaign, which called for the theft of Baby Jesus from crèches around the world. “The maniacal desire to control women’s fertility is a common trait of many religions, National Socialism, nationalism and other antediluvian, anti-humanist ideologies. Abortion is sacred,” said the group. Three years later the group again staged a raid on the papal nativity scene but, as in 2014, was unable to make off with the Bambino.
Have you ever wondered what happens to the image of the Baby Jesus when it is not in the Nativity scene displayed during the Christmas season. Probably not; you have much better things to do with your life. But I can, thanks to diligent research of my part, and I am gong to share a couple of examples today.
In the church of San Domenico in Naples a creche is set up in a grotto; it contains every figure of the Nativity scene except the bambino. On Christmas Eve a procession emerges from the church and a woman from the crowd places the missing baby in the hands of the Dominican priest who then places it in the crib. All then kneel and sing the old lullabye “Dormi, Benigne Jesu, in dulci somno”. After Christmas the bambino is kept by a family in the congregation.
A similar ceremony is held in New Mexico at the Jemez Indian pueblo (above). A pious couple is chosen as “padrino” or godparents to the baby Jesus. On Christmas Eve at 11:30 the padrinos and a procession go to church where the padre emerges with the statue and gives it to the madrina. They process home while guns fire in salute; at their home the baby is placed on a small altar. Candles are lit, prayers are said and the godmother then leads the procession to return the baby to the church, reciting the Hail Mary in the native dialect. The crowd enters the church at midnight for mass, after which the baby is venerated on the altar and then given to the seated madrina. All pass by her and kiss the “Bethlehem Babe” while hymns are sung. After the ceremony the baby is placed in its crib until the Three Kings Day.
“Bambino” is Italian for “baby” but at Christmas the term refers to the figure of the infant Jesus placed in family and church manger scenes. The most famous was the late-medieval doll in the Church of Santa Maria in Ara Coeli, Rome, carved by a Franciscan friar from wood from the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem. Ceremonies attended its placing every Christmas Eve; children preached before it; and miracles were attributed to it, including one where it returned itself home after a kidnapping. In 1994 thieves broke into the church and made off with the image which had been covered with valuable objects; the Franciscans discouraged any attempt to pay ransom for its return. Instead a modern copy (also made from wood from the Garden of Gethsemane) replaced the original, paid for in part by outraged convicts, ashamed that fellow criminals might have been responsible for the theft. The new image is also richly adorned, decorated with gold and jewels.
When Circe, the witch, caught Ulysses’s men, She gave each a dram that soon made him a hog; The identical mixture–’tis now as ’twas then; So attend to the moral, Beware of Egg-nog.
When the circle is form’d, the glass passes round, Old Satan draws night, tho’, as usual, incog., And chuckles to see good Sobriety drown’d– Would you frustrate his malice–Beware of Egg-nog.
But why do I rail at one liquor this way? Is no other as fatal; rum, brandy, or grog? Yes, yes, they’re all one, I mean all when I say, And I’ll say but once more now, Beware of Egg-nog.
A contemporary warning about the health hazards posed by this stent potable may be found at: https://news.yahoo.com/why-careful-eggnog-110000451.html
In the Franche-Comté area of France, Tante Arie descends from the mountains on Christmas Eve bearing presents for good children and switches or dunce caps for the wicked ones.
She sometimes appears as an elderly woman in traditional dress, accompanied by her donkey Marion. In this form she is said to be the reincarnation of Countess Henriette de Montbéliard (1385-1444) an aristocrat famed for her charity.
In other tales she is rather more daunting figure with iron teeth and the feet of a goose.
Christmas in Romania sounds like a fun time for those who like pork. Here is a description of one particular custom as related on a Romanian website:
Five days before Christmas, on 20th of December, a very sharp knife is used to cut the pig in the honor of Saint Ignatius and this ritual is known as ‘Ignatius’ too after him. It is washed nicely and covered with a piece of cloth for 10 minutes. Then, the housewife puts the straws in the pig’s snout and covers it with burning straws and singes it. Then, the husband makes the sign of the cross on the pig’s head and announces to the family – “Let’s eat the pig!”. Then, a feast is held known as the pig’s funeral feast or alms and all the family, friends and neighbors are invited to the feast. Besides bacon, people also eat small pieces of fried pork and drink wine or plum brandy.
Here is a recipe from Radio Romania International. I can’t say that I’m too eager to sample it:
The main pork-based Christmas dish is the hog’s pudding, TOBA in Romanian. It is a mix of pieces of pork with fat, cut out from the goiter region, added to which are pork rind and pieces of liver, heart, kidneys and tongue, as well as ears. All that is minced and then used as a filling for the pig’s stomach. Traditionally, the stomach of the pig is used for the hog’s pudding. Right after the slaughter of the pig, salt is rubbed in and the inner membrane is cleaned. The stomach is then soaked in a mix of water and vinegar, with an onion cut in four also placed there, in order to get rid of the bad smell. Pieces of meat, ears, pork rind, tongue, heart, liver and kidneys are washed and cleaned. Then they are put to the boil with two bay leaves, several pepper and pimento corns, an onion and a spoonful of salt. As soon as boiling time is over, the meat and the other ingredients need to be minced. All those minced pieces are used as a filling for the hog’s pudding, TOBA in Romanian.
As soon as the pig stomach is filled, the slit needs to be sown. The hog’s pudding is then pierced several times before it is put to the boil once again, on medium heat. The hog’s pudding is boiled for about thirty minutes, in the same juice where crushed garlic has been added. Then the hog’s pudding needs to be cooled. For that, it is placed between two wooden boards: the extra juice is thus squeezed as the boards press the hog’s pudding. The hog’s pudding can also be smoked. It is kept cool and sliced before it is served on the appetizers platter, alongside pork rind, pork scraps, slices of liverwurst, black pudding or smoked or half-smoked sausages, with or without paprika.
“And there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the fields keeping watch over their flocks by night. And, lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them: and they were sore afraid. And the angel said unto them, Fear not; for behold I bring you tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour which is Christ the Lord. And this shall be a sign unto you: Ye shall find the babe wrapping in swaddling clothes 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, good will toward men.” (Luke 8-14.)
The confrontation between the angelic host and the shepherds of Bethlehem has not been as popular a topic in Christian art as the Adoration of the Shepherds. In the fifteenth-century breviary of Martin of Tours we see a shepherd marching toward the Nativity as a bold bagpiper but in the image above, Leon François Comerre’s 1875 L’Annonce aux bergers, the emphasis is on the stark dread of the shepherds as they are dazzled by the sudden appearance of the luminous angel.
The annunciation to the shepherds is retold in carols such as “Shepherd, Shake Off Your Drowsy Sleep”, “While Shepherds Watched Their Flocks by Night”, and “Campana Sobre Campana”, and in medieval drama where it is the occasion for a good deal of mirth and low humour — a tradition which continues to the present day in Los Pastores. The above passage from Luke is recited by Linus in A Charlie Brown Christmas.
A very peculiar view of Santa is found in 1851’s, “A Visit to the Dominions of Santa Claus”, part of The Little Messenger Birds by Caroline Butler-Laing (184-1892), an American children’s writer. This book introduced the world to the notion of proletarian elves employed in a workshop or warehouse setting. The Santa who directs these knee-high assistants sports an Elizabethan doublet, short pants and an Arabian head-dress that, combined with a cruel moustache and goatee, gives him the appearance of a villainous magician out of Aladdin.
Judging by Santa’s treatment of his employees in Butler-Laing’s book, the artist seems to have captured the inner man correctly. According to the author, Santa’s magic spectacles can spot the tiniest flaw in workmanship, an attribute which causes his elves no little anxiety “because they know if their work was not done, well, they should be banished to the Dark Room, where they made such ugly things for bad children, as bags of soot and ashes, pots of elbow-grease, sharpened birch twigs, and put in order cats-o’-nine-tails, which, when properly used, make the most dreadful screaming of any cats in the world!”
In 1557 Thomas Tusser published a book on rural customs and agricultural practices in Tudor England, entitled A Hundredth Good Pointes of Husbandrie. In 1573 he expanded the work into Five Hundred Good Pointes of Husbandrie; the book was reprinted many times for over a century. Among his poetical observations were a number of verses on Christmas. Here are a few, showing the attitude of English country folk toward the holiday.
A description of the feast of the birth of Christ, commonly called Christmas.
Of Christ cometh Christmas, the name with the feast, a time full of joie to the greatest and least : At Christmas was Christ (our Saviour) borne, the world through sinne altogether forlorne.
At Christmas the daies doo begin to take length, of Christ doth religion cheefly take strength. As Christmas is onely a figure or trope, so onely in Christ is the strength of our hope.
At Christmas we banquet, the rich with the poore, who then (but the miser) but openeth his doore – At Christmas of Christ many Carols we sing, and give many gifts in the joy of that King.
At Christmas in Christ we reioice and be glad, as onely of whom our comfort is had ; At Christmas we joy altogether with mirth, for his sake that joyed us all with his birth
