Christmas Every Day

1605 The Gunpowder Plot is discovered.

Remember, remember the Fifth of November,

The Gunpowder Treason and Plot,

I know of no reason

Why Gunpowder Treason

Should ever be forgot.

Guy Fawkes, Guy Fawkes, t’was his intent

To blow up King and Parli’ment.

Three-score barrels of powder below

To prove old England’s overthrow;

By God’s providence he was catch’d

With a dark lantern and burning match.

Holloa boys, holloa boys, let the bells ring.

Holloa boys, holloa boys, God save the King!

A penny loaf to feed the Pope

A farthing o’ cheese to choke him.

A pint of beer to rinse it down.

A faggot of sticks to burn him.

Burn him in a tub of tar.

Burn him like a blazing star.

Burn his body from his head.

Then we’ll say ol’ Pope is dead.

Hip hip hoorah! Hip hip hoorah hoorah!

All Souls’ Day

Chamber’s Book of Days has this to say:

This is a festival celebrated by the Roman Catholic Church, on behalf of the souls in purgatory, for whose release the prayers of the faithful are this day offered up and masses performed. It is said to have been first introduced in the ninth century by Odilon, abbot of Cluny; but was not generally established till towards the end of the tenth century. Its observance was esteemed of such importance, that in the event of its falling on a Sunday, it was ordered not to be postponed till the Monday, as in the case of other celebrations, but to take place on the previous Saturday, that the souls of the departed might suffer no detriment from the want of the prayers of the church. It was customary in former times, on this day, for persons dressed in black to traverse the streets, ringing a dismal-toned bell at every corner, and calling on the inhabitants to remember the souls suffering penance in purgatory, and to join in prayer for their liberation and repose.

At Naples, it used to be a custom on this day to throw open the charnel-houses, which were lighted up with torches and decked with flowers, while crowds thronged through the vaults to visit the bodies of their friends and relatives, the fleshless skeletons of which were dressed up in robes and arranged in niches along the walls. At Salerno, also, we are told, that a custom prevailed previous to the fifteenth century, of providing in every house on the eve of All-Souls-Day, a sumptuous entertainment for the souls in purgatory who were supposed then to revisit temporarily, and make merry in, the scene of their earthly pilgrimage. Every one quitted the habitation, and after spending the night at church, returned in the morning to find the whole feast consumed, it being deemed eminently inauspicious if a morsel of victuals remained uneaten. The thieves who made a harvest of this pious custom, assembling, then, from all parts of the country, generally took good care to avert any such evil omen from the inmates of the house by carefully carrying off whatever they were unable themselves to consume. A resemblance may be traced in this observance, to an incident in the story of Bel and the Dragon, in the Apocrypha.

1517 The Protestant Reformation begins

There has never been a period in the history of the Christian Church when someone has not styled himself a reformer and called for changes to practice or doctrine, but no era in this regard was as dynamic, awful, and contentious as the sixteenth century. For centuries, believers inside the Western Church had criticized the wealth of the clergy; the sexual incontinence and ignorance of monks and priests; the belief in transubstantiation, indulgences, papal monarchy or Purgatory. Reformers had come and gone — some to sainthood, some to the stake — but the Church had endured. On October 31, 1517 another critic would step forward and nothing would ever be the same.

Martin Luther (1483-1546) was a German monk of the Augustinian order and a professor of theology at the University of Wittenberg in Saxony. Like many good Catholic thinkers, he had struggled with the notion that the sufferings of those undergoing the pains of Purgatory could be alleviated by the purchase of an indulgence which promised to remit temporal punishment. When Johann Tetzel, a Dominican monk, conducted an indulgence sales drive (in part to finance the building of St Peter’s Basilica) and seemed to promise remission for sins that were yet to be committed, Luther became angry enough to compose a provocative rejoinder. His “95 Theses” were a series of possible discussion points on the topic of Purgatory which he posted on door of All Saints’ Church in Wittenberg, a standard practice alerting students to a debate. (Some historians doubt this dramatic scene. They are wrong.)

Many of these theses were quite barbed, going to the heart of long-time papal claims:

Those preachers of indulgences are in error, who say that by the pope’s indulgences a man is freed from every penalty, and saved.

Every truly repentant Christian has a right to full remission of penalty and guilt, even without letters of pardon.

Christians are to be taught that the pope, in granting pardons, needs, and therefore desires, their devout prayer for him more than the money they bring.

Christians are to be taught that the pope’s pardons are useful, if they do not put their trust in them; but altogether harmful, if through them they lose their fear of God.

Christians are to be taught that if the pope knew the exactions of the pardon-preachers, he would rather that St. Peter’s church should go to ashes, than that it should be built up with the skin, flesh and bones of his sheep.

Why does not the pope empty purgatory, for the sake of holy love and of the dire need of the souls that are there, if he redeems an infinite number of souls for the sake of miserable money with which to build a Church?

These questions were soon printed and spread throughout Germany, creating a theological stir. The Church’s official reply and Luther’s rejoinders quickly changed what was an unremarkable college debate into a crisis for western Christendom. Within a few years, a series of genuine revolutionary movements had begun.

Asterius of Amasea

Asterius (350-410) was a lawyer in Asia Minor before joining the church and becoming a bishop. He is best known for being a lively preacher, condemning the frivolous social practices of his day. On January 1, 400 he gave a sermon in which he begged Christians to abandon the observance of the holiday of the Kalends, Roman New Year. Since many of the customs of this celebration became absorbed by those marking Christmas, it is worthwhile to note to Asterius’s objections.

Oh, the absurdity of it! All stalk about open-mouthed, hoping to receive something from one another. Those who have given are dejected; those who have received a gift do not retain it, for the present is handed on from one to another, and he who received it from an inferior gives it to a superior. The money of this festival is as unstable as the ball of boys at play, for it is passed quickly on from me to my neighbor. It is but a new form of bribery and servility, having inevitably linked with it the element of necessity. For the more eminent and respectable man shames one into giving. A person of lower rank asks outright, and it all moves by degrees toward the pockets of the most eminent men.

This is misnamed a feast, being full of annoyance; since going out-of-doors is burdensome, and staying within doors is not undisturbed. For the common vagrants and the jugglers of the stage, dividing themselves into squads and hordes, hang about every house. The gates of public officials they besiege with especial persistence, actually shouting and clapping their hands until he that is beleaguered within, exhausted, throws out to them whatever money he has and even what is not his own. And these mendicants going from door to door follow one after another, and, until late in the evening, there is no relief from this nuisance. For crowd succeeds crowd, and shout, shout, and loss, loss.

Such is this delectable feast, the source of debt and usury, the occasion of poverty, the beginning of misfortunes. And if a man become prosperous by honest industry, incredible as that may seem, and not by the craft of the usurer, even he is dragged along as one who has failed to pay the royal taxes; he weeps like one whose goods are confiscated, and he laments like a man who falls among thieves. He is dogged, he is flogged, and if there be in the house any little thing for the support of his wife and wretched children, this he lets go, and sits him down hungry with his whole family on this glorious feast-day. A new law this, of evil custom, that annoyance be celebrated as a feast, and man’s want be called a festival! 

This festival teaches even the little children, artless and simple, to be greedy, and accustoms them to go from house to house and to offer novel gifts, fruits covered with silver tinsel. For these they receive in return gifts double their value, and thus the tender minds of the young begin to be impressed with that which is commercial and sordid.

Give to the crippled beggar, and not to the dissolute musician. Give to the widow instead of the harlot; instead of to the woman of the street, to her who is piously secluded. Lavish your gifts upon the holy virgins singing psalms unto God, and hold the shameless psaltery in abhorrence, which by its music catches the licentious before it is seen. Satisfy the orphan, pay the poor man’s debt, and you shall have a glory that is eternal.

Asterius notes that Christians celebrate Christmas, Epiphany and Easter: We celebrate the birth of Christ, since at this time God manifested himself in the flesh. We celebrate the Feast of Lights (Epiphany), since by the forgiveness of our sins we are led forth from the dark prison of our former life into a life of light and uprightness. Again, on the day of the resurrection we adorn ourselves and march through the streets with joy, because that day reveals to us immortality and the transformation into a higher existence

St Narcissus

St Narcissus, says Butler’s Book of Saints,  was born towards the close of the first century, and was almost fourscore years old when he was placed at the head of the church of Jerusalem, being the thirtieth bishop of that see. Eusebius assures us that the Christians of Jerusalem preserved in his time the remembrance of several miracles which God had wrought by this holy bishop, one of which he relates as follows. One year, on Easter-eve, the deacons were unprovided with oil for the lamps in the church, necessary at the solemn divine office that day. Narcissus ordered those who had care of the lamps to bring him some water from the neighbouring wells. This being done, he pronounced a devout prayer over the water; then bade them pour it into the lamps, which they did, and it was immediately converted into oil, to the great surprise of the faithful. Some of this miraculous oil was kept there as a memorial at the time when Eusebius wrote his history. The veneration of all good men for this holy bishop could not shelter him from the malice of the wicked. Three incorrigible sinners, fearing his inflexible severity in the observance of ecclesiastical discipline, laid to his charge a detestable crime, which Eusebius does not specify. They confirmed their atrocious calumny by dreadful oaths and imprecations; one wishing he might perish by fire, another that he might be struck with a leprosy, and the third that he might lose his sight, if what they alleged was not the truth. Notwithstanding these protestations, their accusation did not find credit; and some time after the divine vengeance pursued the calumniators. The first was burnt in his house, with his whole family, by an accidental fire in the night; the second was struck with a universal leprosy; and the third, terrified by these examples, confessed the conspiracy and slander, and by the abundance of tears which he continually shed for his sins, lost his sight before his death.

Narcissus, notwithstanding the slander had made no impression on the people to his disadvantage, could not stand the shock of the bold calumny, or rather made it an excuse for leaving Jerusalem and spending some time in solitude, which had long been his wish. He spent several years undiscovered in his retreat, where he enjoyed all the happiness and advantage which a close conversation with God can bestow. That his church might not remain destitute of a pastor, the neighbouring bishops of the province after some time placed in it Pius, and after him Germanion, who dying in a short time was succeeded by Gordius. Whilst this last held the see, Narcissus appeared again, like one from the dead. The whole body of the faithful, transported at the recovery of their holy pastor, whose innocence had been most authentically vindicated, conjured him to reassume the administration of the diocese. He acquiesced; but afterwards, bending under the weight of extreme old age, made St. Alexander his coadjutor. St. Narcissus continued to serve his flock, and even other churches, by his assiduous prayers and his earnest exhortations to unity and concord, as St. Alexander testifies in his letter to the Arsinoites in Egypt, where he says that Narcissus was at that time, about one hundred and sixteen years old. The Roman Martyrology honours his memory on the 29th of October.

Simon the Zealot

Simon is mentioned as an Apostle of Jesus in the Synoptic Gospels but nothing else is known for certain of him. That has not stopped historians and story-tellers from endless speculation about the man.

Firstly, the nickname “the Zealot” has been taken to imply that he was a member of a violent anti-Roman sect that operated in the first century. Some say the group was active either too early or too late to have included Simon while others say that the name simply means that he was “zealous” or pious. Secondly, it is often supposed that he was a Canaanite but others insist that he was from the town of Cana, and thus the lucky bridegroom at the wedding where Jesus performed his first miracle of turning water into wine.

Hagiographers have linked his evangelizing mission with that of Jude/Thaddeus and say that they preached in Egypt, Syria, and Persia where Simon was martyred by being sawn in half. (Thus he is often pictured holding a saw.) Others place Simon’s work in North Africa and some claim that he died in Roman Britain. Both Simon and Thaddeus are said to be buried in St Peter’s Basilica in Rome. He is the patron saint of tanners.

Ezra Pound’s poem “The Ballad of the Goodly Fere” is an account of the life of Christ as told by Simon. In it, Simon speaks in a rough dialect and praises Jesus for his manliness.

Oh we drank his “Hale” in the good red wine

When we last made company,

No capon priest was the Goodly Fere

But a man o’ men was he.

I ha’ seen him drive a hundred men

Wi’ a bundle o’ cords swung free,

That they took the high and holy house

For their pawn and treasury.

They’ll no’ get him a’ in a book I think

Though they write it cunningly;

No mouse of the scrolls was the Goodly Fere

But aye loved the open sea.