Christmas Every Day

1229

The Sixth Crusade regains Jerusalem

The Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II (1194-1250) was one of the most remarkable men of the Middle Ages, known in his own time as “Stupor Mundi”, the “Wonder of the World”. His attempts to dominate both Germany and Italy attracted the hostility of the papacy, an antipathy which would lead in the long run to the gutting of the Empire. He was excommunicated four times, called the “Antichrist” by a pope and showed suspicious favour to Muslims, but went on Crusade and regained Jerusalem for Christendom.

The spirit of crusading was still alive in Europe despite the disgraceful Fourth Crusade which never reached the Holy Land and ended up sacking Christian Constantinople instead. Frederick in 1220 promised to go on the Fifth Crusade launched at the Muslim stronghold in Egypt but he never appeared. The failure of that expedition was therefore laid at his feet. He promised the pope that he would lead another crusade by 1227 but when that seemed as if it would not materialize, he was excommunicated by Gregory IX.

Finally in 1229 Frederick arrived on the strip of the eastern Mediterranean coast still held by Christian forces. He discovered that he need not fight for Jerusalem and that the local Muslim leader, preoccupied by other wars, was wiling to offer Jerusalem, Bethlehem and a 10 year truce. Unfortunately the Church was not impressed by this action which had been carried out without its approval and Frederick quarrelled with local crusader barons. He left the Holy Land holding a disputed claim to the Kingdom of Jerusalem and still excommunicated. Jerusalem soon fell back into Muslim hands.

St Agatha’s Day

There are thousands of saints who have been venerated by Christians  over the century and depicted in art. Since most of their real features are unknown to us, how do artists portray them and how can viewers distinguish one pictured saint from another? The trick is to look for visual clues. A saint, for example, carrying a palm branch may be reliably counted on to be a martyr. Or a saint can be determined by the presence of the weapon that killed him — St Paul by a sword, St Lawrence by a griddle or St Sebastian by an arrow. Then again, since saints can be prayed to for particular ailments, they are often shown with that particular part of the body emphasized. Those suffering from skin diseases will want to turn to St Job who sat on a dunghill scratching his afflicted flesh. And so it is with St Agatha, the saint who is memorialized with images of a breast.

Agatha was a Christian virgin who was caught up in the Decian persecution of 250. She refused to renounce her religion and so was sentenced to a brothel but refused to participate and remained a virgin. Her breasts were ripped off with pincers (though the painting above shows her wounds being healed by St Peter in their prison) and she was burnt to  death on hot coals. To this day, sufferers of sore breasts ask St Agatha to help them. In Catania where she originated, they celebrate her feast day with great spectacle. One visitor has described it thus:

The nearly manic celebration begins at dawn on February 4 when Agatha’s life-sized effigy, dripping in jewels collected since the 12th century, is pulled through the streets on a 40,000-pound silver carriage by a cast of 5,000 men. The soundtrack of the procession is grunting, crying, and the grinding wheels of the carriage or fercolo pushing through molten candle wax. All the while thousands scream, “Viva Sant’ Agata.”

St Theophilus the Penitent Day

Theophilus of Adana (d. 538) was a priest of Asia Minor in the Byzantine empire. He declined a bishopric because he thought himself unworthy of the position. Enemies slandered him to the new bishop with accusations of theft and he was removed from his position of archdeacon. Outraged by the injustice he signed a pact with the Devil. In return for vengeance, wealth and the bishopric, he was to deny Christ and the Virgin Mary in a pact written in his own blood. Repenting of his rashness later, he appealed to the Virgin and undertook a penitential fast of forty days. The Virgin rescued him by fetching back the contract he had signed with the Infernal Powers. The pact was burnt in the town square and Theophilus entered into legend with the story told many times in the Middle Ages. It was an influential story – perhaps the earliest tale of a deal with the devil – and it emphasised to the medieval mind the reality of Satan and the power of the Virgin Mary

1649

Charles I (1600-49) of the Stuart dynasty was the last man to be canonised by the Church of England. There had been other English kings known as saints before him (e.g., St Edmund, St Edward the Martyr and St Edward the Confessor) but he may have been the most incompetent ruler to be given that honour.

Coming to the thrones of England, Ireland and Scotland in 1625, Charles inherited a history of bad relations between the crown, the English Parliament, and the Scottish church. A more flexible or far-sighted monarch might have saved himself from catastrophe but Charles was stubborn, short-sighted and untrustworthy. He tried to impose episcopacy on the Calvinist Scots; his religious leanings in England and his marriage to a French princess made many fear he was sponsoring a return to Catholicism; and his refusal to consult Parliament for over a decade led directly to the English Civil War.

Defeated in war, he was put on trial by his Parliamentarian captors, accused of treason. “[W]icked designs, wars, and evil practices of him, the said Charles Stuart, have been, and are carried on for the advancement and upholding of a personal interest of will, power, and pretended prerogative to himself and his family, against the public interest, common right, liberty, justice, and peace of the people of this nation.” He was found guilty and condemned to death. Charles behaved bravely on the block, though he broke with conventional piety by refusing to pardon his executioner. (The painting above is of his arch-enemy Cromwell peering into the royal coffin.)

For his personal religious faith, which was unquestionably deep, and his defence of the Church of England, Charles was regard as a martyr and canonized by Convocation on the restoration of the monarchy in 1660.

St Francis de Sales

FRANCIS was born of noble and pious parents, near Annecy, 1566, and studied with brilliant success at Paris and Padua. On his return from Italy he gave up the grand career which his father had marked out for him in the service of the state, and became a priest. When the Duke of Savoy had resolved to restore the Church in the Chablais, Francis offered himself for the work, and set out on foot with his Bible and breviary and one companion, his cousin Louis of Sales. It was a work of toil, privation, and danger. Every door and every heart was closed against him. He was rejected with insult and threatened with death. But nothing could daunt or resist him, and ere long the Church burst forth into a second spring. It is stated that he converted 72,000 Calvinists. He was then compelled by the Pope to become Coadjutor Bishop of Geneva, and succeeded to the see in 1602.

At times the exceeding gentleness with which he received heretics and sinners almost scandalized his friends, and one of them said to him, “Francis of Sales will go to Paradise, of course; but I am not so sure of the Bishop of Geneva: I am almost afraid his gentleness will play him a shrewd turn.” “Ah,” said the Saint, “I would rather account to God for too great gentleness than for too great severity. Is not God all love? God the Father is the Father of mercy; God the Son is a Lamb; God the Holy Ghost is a Dove—that is, gentleness itself. And are you wiser than God?” In union with St. Jane Frances of Chantal he founded at Annecy the Order of the Visitation, which soon spread over Europe. Though poor, he refused provisions and dignities, and even the great see of Paris. He died at Avignon, 1622.

Butler’s Book of Saints

In 1923, Pope Pius XI proclaimed him a patron of writers and journalists, because he made extensive use of broadsheets and books both in spiritual direction and in his efforts to convert the Calvinists of the region. St. Francis developed a sign language in order to teach a deaf man about God. Because of this, he is the patron saint of the deaf.