Furthermore…

We didn’t meet last week to make room for Christmas in the members’ lives. Today the Gospel reading was the account of St. Joseph and Mary bringing Baby Jesus to the Temple, the “Presentation.” The discussion got off on a tangent when one member asserted that Jewish customs given by God such as the observance of the Passover were eliminated by Christianity, which amounts to turning away from God’s instructions on how we are to live properly. I was mindful to some of the teachings of Dr. Scott Hahn about how the Mass embodies to a great extent Jewish observances, including the Passover meal, and how trappings of Catholicism trace in many instances to Jewish roots, and so I urged the member making the assertion to study the matter further.

One of the contributors to the Catholic Friends group on Multiply.com illustrated his posting with the fine creations shown below, which in a way resembles a kind of Rosary. I wonder if anyone might be familiar with such an item and be able to add a comment to this post that will tell me something about it.

Priest counseling young couple:

“Living together intimately before marriage is sinful, but some people live together ‘as brother and sister,’ or as someone called it, living as ‘brother, you call this living?’”

I’ve heard and read a few things over the last few days, as Christmas became Topic #1, about how the curious gifts in the traditional song ‘The Twelve Days of Christmas’ served a cryptic purpose. Tracing back to the time when Catholics were strongly persecuted in England, and were forbidden to speak openly of their faith or carry materials reflecting Catholicism, the Four Calling Birds, Ten Lords a-Leaping and the rest each signified a Church teaching, such as the Four Gospels or the Ten Commandments.
Religious symbolism of The Twelve Days of Christmas (The 12 Days of Christmas)

1 ‘True Love’ refers to God
‘2 Turtle Doves’ refers to the Old and New Testaments
‘3 French Hens’ refers to Faith, Hope and Charity, the Theological Virtues
‘4 Calling Birds’ refers to the Four Gospels and/or the Four Evangelists
‘5 Golden Rings’ refers to the first Five Books of the Old Testament, the “Pentateuch”, which gives the history of man’s fall from grace.
‘6 Geese a-Laying’ refers to the six days of creation
‘7 Swans a-Swimming’ refers to the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit, the seven sacraments
‘8 Maids a-Milking’ refers to the eight beatitudes
‘9 Ladies Dancing’ refers to the nine Fruits of the Holy Spirit
‘10 Lords a-Leaping’ refers to the ten commandments
‘11 Pipers Piping’ refers to the eleven faithful apostles
‘12 Drummers Drumming’ refers to the twelve points of doctrine in the Apostle’s Creed.

I always assumed, perhaps wrongly, that the song was reflective of the courtly and noble culture of that era, , and that the various gifts were familiar items among the lords and ladies, and that perhaps the lower strata of society derived some vicarious pleasure from singing about and imagining the trappings of the splendid life style closed to them. It seems possible that the song pre-existed the religious interpretations, which might have simply been imposed on a silly ditty by individuals with didactic intent.

Distinguished-looking pastor to congregation:

“Our final announcement, in language I don’t understand, is from the Teen Group!”

The exact date when Christ was born seems to be unknown, lost in the mists of history. I have read scholarly fluff about how pagan customs and observances related to the dead of winter and the shortest day of the year were assimilated by Christianity to capitalize on and amalgamate an already existing holiday mood and atmosphere.

It seems to detract a bit from the sense of soundness and assurance that ought to be associated with so important a day of tribute to Our Savior, His birth, so I propose that arrangements be made to recognize the Christmas event every day of the year, so that we can be sure that on at least one of the days we are on the mark.

There would be no necessity to multiply and duplicate the other baggage that attaches to Christmas, however, such as cards, shopping, decorations, festoons and family gatherings. For all that, once seems to do nicely.

Slob in recliner to his live-in broad:

“Hey, the calendar says December 25th. Isn’t that supposed to mean something?”

A radio preacher I catch from time to time this morning went into a lengthy talk about how most of the things we believe about Mary are “un-biblical” (the spell checker just tagged the word as a problem; maybe it’s a word that the preacher made up, or one that hasn’t worked its way into general usage. I think I’ve heard it somewhere before). No one in his congregation seemed to protest, but I imagine that some of them had reservations, because I understand that fallen-away Catholics make up a fair percentage of the high profile preachers’ followings, and ex-Catholics might still retain a soft spot for the Blessed Mother. Well, his talk mainly was based on the observation that the things we believe about Mary are not explicit in the Bible. If that’s his measure of truth, God bless him.
But another chord he played was that Mary was not perfectly sinless, because she exhibited (in the Bible) human failings and weaknesses, such as uncertainty and fear. A sour note, because Jesus exhibited some human weaknesses too, as in the Garden of Gethsemene. He might want to squelch this chord, because it vitiates his contention that to admire Mary detracts from what is due Jesus. He must think of Jesus as a jealous protector of His right to all admiration, to the point that Jesus would oppose any reverence for His mother. I don’t think so!

Customer showing prayer bench to Joseph and Jesus at their carpenter shop:

“I don’t know what you did to it, but whenever I pray it says ‘Amen’!”

Some years ago I got interested in the story of a Spanish sea vessel named ‘Nuestra Senora de Atocha’ that went down in a hurricane. It was carrying a cargo which included gold coins, and a modern day salvage hunter retrieved a cache of the coins and I don’t know what else. “Atocha” didn’t mean anything to me, and I had some curiosity about what lode of Spanish lore the owners of the vessel had drawn upon in selecting her name.
Last night a saw a rerun, er, ‘Classic’ episode of Mother Angelica’s show and she filled in some of the blanks. It seems there was a statue of the Blessed Mother in Spain dedicated to Our Lady of Atocha. Mary was holding the Baby Jesus. Baby Jesus was depicted holding a tiny bread basket and a water canteen.
It developed that one morning it was observed that the little sandals on the Baby Jesus’ feet were encrusted with mud. Unlike the kind of statues with which I am familiar, Mother said that European statues of that era were outfitted with actual items of clothing, such as the tiny sandals that were on the feet of the Baby Jesus.
The soil was cleaned away, but morning after succeeding morning the sacristan found the same condition repeated, with traces of mud even appearing on the hem of the Baby’s garment, so the sacristan hid in the darkness to observe who was violating the church’s property.
Behold and lo, that night he observed the Baby Jesus statue come to life and patter off from its location, out of the church.
It was somehow ascertained that He was bringing bread and water to imprisoned soldiers who had no family and friends to bring them sustinence. At that time the authorities didn’t provide food and water to such prisoners, and they had to depend on family and friends to bring them something. What a Friend they had in Jesus!