Christmas Every Day

St Ignatius of Antioch

Ignatius of Antioch was the second bishop of that city, having been appointed to the position by the Apostle Peter. Early in the second century Ignatius was caught up in the Syrian persecution ordered by the Emperor Trajan and was sentenced to death in a Roman arena. He is considered an Apostolic Father; his collected letters provide an invaluable look into the heart and theology of the early church. He seems to have been the first to use the word “catholic” to refer to the Church and emphasized the virtues of martyrdom, begging his followers not to interfere with his scheduled death.

I am God’s wheat and shall be ground by the teeth of wild animals. I am writing to all the churches to let it be known that I will gladly die for God if only you do not stand in my way. I plead with you: show me no untimely kindness. Let me be food for the wild beasts, for they are my way to God. I am God’s wheat and shall be ground by their teeth so that I may become Christ’s pure bread. Pray to Christ for me that the animals will be the means of making me a sacrificial victim for God. No earthly pleasures, no kingdoms of this world can benefit me in any way. I prefer death in Christ Jesus to power over the farthest limits of the earth. He who died in place of us is the one object of my quest. He who rose for our sakes is my one desire. 

The entry for this date in Chamber’s Book of Days, a wonderful 19th-century miscellany, includes a number of remarkable wills. Here is one that takes a pot-shot at non-Catholics from beyond the grave.

 True Copy of the Last Will and Testament of Mr. Benjamin Dod, Citizen and Linen Draper, who lately fell from his Horse, and Dy’d soon after.

‘In the Name of God, Amen. I, Benjamin Dod, citizen and mercer of London, being in health of body, and good and perfect memory, do make this my last will and Testament in manner and form following (that is to say): First, my soul I commend to Almighty God that gave it me, and my body to the earth from whence it came. I desire to be interr’d in the parish church of St. John, Hackney, in the county of Middlesex, about eleven o’clock at night, in a decent and frugal manner, as to Mr. Robert Atkins shall seem meet, the management whereof I leave to him. I desire Mr. Brown to preach my funeral sermon; but if he should happen to be absent or dead, then such other persons as Mr. Robert Atkins shall appoint: and to such minister that preaches my funeral sermon I give five guineas.

‘Item: I desire four and twenty persons to be at my burial, out of which Messrs J. Low, &c. naming six persons to be pall bearers: but if any of them be absent or dead, I desire Mr. Robert Atkins to appoint others in their room, to every of which four and twenty persons so to be invited to my funeral, I give a pair of white gloves, a ring of ten shillings’ value, a bottle of wine at my funeral, and half a crown to spent at their return that night, to drink my soul’s health, then on her journey to purification in order to eternal rest. I appoint the room where my corps shall lye, to be hung with black, and four and twenty wax candles to be burning. On my coffin to be affixed a cross, and this inscription –

Jesus Hominum Salvator

I also appoint my corps to be carried in a hearse, drawn with six white horses, with white feathers, and follow’d by six coaches, with six horses to each coach, to carry the four and twenty persons. I desire Mr. John Spicer may make the escutcheons, and appoint an undertaker, who shall be a noted churchman. What relations have a mind to come to my funeral may do it without invitation.

‘Item: I give to forty of my particular acquaintance, not at my funeral, to every of them a gold ring of ten shillings’ value; the said forty persons to be named by Mr. Robert Atkins. As for mourning, I leave that to my executors hereafter named; and I do not desire them to give any to whom I shall leave a legacy.’

After enumerating a number of legacies, &c., the testator concludes thus:

‘I will have no Presbyterians, moderate Low churchmen, or occasional Conformists, to be at, or have anything to do with, my funeral. I die in the faith of the true Catholick Church. I desire to have a Tombstone over me, with a Latin inscription; and a lamp, or six wax candles, to burn seven days and nights together thereon.’

Pope John XXIII opens Vatican II

Angelo Giuseppe Roncalli (1881-1963) was born to a peasant family in northern Italy. Despite his humble origins and a wartime spell as a stretcher bearer, Roncalli rose quickly though the Catholic hierarchy. He served as an aide to prominent clerics and was appointed to a number of diplomatic posts, representing the Vatican in Greece, Bulgaria, Turkey and France. During the Second World War he assisted in rescuing Jews from Nazi persecution and negotiated the resignation of bishops who had sided with German occupation.

In 1953 he was appointed to the College of Cardinals and the Archbishopric of Venice. On the death of Pope Pius XII in 1958 Roncallli was 77 years old, which may have been seen as a good thing in the eyes of the electors of the next pope who could see him as a safe, short-term choice. After 11 ballots he was elevated to the See of Peter and surprisingly took the name of John — surprising because there had not been a “John” on the papal throne since the early 1400s and that incumbent was seen as an “anti-pope”, an illegitimate claimant to the papacy, guilty of piracy, rape, sodomy, murder and incest. To complicate matters, this last John was called the twenty-third of that name but that was a miscount (there had been no John XX). Roncallli chose to be called John XXIII, which was mathematically correct.

Those who expected an elderly do-nothing pope were astonished at John’s energy and charity — he visited prisons and children’ hospitals as part of his pastoral duties. Even more, he shocked the world with his audacity, summoning a Council of the Church to meet in October 1962 and charged it with the task of addressing the relationship of the Church and modern society. Though he did not live to see its conclusion, John’s Second Vatican Council revolutionized the Mass, opened up ecumenical dialogue and set in chain a series of changes that are still being debated.

John’s most famous encyclical was Pacem in Terris of 1963, completed shortly before his death, but he is best known for his engaging personality and openness. He was canonized in 2002 by Pope John Paul II.

732 Charles Martel drives back the Muslims from France.

A victorious line of march had been prolonged above a thousand miles from the rock of Gibraltar to the banks of the Loire; the repetition of an equal space would have carried the Saracens to the confines of Poland and the Highlands of Scotland; the Rhine is not more impassable than the Nile or Euphrates, and the Arabian fleet might have sailed without a naval combat into the mouth of the Thames. Perhaps the interpretation of the Koran would now be taught in the schools of Oxford, and her pulpits might demonstrate to a circumcised people the sanctity and truth of the revelation of Muhammed.

This was the judgement of Edward Gibbon in his Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire when he considered the importance of the battle of Tours in 732, a battle that pitted the army of semi-civilized Christian Franks against the undefeated forces of Muslim Spain. The victory of warlord Charles “the Hammer” Martel repelled an Islamic incursion and marked the rollback of Muslim penetration into France and back over the Pyrenees.

Muslim armies had crossed over the Straits of Gibraltar in 711 and rapidly conquered the Visigothic kingdom in Spain, leaving only a remnant of Christian rule in the mountains of the northwest of the Iberian peninsula. They surged across the mountains and invaded the old Roman province of Aquitaine in southern Gaul where they occupied a number of cities and raided north into Burgundy. In 732 a large army, probably over 30,000 cavalrymen, led by Abdul Rahman Al Ghafiqi struck out toward the rich shrine of St Gregory at Tours. Their plan was plunder and destruction of the Frankish kingdom, then under the weak Merovingian dynasty.

The Frankish “mayor of the palace” (the brains behind the weak kings) was Charles Martel who gathered an army of Frankish fighters: spear, axe and shield men who would meet the enemy on foot. The two armies clashed somewhere between what are now the cities of Tours and Poitiers. Charles arranged his men on high ground in an impregnable shield wall, impervious to cavalry, and waited for the Muslims, or Moors, to become impatient and charge too impetuously. That break came after at least three (perhaps seven) days of stand-off when the Moors launched their attack and were beaten with their general falling in battle. They fled south toward Spain, leaving their loot behind. In the following years Charles moved his army south and drove the Muslims back across the mountains in Spain.

Historians have debated the significance of the battle; many are not as sure as Gibbon that the 732 encounter was all that important. It is clear, however, that Charles’s victory led to his family’s ascending the throne of the Franks and the reign of his grandson Charlemagne who took the fight against the Moors into Spain itself.

Ewald the Black and Ewald the Fair

This day commemorates the deaths of two English missionaries to the pagan Saxons in 695, both named Ewald and distinguished by their complexions. The Germanic invaders of Britain had been Christianized by this time but many of their cousins on the mainland had clung to their old polytheism, prompting the English church to embark on evangelistic missions.

The Ewalds reached what is now Westphalia where they were murdered by Saxons who feared the spread of the Christian religion. Miracles followed their deaths, including the remarkable flotation of their bodies 40 miles — upstream — to where they were recovered by their companions. They were treated as martyrs and their relics were venerated for centuries, some in Cologne and some in Münster until they were destroyed by radical Anabaptists in 1535.

St Jerome

Eusebius Sophronius Hieronymus (347-420) was born into a pagan family living in what is now Croatia. He converted to Christianity after coming to Rome to study rhetoric and philosophy, a sensible move in an empire whose ruling class was abandoning traditional religion. After a riotous student life, Jerome began to take the faith increasingly seriously and in his late 20s experienced a revelation that drove him to a life of ascetic withdrawal and deeper study of the Scriptures.  He immersed himself in Hebrew and Greek and was commissioned by Pope Damasus I to produce a new version of the Latin Bible. His work, which came to be called the Vulgate, became the standard Bible in western Christianity for over 1,000 years.

Jerome was critical of the worldliness of the Roman clergy; they would accuse him of improper relations with some of the wealthy women whose spiritual adviser he was. He left Rome and settled in Bethlehem in 388. For the rest of his life he lived simply and dedicated himself to his studies, turning out numerous commentaries, saints’ lives, and polemics against contemporary heresies.

Jerome is the patron saint of translators, archaeologists, librarians, archivists and students. In art he is portrayed as an old hermit or monk, studying, or with a lion sitting tamely by, a reference to a story wherein he plucked a thorn from the beast’s foot.

St. Cyprian the Magician

According to Chambers’ Book of Days: 

This saint, so surnamed from his having, previous to his conversion, practised the arts of a magician or diviner, has been coupled in the calendar with Justina, a young Syrian lady, regarding whom a young pagan nobleman applied to Cyprian to assist him with his arts in rendering her more favourable to his suit. Justina was a Christian, and opposed, we are told, through the aid of the Virgin, such an effectual resistance to the devices of Cyprian, that the latter was convinced of the weakness of the infernal spirits, and resolved to quit their service. He consulted a priest named Eusebius, who encouraged him in the work of conversion, which he ultimately consummated by burning all his magical books, giving his substance to the poor, and enrolling himself among the Christian catechumens. On the breaking out of the persecution under Dioclesian, Cyprian was apprehended and carried before the Roman governor at Tyre. Justina, who had been the original mover in his change of life, was, at the same time, brought before this judge and cruelly scourged, whilst Cyprian was torn with iron hooks. After this the two martyrs were sent to Nicomedia, to the Emperor Diocletian, who forthwith commanded their heads to be struck off. The history of St. Cyprian and St. Justina was recorded in a Greek poem by the Empress Eudocia, wife of Theodosius the Younger, a work which is now lost.

The two were struck from the saints’ calendar in the papal reforms of 1969, but since that purge also demoted Saint Nicholas we need pay no attention to it.

1890 Mormons renounce polygamy

It’s amazing how many heretical groups start off with changes in sexual behaviour among their tenets: the nudism of the Adamites, the antinomianism of the Ranters and the multiple wives of Islam and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Days Saints. With the exception of Islam, it usually ends, or ends badly. In 1890, under pressure from the U.S. government and eager for Utah statehood, the LDS Church forbade future multiple wife taking. Existing polygamous unions were left unaffected and covert evasion of the decree continues to this day among some sects.

1957 Little Rock Schools integrated by the 101st Airborne

Arkansas Governor Orval Faubus opposed integration of public schools and ordered his state’s National Guard to prevent black students from entering Little Rock Central High School. President Dwight Eisenhower countered by sending in the paratroopers. Though admitted, the first nine black students were subject to shameful verbal and physical abuse by townsfolk and their fellow students.

ST LAMBERT, BISHOP OF MAESTRICHT, MARTYR (c. A.D. 705) 

An account from Butler’s Book of Saints of the life of a churchman during the turbulent rule of the Merovingian Franks.

St Landebert, called in later ages Lambert, was a native of Maestricht, and born of a noble and wealthy family between the years 633 and 638. His father sent him to St Theodard to perfect his education. This holy bishop had such an esteem for his pupil that he spared no trouble in instructing and training him in learning and Christian virtue, and he was a credit to his master: his biographer, who was born soon after Lambert’s death, describes him as, “a prudent young man of pleasing looks, courteous and well behaved in his speech and manners; well built, strong, a good fighter, clear-headed, affectionate, pure and humble, and fond of reading”. When St Theodard, who was bishop of Tongres-Maestricht, was murdered, Lambert was chosen to succeed him; but the tyrannical Ebroin was reinstated as mayor of the palace when the Austrasian king, Childeric II, was slain in 674, and he at once began to revenge himself on those who had supported Childeric. This revolution affected St Lambert, who was expelled from his see. He retired to the monastery of Stavelot, and during the seven years that he continued there he obeyed the rule as strictly as the youngest novice could have done. One instance will suffice to show how he devoted his heart to serve God according to the perfection of his temporary state. One night in winter he let fall his shoe, so that it made a noise. This the abbot heard, and he ordered him who was responsible for that noise to go and pray before the great cross, which stood outside the church door. Lambert, without making any answer, went out as he was, barefoot and covered only with his shirt; and in this condition he prayed, kneeling before the cross, three or four hours. Whilst the monks were warming themselves after Matins, the abbot inquired if all were there. Answer was made that he had sent someone to the cross who had not yet come in. The abbot ordered that he should be called, and was surprised to find that the person was the Bishop of Maestricht, who made his appearance almost frozen. 

In 681 Ebroin was assassinated, and Pepin of Herstal, being made mayor of the palace, expelled the usurping bishops and, among other exiled prelates, restored St Lambert to Maestricht. The holy pastor returned to his flock animated with redoubled fervour, preaching and discharging his other duties with wonderful zeal and fruit. Finding there still remained many pagans in Kempenland and Brabant he applied himself to convert them to the faith, softened their barbarous temper by his patience, regenerated them in the water of baptism, and destroyed many superstitious observances. In the neighbourhood of his own see he founded with St Landrada the monastery of Munsterbilzen for nuns. 

Pepin of Herstal, after living many years in wedlock with St Plectrudis, entered into adulterous relations with her sister Alpais (of whom was born Charles Martel), and St Lambert expostulated with the guilty couple. Alpais complained to her brother Dodo, who with a party of his followers set upon St Lambert and murdered him as he knelt before the altar in the church of Saints Cosmas and Damian at Liege. That is the later story of the circumstances of St Lambert’s death, but his earliest biographers, writing in the eighth and tenth centuries, tell a quite different tale. According to them, two relatives of Lambert, Peter and Andolet, killed two men who were making themselves obnoxious to the bishop. When Dodo, a kinsman of the men thus slain, came with his followers to take revenge, Lambert told Peter and Andolet that they must expiate their crime. They were killed on the spot; and when the bishop’s room was found to be barred, one of Dodo’s men climbed to the window and cast a spear which killed Lambert too, as he knelt in prayer. This took place at a house where is now the city of Liege.

Lambert’s death, suffered with patience and meekness, joined with the eminent sanctity of his life, caused him to be venerated as a martyr. His body was conveyed to Maestricht. Several miracles which ensued excited the people to build a church where the house stood in which he was slain, and his successor, St Hubert, translated thither his relics. At the same time he removed to the same place the episcopal see of Tongres-Maestricht, and around the cathedral which enshrined the relics of 8t Lambert the city of Liege grew up. He is to this day the principal patron of that place.

1498 Death of a Grand Inquisitor

Tomás de Torquemada (1420-98) was the legendarily ruthless Grand Inquisitor of Spain during a time when the persecution of Jews, Muslims, and conversos in that country accelerated.

The population of medieval Spain consisted of a majority of Catholics with significant minorities of Jews, Muslims and those who had converted to Christianity from those faiths. The latter were called “New Christians”, marranos (if Jewish), moriscos (if Muslim), or conversos. Non-Christians were subject to intermittent persecution and converts were always under suspicion for secretly clinging to their original religion. “Purity of blood” — a line of family descent free of Jewish or Muslim ancestors — was a social advantage; in medieval and early-modern Spain Christianity and racism went hand-in-hand.

Torquemada himself had Jewish blood but his influential relations in the Spanish church smoothed his career path. He rose inside the Dominican Order and eventually became confessor and advisor to Queen Isabella of Castile. When the papacy created a separate Spanish Inquisition at the request of Isabella and her husband Ferdinand of Aragon, Torquemada soon became its head and directed its efforts against those who openly professed a religion other than Christianity and those converts  who were suspected of being crypto-Jews or -Muslims.

The Reconquista, the 700-year drive to expel Islamic states from the Iberian peninsula, was completed in 1492 with the surrender of the last Moorish stronghold in Granada. The surrender terms guaranteed freedom of religion for non-Christians but within months the Alhambra Decree, engineered by Torquemada, demanded the instant conversion or expulsion of all Spanish Jews under very cruel terms. The Catholic Encyclopedia of 1911 says that the Jewish community had offered a large sum of money to Ferdinand not to enforce the decree but “when Ferdinand was about to yield to the enticing offer, Torquemada appeared before him, bearing a crucifix aloft, and exclaiming: “Judas Iscariot sold Christ for 30 pieces of silver; Your Highness is about to sell him for 30,000 ducats. Here He is; take Him and sell Him.” Leaving the crucifix on the table he left the room. Chiefly through his instrumentality the Jews were expelled from Spain in 1492.” Though Torquemada died in 1498 the Spanish Inquisition’s persecutions of Jews, Muslims and converts continued for centuries. In 2012 the Spanish government granted automatic citizenship to anyone who could prove descent from the banished Jewish population.