"Auld Lang Syne"

Should old acquaintance be forgot,
and never brought to mind ?
Should old acquaintance be forgot,
and old lang syne ?

CHORUS:

For auld lang syne, my dear,
for auld lang syne,
we'll take a cup of kindness yet,
for auld lang syne.

~ "Auld Lang Syne"

The phrase "old lang syne" means "long, long ago" or "days gone by" in the Scots dialect. The Scottish poet Robert Burns composed the poem based upon a traditional song. According to the background notes on the Cantaria site:

Robert Burns sent a copy of the original song to the British Museum with this comment: "The following song, an old song, of the olden times, and which has never been in print, nor even in manuscript until I took it down from an old man's singing , is enough to recommend any air." (Gavin Grieg: "Last Leaves of Traditional Ballads") He set it to a traditional Scottish air that is quite different than the popularized version.

Throughout the English-speaking world, Auld Lang Syne is traditionally sung on New Years Eve (known as Hogmanay in Scotland). That tradition does not hearken back to Burns but rather only to Canadian band leader Guy Lombardo who sang at midnight January 1, 1929 in the Roosevelt Hotel in New York City. Guy Lombardo's orchestra played the song every New Years Eve, in live broadcast from New York, until 1976. Since then, their recording has been played each year as part of the Times Square "ball drop." (Sheet music for the familiar New Years Eve version.)

An article in The Scotsman shares the following insight:

As Thomas Crawford wrote in his important critical examination, Burns: A Study of the Poems and Songs: "In Auld Lang Syne, Burns brings together two different types of nostalgia for past shared happiness, and makes of them a single, compound emotion. Thus our feelings develop as we sing it, until by the end of the song we seem to experience a distillation of all the mutual loyalty, all the partnerships between individuals that have existed since the world began."

A very true observation. For more on Scottish Hogmanay customs, click HERE. Happy New Year!


(Artwork from Karen) Share

Six Things To Know About The New Jersey Drone Mystery

 From The Daily Wire:

From November heading into December of 2024, mysterious “car-sized” drone sightings became a major news story. While there had been suspected drones at night in places across the United States, New Jersey in particular became a focal point due to a high concentration of reported sightings in the state. Here are six things to know about the situation:

Sightings of suspected drones have been reported in the night skies near military sites, critical infrastructure, President-elect Donald Trump‘s golf club in Bedminster, New Jersey, and elsewhere. (Read more.)

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A Domestic Revolution

From DW:

"If I had known that I would have to talk about this damned kitchen for the rest of my life, I would never have built it!" said 100-year-old Margarete Schütte-Lihotzky in an interview in 1998. The kitchen she designed in the 1920s rewrote architectural history and revolutionized the lives of public housing residents by creating a newly functional, fitted culinary space.

Dubbed the "Frankfurt kitchen," Schütte-Lihotzky created a piece of pioneering social architecture that has defined kitchens to this day. The designer was also a women's rights activist and was celebrated as a heroine of resistance against the Nazi dictatorship. (Read more.)

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The Bells of St. Mary's (1945)

The Bells of St. Mary's is often referred to as the film which most exemplifies the mythological Church of pre-Vatican II days, the Church That Never Was, so to say. It is seen as idealizing priests and nuns and parish life when in reality, as we are continually being told, priests were abusive monsters and nuns were shrewish old hags. However, every time I see The Bells of St. Mary's I am struck by how many things about the film resonate with my own experience of Catholicism over six decades. The nun friends that I have had laughed together just like those in the film, especially in the scene when the cat got inside Fr. O'Malley's hat on the mantelpiece. And the striving of the parish to keep the school open is not unreal either.

It is always surprising how familiar some of the characters in the film are to me. Yes, when I went to parochial school there were some cranky old nuns. My former spouse has stories of his school days and encounters with grouchy teaching sisters that make one's hair stand on end. All the same, over the years I have known several nuns like Sr. Benedict, energetic, cheerful, and beautiful in every way. I have certainly encountered priests of the Fr. O'Malley variety, full of blarney at times, but able to connect with people from all walks of life. And what rectory does not have the occasional eccentric characters associated with it, such as the St. Mary's housekeeper Mrs. Breen, played to the hilt by the pixillated Una O'Connor. "You don't know what it's like to be up to your neck in nuns," she warns Fr. O'Malley, as he readies himself to embark on one of the most famous power struggles in filmdom.

Bing Crosby is not half so annoying as he was in Going My Way, the prequel of Bells. The fact that Ingrid Bergman was not a raised a Catholic and was not an especially devout person is testimony to her superb acting ability. Her composed deportment is right on target, restrained without being stiff. Sr. Benedict is able to gently impose a sense of discipline and order on the children while at the same time letting them know that they are loved unconditionally. I have known nuns just like her. She is based upon director Leo McCarey's aunt, a nun who helped to build Hollywood's Immaculate Heart Convent before dying of typhoid fever.

Sr. Benedict and Fr. O'Malley, like so many dedicated religious and clergy with whom I have been acquainted, interact with a variety of people with a plethora of problems, from the troubled young girl to the cranky old Bogardus. The story is fictional, meant to be entertaining and light-hearted but it touches upon very real quandaries. Sr. Benedict, who after overcoming many obstacles saves the school, has to lose it by going away. She is heartbroken and finds it hard to give up her own will, thinking that Fr. O'Malley has arranged her transfer on purpose. Discovering the truth at last helps her to accept everything that has happened in a spirit of faith. The look she gives Fr. O'Malley before walking away, eyes full of tears but radiant with peace, contains in it an ocean of sacrifice. In that sense, The Bells of St. Mary's is not only about the Church that was, it is about the Church that is, and that ever will be. Share

Risk of Blindness

 From Sharyl's Substack:

A new study finds a concerning increase in risk of blindness with weekly use of popular semaglutides: Ozempic for diabetes and Wegovy for obesity. The type of blindness is called nonarteritic anterior ischemic optic neuropathy or NAION. Experts describe it as a sort of stroke in the retina of the eye. It is painless, non-treatable, and typically irreversible. NAION is the same form of blindness associated with erectile dysfunction (ED) drugs such as Viagra. I broke that story globally in 2005 on CBS News. With Viagra, I was surprised that it was an eye doctor rather than the original prescribing doctors, such as urologists, who did the detective work that revealed this pattern of blindness. With Ozempic, it is also eye specialists who are noting the vision-related side effect. (Read more.)

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Syphilis Originated in the Americas

 From Live Science:

The outbreak of a mysterious disease ravaged Europe in the late 15th century, shortly after Christopher Columbus and his crew returned from the Americas. Experts have debated for centuries where this malady — now known as syphilis — originated. Now, new research into ancient genomes has finally provided an answer: It turns out, syphilis came from the Americas, not Europe.

"The data clearly support a root in the Americas for syphilis and its known relatives," study co-author Kirsten Bos, an archaeogeneticist at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany, said in a statement. "Their introduction to Europe starting in the late 15th century is most consistent with the data."

The researchers analyzed human skeletons from numerous archaeological sites in the Americas for evidence of syphilis and related diseases. They revealed their findings in a study published Dec. 18 in the journal Nature. (Read more.)

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Christmas in America

 From CC Pecknold at Postliberal Order:

Christmas preparations somehow sent me down the rabbit hole of reviewing six decades worth of American magazines covers at Christmastime. It started as a random image search, getting me in the spirit, but then it got interesting. I started to see a pattern, and was reminded of something important about America that we’re trained to forget.

America was once a magazine culture.

Harper’s Magazine was one of the oldest and best-selling since its founding during the Civil War. The cover for Christmas 1898 is one of the oldest color covers. It’s an apocalyptic vision of the Star of Bethlehem — a light which illumines the way to the unveiling of Christmas, the Light of Christ. (Read more.)

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Does American Culture Celebrate Mediocrity Over Excellence?

 Very much so. From Culturcidal:

Getting beyond that, it’s impossible to deny that Ramaswamy is right about America’s culture emphasizing the wrong things. It starts right at the top. You can tell a lot about a culture by who it gives attention, rewards, and makes into heroes. Who is that in America? You can see it in who our kids want to be. Do they want to be scientists? Entrepreneurs? Soldiers? Computer programmers? Pastors? Not so much…

If our entertainment industry and society treat smart kids like “nerds,” act as if people who work hard are “boring,” and treat moral people like “prudes,” “hypocrites,” or “dorks,” we’re teaching people not to be these things. If we treat successful people like they somehow cheated to get there and poor people as if they’re noble by virtue of being poor, we’ll end up with a country full of resentful poor people who will claim they don’t want to be rich because they think it’s, “bad.”

Perhaps worst of all, if we treat kids like they’re pieces of glass that will break if they’re pushed too hard, they won’t have what it takes to do anything truly exceptional. The sort of people who create new companies, build rocket ships, and code paradigm-changing pieces of software are not working 40 hours per week from home. They’re getting after it in a way that many people never do in their whole lives. Furthermore, the skills it takes to do those things are typically not the same skills you get from being an influencer, a model, a star football player, or a badass who can wreck five guys in a fight, which are the types of things we lionize in American society. (Read more.)

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Tiny Living and Economic Freedom

 

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The Coventry Carol

Christmas is tinged with sorrow. From A Clerk at Oxford:

Lullay, lullay, thou little tiny Child,
By, by, lully, lullay.
Lullay, lullay, thou little tiny child.
By, by, lully, lullay.

O sisters too, how may we do,
For to preserve this day
This poor youngling for whom we sing,
By, by, lully, lullay.

Herod the King, in his raging,
Charged he hath this day
His men of might, in his own sight,
All young children to slay.

Then woe is me, poor child, for thee,
And ever mourn and may,
For thy parting, nor say nor sing,
By, by, lully, lullay.

The Coventry Carol is among the medieval carols most often heard today, and I find the popularity of this profoundly sad song at Christmastime intriguing. As John of Grimestone's lullaby suggests, there are actually a considerable number of medieval lullabies which share the mood of the Coventry Carol: somewhere between lullaby and lament, full of melancholy and pity for the child being comforted, whether it's Herod's victims, the Christ-child, or any human baby born into a weeping world. (Here's another beautiful example.) I wonder if the popularity of the Coventry Carol today indicates that it expresses something people don't find in the usual run of joyful Christmas carols - this song of grief, of innocence cruelly destroyed. Holy Innocents is not an easy feast for a modern audience to understand, and I'll confess I find the medieval manuscript images of children impaled on spears just horrible - but then, they are meant to be, and they're horrible because they're all too close to the reality of the world we live in. The idea that this is incongruous with the Christmas season (as you often hear people say) is largely a modern scruple, I think. It's our modern idea that Christmas is primarily a cheery festival for happy children and families - our images of Christmas joy, both secular and sacred, are all childlike wonder and picture-perfect families gathered round the tree. This is very nice, of course, for those who have (or are) children, or happy families, but for those who don't - those who have lost children or parents, who face loneliness or exclusion, who want but don't have children, family, or home - it can be deeply painful. (Read more.)

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'This Is Insane'

 From The Daily Wire:

On Thursday, several lawmakers expressed condemnation of an op-ed in The Hill that urged members of Congress to try and block President-elect Donald Trump from taking office for his second term.

Democrat-linked lawyers Evan Davis and David Schulte claimed there was “overwhelming” evidence of Trump engaging in an insurrection that disqualifies him from the presidency and if both chambers spurned Trump’s Electoral College votes, Vice President Kamala Harris — who lost to Trump in the 2024 contest — could be elected instead.

“Sounds like Democrats and the media are planning an insurrection,” said the popular “Libs of TikTok” account run by Chaya Raichik, after which Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) replied, “They use the word ‘insurrection’ only when talking about Republicans.” (Read more.)

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'Mary hath borne alone'

 From A Clerk at Oxford:

This genre of medieval poem can be painful reading at Christmastime, but it seems more honest and clear-eyed than the sentimentality which often surrounds a modern Christmas; there is no expectation here that everyone is happy and jolly, living the perfect life which really exists only in Christmas adverts and newspaper supplements. In truth many people at Christmas do feel very much alone; this is a season which, precisely because of its expectation of pleasure, draws painful attention to absences in our lives - whether a specific person or place we are missing, or a more general sense of something we wish to have and don't. These poems offer companionship in that sorrow. Their predominant mood is compassion, in its literal sense: Christ has come into this 'weeping world' to suffer with us. This baby grieves for us, and the idea is that we should be moved by these poems to feel compassion for him and for his mother. It's almost impossible not to, just as it's hard to hear a crying baby and not respond to it. These poems seek to provoke a stirring of what Middle English poets called kynd love - the love which is innate to all creatures, a part of our essential nature, which comes ultimately from God and can be trained to lead us back to him. (Read more.)

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Jesus Christ the Apple Tree

It is St. John's day, which is the name-day of my late father. This early American carol was one of his favorites. It invokes images of Eden and the lost earthly paradise, while bringing to mind the Tree of Life which is the Cross. From Hymns and Carols of Christmas:

1. The tree of life my soul hath seen,
Laden with fruit and always green:
The trees of nature fruitless be
Compared with Christ the apple tree.
2. His beauty doth all things excel:
By faith I know, but ne'er can tell
The glory which I now can see
In Jesus Christ the apple tree.
3. For happiness I long have sought,
And pleasure dearly I have bought:
I missed of all; but now I see
'Tis found in Christ the apple tree.
4. I'm weary with my former toil,
Here I will sit and rest awhile:
Under the shadow I will be,
Of Jesus Christ the apple tree.
5. This fruit doth make my soul to thrive,
It keeps my dying faith alive;
Which makes my soul in haste to be
With Jesus Christ the apple tree.

From The Thinking Housewife: "The lyrics were written by an unknown poet in the 18th century and call to mind the tradition in the Middle Ages of decorating Christmas trees with apples, symbolic of the Tree of Knowledge." (Read more.)

The Tree of Life and Death

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Who Is Wei Cai?

 From Brownstone Institute:

So, who exactly is Wei Cai, the scientific staff member of Germany’s public health authority, the Robert Koch Institute (RKI), who, as revealed in hitherto hidden minutes of the institute’s “COVID-19 Crisis Group,” comes from none other than Wuhan? And when I say “hitherto hidden minutes,” I mean hidden precisely in the ostensible leak of the unredacted “RKI Files.” For, as I discussed in a recent article, the file in question was not included among the supposedly “complete minutes” assembled by Aya Velazquez, the prostitute-turned-journalist and anti-Covid-measure activist who unveiled the documents at a highly-publicised press conference in Berlin on July 23rd.

As discussed in a postscript to that article, although I have asked her, I have not received a coherent answer from Velazquez as to how she could have overlooked these minutes, which are indeed the minutes of the very first RKI “crisis group” meeting of which we have a public record.

Be that as it may, the reason why the revelation of the RKI’s link to Wuhan is important – and why German authorities may have preferred that it remain secret – is because, as I have documented in, among other places, my ‘The Greatest Story Never Told,’ Germany in fact had a very active publicly-funded research partnership in virology with several research institutions in Wuhan, including the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV).

Indeed, the German-Chinese virology network, known as the “Sino-German Transregional Collaborative Research Centre” or TRR60, gave rise to a full-fledged German-Chinese virology lab, not only right in Wuhan but indeed right in what is regarded as the area of the initial outbreak of Covid-19 in the city. For this and other (microbiological) reasons outlined in my ‘The Smoking Gun in Wuhan,’ the members of the German-Chinese virology partnership ought to be prime suspects in any genuine investigation into a possible laboratory origin of SARS-CoV-2.  But, instead, they have been completely ignored in favour of suspects in far-off places like Chapel Hill, North Carolina.

The below photo shows various members of the partnership, as well as associated German and Chinese luminaries in the field of virology. It was taken in 2015 at a “Sino-German Symposium on Infectious Diseases” in Berlin organised by the German Co-Director of TRR60, Ulf Dittmer. Dittmer is the bald man in the middle of the picture. None other than Christian Drosten, the German designer of the ‘gold standard’ SARS-CoV-2 PCR test, and Shi Zhengli, the WIV’s renowned bat coronavirus expert, can be seen together in the lower left-hand corner of the picture. (Read more.)

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The Nativity: Reason and Reality

 From the late Fr. Schall at Catholic World Report:

The Nativity of the Lord follows the Incarnation of the same Lord. The latter, in its turn, recalls the announcement nine months previously to Mary, if she accepted it, that a Son was to be born of her. She would call Him Emmanuel, “God with us”. And before the Incarnation, we read of prophets and kings who longed for a Savior, who longed to see God, and who expected Him to come to them in some fashion.

In many ways, we do everything possible to celebrate Christmas except to acknowledge why it is worth celebrating. It is almost as if we celebrate Christmas in order to avoid celebrating what it is in the history of the world. Indeed, we insist on celebrating just to be celebrating, an aberration if there ever was one. But in no case will we acknowledge that some event of the past is still present among us and is the foundation of our celebrating. We stubbornly refuse to acknowledge that what happened did happen. We suspect that if were we to do so it would make demands on us that we would not like to follow.

Something odd and curious surrounds this careful and systematic effort to avert our eyes and minds from the central fact of the Nativity. The Nativity is more difficult to explain away than the Incarnation. When a child is born in this world, we cannot deny it is there. We can ask, with the carol, “What Child is this?” It is a question that requires an answer. What is claimed for this Child transcends even the world itself. “In the beginning was the Word”—this was the Word that took flesh and dwelt amongst us, at least for a time. But  He was with us long enough for us to be certain that He actually did exist in places in this world: Bethlehem, Nazareth, Galilee, and Jerusalem. (Read more.)

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A. A. Milne's "King John"

I loved this poem as a child. It still brings tears to my eyes, too.

King John was not a good man –
He had his little ways.
And sometimes no one spoke to him
For days and days and days.
And men who came across him,
When walking in the town,
Gave him a supercilious stare,
Or passed with noses in the air –
And bad King John stood dumbly there,
Blushing beneath his crown.

King John was not a good man,
And no good friends had he.
He stayed in every afternoon…
But no one came to tea.
And, round about December,
The cards upon his shelf
Which wished him lots of Christmas cheer,
And fortune in the coming year,
Were never from his near and dear,
But only from himself.

King John was not a good man,
Yet had his hopes and fears.
They’d given him no present now
For years and years and years.
But every year at Christmas,
While minstrels stood about,
Collecting tribute from the young
For all the songs they might have sung,
He stole away upstairs and hung
A hopeful stocking out.

King John was not a good man,
He lived his live aloof;
Alone he thought a message out
While climbing up the roof.
He wrote it down and propped it
Against the chimney stack:
“TO ALL AND SUNDRY - NEAR AND FAR -
F. Christmas in particular.”
And signed it not “Johannes R.”
But very humbly, “Jack.”

“I want some crackers,
And I want some candy;
I think a box of chocolates
Would come in handy;
I don’t mind oranges,
I do like nuts!
And I SHOULD like a pocket-knife
That really cuts.
And, oh! Father Christmas, if you love me at all,
Bring me a big, red, india-rubber ball!”

King John was not a good man –
He wrote this message out,
And gat him to this room again,
Descending by the spout.
And all that night he lay there,
A prey to hopes and fears.
“I think that’s him a-coming now!”
(Anxiety bedewed his brow.)
“He’ll bring one present, anyhow –
The first I had for years.”

“Forget about the crackers,
And forget the candy;
I’m sure a box of chocolates
Would never come in handy;
I don’t like oranges,
I don’t want nuts,
And I HAVE got a pocket-knife
That almost cuts.
But, oh! Father Christmas, if you love me at all,
Bring me a big, red, india-rubber ball!”

King John was not a good man,
Next morning when the sun
Rose up to tell a waiting world
That Christmas had begun,
And people seized their stockings,
And opened them with glee,
And crackers, toys and games appeared,
And lips with sticky sweets were smeared,
King John said grimly: “As I feared,
Nothing again for me!”

“I did want crackers,
And I did want candy;
I know a box of chocolates
Would come in handy;
I do love oranges,
I did want nuts!
I haven’t got a pocket-knife —
Not one that cuts.
And, oh! if Father Christmas, had loved me at all,
He would have brought a big, red,
india-rubber ball!”

King John stood by the window,
And frowned to see below
The happy bands of boys and girls
All playing in the snow.
A while he stood there watching,
And envying them all …
When through the window big and red
There hurtled by his royal head,
And bounced and fell upon the bed,
An india-rubber ball!
And oh Father Christmas,
My blessings on you fall
For bringing him a big, red,
India-rubber ball!

(From Now We Are Six)

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Health Priorities for the Nation in 2025

 From Sharyl's Substack:

1. Quickly move to end reliance on foreign countries, particularly adversaries like China, for critical medicine.

2. Transform the Health and Human Services (HHS) mission and goal into one that prioritizes identifying the causes of illnesses and preventing them, over simply treating them with pharmaceuticals and other therapies.

3. All health policies shall err on the side of safety.

4. Redefine CDC’s function and mission so that it is not a vaccine marketing arm and provides balanced information, advice, and guidance.

5. Redefine FDA’s core mission so that it is firewalled from pharmaceutial company influence.

6. Identify, declare, and prioritize the long-ignored national public health emergencies, such as the explosion in autism and chronic disease epidemics.

7. Establish and adopt a strict policy of tranparency and service to the public rather than to the pharmaceutical industry or other commercial interests.

End the practice of claiming public health information at the agencies is “proprietary” (shared with pharmaceutical companies and other corporations, but withheld from the public).

8. Analyze the agencies’ public health information and directives online and elsewhere, and make corrections and updates.

Material should reflect the true status of medical and pharmaceutical questions, and eliminate one-sided propaganda. This means eliminating false information contained in material that claims things are “myths” or “debunked” when they are not.

Create an accessible resource that explains any changes and provides links to citations.

9. Notify commonly used resources such as YouTube, Google, Wikipedia, and WebMD of any changes to make sure they reflect the new information.

Also notify medical associations, medical journals, and fake fact checkers such as Science Feedback and Health Feedback, so that they harmonize their work to reflect the corrected information.

10. Put medical journals on notice that they will be held accountable for publishing slanted or false information and studies. (Read more.)

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How Christmas Was Celebrated in the Middle Ages

 From History:

Christmas in the Middle Ages was preceded by the month-long fast of Advent, during which Christians avoided rich foods and overindulgence. But all bets were off starting on the morning of December 25, according to Anne Lawrence-Mathers, a historian at the University of Reading in the UK where she specializes in medieval England, a period that runs roughly from the 5th century A.D. to 1500 A.D. 

“Once Christmas Day came around, if you had the stamina, then you were expected to eat, drink, be merry, dress up, play games, go dancing around the neighborhood for 12 days solid before you collapsed in a heap,” she says.

In the Middle Ages, the holiday began in earnest before dawn on Christmas morning with a special Christmas mass that signaled the official end of Advent and the start of the feasting season, which ran from December 25 through January 5.

The degree of Christmas decadence depended on your social status, but Lawrence-Mathers says that most people would at least have a pig slaughtered in November and salted and smoked in preparation for Christmas bacon and hams.

In the countryside, wealthy lords of the manor were expected to give their tenant farmers at least 12 days off from their labors and also to serve them a festive meal. It’s hard to know exactly what was on the menu, but in the "The Goodman of Paris," a text written in 1393, the author outlines the required courses for a “special feast.” The meal began with a course of pasties, sausages and black pudding; then four courses of fish, fowl and roast meats; and a final course of custards, tarts, nuts and sweetmeats. (Read more.)

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Merry Christmas!

The Nativity by Giotto

And a Happy New Year! Thanks to everyone who has visited this blog in 2024~ I will pray for you all this Christmas Day in the morning. Please pray for me.

Welcome, all wonders in one sight!

       Eternity shut in a span;

Summer in winter; day in night;

       Heaven in earth, and God in man.

Great little one, whose all-embracing birth

Lifts earth to heaven, stoops heav’n to earth.

 ~  from "In the Holy Nativity of Our Lord" by Richard Crashaw

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History of the Gloria

From Aleteia:

The initial words of the Gloria are straight from the Bible and part of an angelic hymn to God on that first Christmas night.

Glory to God in the highest and on earth peace to those on whom his favor rests. (Luke 2:14)

However, after that line everything else was composed separately. Who composed it? There is no known author, but it can be traced back all the way to the third century. According to Joseph A. Jungmann in The Mass of the Roman Rite, “The Gloria, like the Kyrie, was not created originally for the liturgy of the Mass. It is an heirloom from the treasure of ancient Church hymns, a precious remnant of a literature now almost buried but once certainly very rich.”

Jungmann goes on to explain how the additional lines of the Gloria were part of a “literature of songs … written in the early Church in imitation of the biblical lyrics, especially the Psalms.” Furthermore, these early hymns were called psalmi idiotici, “psalms by private persons” and were not written for any particular liturgical use. Whoever wrote it was likely thinking of only one thing: praising God. At first it was used in the East as a a morning hymn in the Little Hours of the Divine Office and later translated into Latin, according to tradition, by St. Hilary of Poitiers. Similarly it was initially used as a general hymn of thanksgiving and praise used outside of the main liturgical events.

Not surprisingly, one of the first instances of its use during the Mass was at the Mass of Christmas night, and then later it was added to Sundays and feasts of martyrs. As the centuries went by this particular hymn became more and more a central part of the Mass and was obligatory on certain days by the 5th century. (Read more.)

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Christmas Scenes

From East of the Sun, West of the Moon. And Christmas trees, HERE.

And scenes of winter, too. Happy New Year!

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Christmas Eve

Today you will know the Lord is coming, and in the morning you will see His glory. (Invitatory Antiphon for December 24.)

The Christmas Martyrology.

In the five thousand one hundred and ninety-ninth year of the creation of the world from the time when God in the beginning created the heavens and the earth;
the two thousand nine hundred and fifty-seventh year after the flood;
the two thousand and fifteenth year from the birth of Abraham;
the one thousand five hundred and tenth year from Moses and the going forth of the people of Israel from Egypt;
the one thousand and thirty-second year from David's being anointed king; in the sixty-fifth week according to the prophecy of Daniel;
in the one hundred and ninety-fourth Olympiad;
the seven hundred and fifty-second year from the foundation of the city of Rome;
the forty second year of the reign of Octavian Augustus;
the whole world being at peace,
in the sixth age of the world, Jesus Christ the eternal God and Son of the eternal Father, desiring to sanctify the world by his most merciful coming, being conceived by the Holy Spirit, and nine months having passed since his conception, was born in Bethlehem of Judea of the Virgin Mary, being made flesh.

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“Tomorrow Shall Be My Dancing Day”

 From The Imaginative Conservative:

William Sandys (1792-1874) was an antiquarian by hobby—a “person who collects or studies old things” or “a student of the past,” according to Webster’s. The things Sandys happened to collect were Christmas songs. His 1833 publication Christmas Carols Ancient and Modern helped to launch the Victorian revival of the holiday, a revival that followed centuries of puritan neglect.[*] Sandys claimed in his book to have unearthed English yuletide songs dating back four centuries. Making their first appearance in print were many carols we now take for granted, such as “The First Noel,” “God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen,” and “Hark, the Herald Angels Sing.”

Although it hasn’t soared to those heights of popularity, “Tomorrow Shall Be My Dancing Day” is richly fascinating nonetheless. The text has turns of phrase redolent of the Middle Ages or Renaissance, yet no source for the song prior to Sandys has been found. What is most remarkable about “Dancing Day” is that it narrates the entire story of Christ’s life in Christ’s own voice, and that it describes the story of salvation with the image of a dance:

Tomorrow shall be my dancing day;
I would my true love did so chance
To see the legend of my play,
To call my true love to the dance.

Refrain:

Sing, oh! My love, oh! My love, my love, my love,
This have I done for my true love.

Most scholars agree that the text goes back far earlier than 1833, with the phrase “legend of my play” a possible clue that the carol was connected to the medieval mystery plays. Musicologists Hugh Keyte and Andrew Parrott write:

It seems possible that ‘Tomorrow shall be’ was devised to be sung and danced at the conclusion of the first day of a three-day drama . . . The actor portraying Christ would have sung the verses and the whole company and audience the repeats of the refrains.

Hymn texts in which Christ himself speaks—a device one commentator refers to as vox Christi—are rare, making a theatrical origin for “Dancing Day” even more likely.

Mystery plays were one of the three distinctive medieval forms of theater, the other two being miracle plays and morality plays. All three types evolved out of short scenes performed in church by the clergy as an adjunct to the liturgy and depicting biblical subjects such as the Creation, Adam, and Eve, or the Last Judgment. Mystery plays eventually moved out of church premises into the village square, often traveled from town to town on wagons, and became increasingly elaborate.

As the plays traveled to various locales, they were often advertised by the players in a song called a “banns.” If our carol originally formed part of a mystery play about the life of Christ, the “dancing day” on the “morrow” might refer to the subsequent part of the play, treating the Redemption.

Most striking is the relationship between Christ and humanity being likened to that of a lover and his “true love,” with the refrain’s expressive repetitions of “my love.” This motif hearkens back to the love poetry of the Song of Songs, in which the lover and beloved are traditionally interpreted as representing Christ and the church or Christ and the soul. The idea of Christ and humanity being united as bridegroom and bride is a classic Christian motif, but we are surprised to find it in a popular Christmas carol, and even more to find the image extended to depict Christ as our dancing partner. There is a good amount of theology and scripture in “Dancing Day,” such as the treatment of the Incarnation:

Then was I born of a virgin pure;
Of her I took fleshly substance.
Thus was I knit to man’s nature
To call my true love to the dance.

In a manger laid and wrapped I was,
So very poor; this was my chance,
Betwixt an ox and a silly poor ass,
To call my true love to my dance.

(Read more.)

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The Grand Accuser

From Leo's Newsletter:

Earlier this week, Ukraine openly boasted of assassinating a top Russian general outside his home in Moscow.

Lt. General Igor Kirillov was killed when a bomb attached to a scooter was detonated remotely upon him leaving his apartment early in the morning. One of his assistants was also killed.

Russia on Tuesday criticized Ukraine's Western allies, accusing them of being complicit in the general’s murder. It was easy to come to this conclusion after no one in any official capacity in Washington, London, Paris or Berlin condemned the killing.

Western politicians and media love to characterize Putin as a dictator of the worst sort, a “KGB thug.” I hear a lot of conservative pundits using this same language and I find it laughable in its hypocrisy.

When has Putin ever reached across the Atlantic and assassinated an American general on U.S. soil? I don’t recall ever reading of such an incident but, if I am having a senior moment, please, someone, refresh my memory.

Moscow’s foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova accused the West in a Telegram post of “approval for war crimes by fighters of the Kyiv regime” and said “all those who welcome terrorist attacks or deliberately hush them up are accomplices.”

This also hearkens back to past reports exposing a CIA program to train and assist Ukraine's special forces and intelligence in sabotage and cross-border targeted assassinations.

Lest you think this is just a clever piece of Russian propaganda, think again. It’s been reported even by a prominent member of the American deep-state media.

Last year, The Washington Post published a report on how Ukraine’s intelligence services were capable of carrying out assassinations inside Russia thanks to support they have been receiving from the CIA since 2014.

(Read more.)

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When Massachusetts Banned Christmas

 It was banned in England, too, under Cromwell. From History:

After the Puritans in England overthrew King Charles I in 1647, among their first items of business after chopping off the monarch’s head was to ban Christmas. Parliament decreed that December 25 should instead be a day of “fasting and humiliation” for Englishmen to account for their sins. The Puritans of New England eventually followed the lead of those in old England, and in 1659 the General Court of the Massachusetts Bay Colony made it a criminal offense to publicly celebrate the holiday and declared that “whosoever shall be found observing any such day as Christmas or the like, either by forbearing of labor, feasting, or any other way” was subject to a 5-shilling fine.

Why did the Puritans loathe Christmas? Stephen Nissenbaum, author of The Battle for Christmas, says it was partly because of theology and partly because of the rowdy celebrations that marked the holiday in the 1600s. n their strict interpretation of the Bible, the Puritans noted that there was no scriptural basis for commemorating Christmas. “The Puritans tried to run a society in which legislation would not violate anything that the Bible said, and nowhere in the Bible is there a mention of celebrating the Nativity,” Nissenbaum says. The Puritans noted that scriptures did not mention a season, let alone a single day, that marked the birth of Jesus. 

 Even worse for the Puritans were the pagan roots of Christmas. Not until the fourth century A.D. did the church in Rome ordain the celebration of the Nativity on December 25, and that was done by co-opting existing pagan celebrations such as Saturnalia, an ancient Roman holiday of lights marked with drinking and feasting that coincided with the winter solstice. The noted Puritan minister Increase Mather wrote that Christmas occurred on December 25 not because “Christ was born in that month, but because the heathens’ Saturnalia was at that time kept in Rome, and they were willing to have those pagan holidays metamorphosed into Christian [ones].” According to Nissenbaum, “Puritans believed Christmas was basically just a pagan custom that the Catholics took over without any biblical basis for it. The holiday had everything to do with the time of year, the solstice and Saturnalia and nothing to do with Christianity.” (Read more.)

 

Cromwell and Christmas, HERE.

Here is a defense of the traditional date of Christmas:

The Catholic Church, from at least the second century, has claimed that Christ was born on December 25. However, it is commonly alleged that our Lord Jesus Christ was not born on December 25. For the sake of simplicity, let us set out the usual objections to the date of December 25 and counter each of them.

Objection 1: December 25 was chosen in order to replace the pagan Roman festival of Saturnalia. Saturnalia was a popular winter festival and so the Catholic Church prudently substituted Christmas in its place.

 

Reply to Objection 1: Saturnalia commemorated the winter solstice. Yet the winter solstice falls on December 22. It is true that Saturnalia celebrations began as early as December 17 and extended till December 23. Still, the dates don’t match up.

 

Objection 2: December 25 was chosen to replace the pagan Roman holiday Natalis Solis Invicti which means “Birthday of the Unconquered Sun.”

 

Reply to Objection 2: Let us examine first the cult of the Unconquered Sun. The Emperor Aurelian introduced the cult of the Sol Invictus or Unconquered Sunto Rome in A.D. 274. Aurelian found political traction with this cult, because his own name Aurelianderives from the Latin word aurora denoting “sunrise.” Coins reveal that Emperor Aurelian called himself the Pontifex Solis or Pontiff of the Sun. Thus, Aurelian simply accommodated a generic solar cult and identified his name with it at the end of the third century.

 

Most importantly, there is no historical record for a celebration Natalis Sol Invictus on December 25 prior to A.D. 354. Within an illuminated manuscript for the year A.D. 354, there is an entry for December 25 reading “N INVICTI CM XXX.”  Here N means “nativity.” INVICTI means “of the Unconquered.” CM signifies “circenses missus” or “games ordered.” The Roman numeral XXX equals thirty. Thus, the inscription means that thirty games were order for the nativity of the Unconquered for December 25th. Note that the word “sun” is not present. Moreover, the very same codex also lists “natus Christus in Betleem Iudeae” for the day of December 25. The phrase is translated as “birth of Christ in Bethlehem of Judea.”[i]

 

The date of December 25th only became the “Birthday of the Unconquered Sun” under the Emperor Julian the Apostate. Julian the Apostate had been a Christian but who had apostatized and returned to Roman paganism. History reveals that it was the hateful former Christian Emperor that erected a pagan holiday on December 25. Think about that for a moment. What was he trying to replace?

These historical facts reveal that the Unconquered Sun was not likely a popular deity in the Roman Empire. The Roman people did not need to be weaned off of a so-called ancient holiday. Moreover, the tradition of a December 25th celebration does not find a place on the Roman calendar until after the Christianization of Rome. The “Birthday of the Unconquered Sun” holiday was scarcely traditional and hardly popular. Saturnalia (mentioned above) was much more popular, traditional, and fun. It seems, rather, that Julian the Apostate had attempted to introduce a pagan holiday in order to replace the Christian one! (Read more.)

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Christian Themes in Dickens' 'A Christmas Carol'

 

 From Magis Center:

The Cratchit family are the only characters to get the best eating scene. While it is very humble in portions, their feast contains roast goose, mashed potatoes, plum pudding, and gin punch. It is a vivacious scene. Their name is a spin on the English word “cratch,” which means to “eat heartily.” A “cratcher,” then referenced a “hearty eater.” But the symbolism comes along with both words being a variation of the word “cratch,” which comes from the old french term “creche,” which referenced where animals eat from: a manger.

“And she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in bands of cloth and laid him in a manger, because there was no place in the guest room.”
—Luke 2:7

The name Ebenezer also carries biblical symbolism. In the Books of Samuel, “Eben-Ezer” is mentioned as the location of a battle between the Israelites and the Philistines. Samuel prayed for God’s protection during the battle, and He answered: the Philistines retreated back to their own lands.  

“Then Samuel took a stone and set it up between Mizpah and Jeshanah, and named it Ebenezer; for he said, ‘Thus far the Lord has helped us.’”
—1 Samuel 7:12

Ebenezer, then, is a stone that is set up as a reminding monument—set up by the receiver—that retells the help given by God. As a result, his name alludes to the fact that Dickens wants his readers to understand that God is the helper and Ebenezer will be the vessel. (Read more.)

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The Scourge of Bullying

I know so many adults who live with the long term results of bullying, including damaged self-confidence and anxiety disorders. The problem, which I have seen repeatedly, is teachers who want to be popular with the "cool kids" and so allow the bullying to continue for the general amusement. The poor victim in this article was even mocked in his coffin by one of his tormentors. From The Daily Mail:

Sammy Teusch was a smart, funny, loving boy who liked fishing, robots and soccer. He studied hard, spent time with his family, and got on well with his classmates in Florida. In November 2022, his family moved to Greenfield, in central Indiana, and suddenly the boy's life became a living hell. Students at Weston elementary quickly started bullying the newcomer. The taunting and violence continued at Greenfield intermediate. He pleaded with teachers for help, but to no avail. 

After months of violence and cruelty, he killed himself in May - his asphyxiated body discovered at home by his 13-year-old brother.

Now in a bombshell lawsuit filed by the parents, the extent of the ten-year-old's unimaginable suffering has been laid bare - with photographs detailing his injuries. 

The shocking filing also includes a text message from one bully appearing to confess to driving Sammy to suicide and a devastating example of how the child was taunted even after his death.  

Sam and Nicci Teusch have accused the school district of failing to act and showing 'callous indifference' to Sammy, who endured months of misery despite their frantic requests for help. (Read more.)

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Was Christ Actually Born Dec. 25?

 From Dave Armstrong:

Fr. William Saunders, in one of his consistently excellent articles for The Arlington Catholic Herald (Dec. 19, 2013), wrote:

St. Luke related the announcement of the birth of St. John the Baptist to his elderly parents, St. Zechariah and St. Elizabeth. St. Zechariah was a priest of the class of Abijah (Lk 1:5), the eighth class of 24 priestly classes (Neh 12:17). Each class served one week in the temple, twice a year.

Josef Heinrich Friedlieb has established that the priestly class of Abijah would have been on duty during the second week of the Jewish month Tishri, the week of the Day of Atonement or in our calendar, between Sept. 22 and 30. While on duty, the Archangel Gabriel informed Zechariah that he and Elizabeth would have a son (Lk 1:5-24). Thereupon, they conceived John, who after presumably 40 weeks in the womb would have been born at the end of June. For this reason, we celebrate the Nativity of St. John the Baptist June 24.

St. Luke also recorded how the Archangel Gabriel told Mary that Elizabeth was six months pregnant with John (Lk 1:36), which means the Annunciation occurred March 25, as we celebrate. Nine months from March 25, or six months from June 24, renders the birth of Christ at Dec. 25, our Christmas.

Marty Barrack adds:

Shemaryahu Talmon, Professor Emeritus in the Bible Department at Hebrew University in Jerusalem and a top Scroll scholar, in 1958 published an in-depth study of the Temple’s rotating assignment of priests [1 Chr 24:7] and the Qumran scrolls to see the assignment during New Testament times. It shows definitively that Zachariah served as a Temple priest [Lk 1:8] in September. His wife, St. Elizabeth, conceived late in September, as the archangel Gabriel said, [Lk 1:24] and afterward remained in seclusion for five months. Church tradition is that her son John the Baptizer was conceived on September 23.

It's commonly believed (I have thought this myself) that Christians made the date of Christmas to correspond to Roman holidays, so as to wipe them out. Fr. Saunders observed:

The Romans did celebrate Saturnalia between Dec. 17 and 23, commemorating the winter solstice Dec. 23, but Christmas does not fit that time frame. What about the "Birthday of the Unconquered Sun" [Natalis Solis Invicti or Sol Invictus] Dec. 25?

He goes on to note that we have a record of celebrations of Christmas on Dec. 25, from Pope St. Telesphorus (c. 125-136), the seventh bishop of Rome, St. Theophilus (AD 115-181), bishop of Caesarea, St. Hippolytus (170-240), Pope Liberius (352-66), St. Gregory Nazianzus (d. 389), and St. Ambrose (d. 397). 

The Romans celebrated the winter solstice on Dec. 25 in the Julian calendar. At length, he concludes: "Christmas was celebrated Dec. 25 prior to any pagan celebration on the same date." The earliest date provided by historical evidence, for the Roman celebration of Sol Invictus is 274 (institution by the Roman emperor Aurelian). 

In his book, The Spirit of the Liturgy (Ignatius Press, revised edition, 2000), Pope Benedict XVI explains:

The claim used to be made that December 25 developed in opposition to the Mithras myth, or as a Christian response to the cult of the unconquered sun promoted by Roman emperors in the third century in their efforts to establish a new imperial religion. However, these old theories can no longer be sustained. (pp. 107-108)

(Read more.)

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Saint Robert Southwell's Nativity Poems

 From Stephanie Mann:

As readers of this blog know, I have posted often about Saint Robert Southwell, SJ; his life, his martyrdom, and his poetry. As the celebration of Christmas draws nearer, I'm reading some of his poems about the Nativity of Our Lord in this collection of poetry by the English Catholic martyrs of the Reformation era, from Saint Thomas More to Blessed Nicholas Postgate, with an appendix of the poetry of Catholics like Chidiock Tichborne (not a martyr but related to two Venerable martyrs, Father Thomas Tichborne and his brother Nicholas). The collection was first published in 1934, compiled by The Rev. Sir John R. O'Connell of Ireland (1868-December 28, 1943), who wrote the Preface with a Foreword by Francis Cardinal Bourne, the fourth Cardinal Archbishop of Westminster. This second edition was Expanded and Revised with an Introduction by Benedict J. Whalen. (Read more.)

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Registering Dead People to Vote

 It has been done. There is more and more evidence every day. From The Daily Wire:

A woman who worked for a Pennsylvania voting rights organization patterned after Georgia Democrat Stacey Abrams’ New Georgia Project has been charged with trying to register dead people to vote in the 2024 presidential election.

Jennifer Hill, 38, who had worked with the New Pennsylvania Project as a canvasser, tried to register 310 people to vote between April 2024 and September 2024. Delaware County District Attorney Jack Stollsteimer said 181 of the voters were successfully registered, NBC Philadelphia reported. Among those alleged 310 people were Hill’s deceased father and another person who had died in her home.

 “She knows that because she was the person who called the police to come when he died in her house,” Stollsteimer said. “She did register a fraudulent person and my understanding is this is sort of a gap in the system where by putting in no date of birth and no social security number, it goes through and became a verified voter registration. She did not take any further step. That fictitious person did not vote in the 2024 election. But that shows you how we still have gaps in our system that we need to have the legislature address.” (Read more.)

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New Stained-glass Windows at Notre Dame de Paris

 From The Catholic World Report:

The windows in six chapels on the southern side of the cathedral will be replaced with new windows designed by modern French painter Claire Tabouret. According to a report from RTE, the French state is paying $4 million to install the windows, which will be made by French stained-glass maker Simon-Marq.

The original windows, created in the 19th century by architect Eugène Viollet-le-Duc, had escaped the fire without damage. Several historic preservation groups have protested President Emmanuel Macron’s decision to replace them, including Sites et Monuments and Tribune de l’art, whose site manager launched a petition against the new windows that has garnered 244,833 signatures.

Born in France in 1981, Tabouret graduated from École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts in Paris in 2006. Her paintings and sculptures have been featured in museums across the globe in France, Hong Kong, and Venice. She has also collaborated with luxury designers such as Dior. Tabouret currently lives and works in Los Angeles, according to her website.

Tabouret’s turquoise, pink, yellow, and red windows feature images of people from various cultural backgrounds celebrating Pentecost.

In response to debates surrounding modernist updates to the historic Catholic cathedral, Tabouret stated during a press conference at the cathedral: “I’ve read about different opinions of people because I want to understand their arguments and also to take an approach that is open and two-way.” (Read more.)

From ArtNet:

The €4 million ($4.2 million) plan to replace the 19th-century glass, announced by Macron last December, immediately sparked controversy in the French capital. For, you see, the cathedral’s windows were miraculously spared by the devastating blaze. (In total, Notre-Dame contains close to 1,100 square feet of stained glass.)

Because the lead roof melted and collapsed, the stained glass became coated in toxic lead powder, requiring an extensive—and careful—cleaning and conservation of the delicate panes. Replacing any of the existing glass, however, actually proved unnecessary.

That means that swapping the historic windows for contemporary designs is potentially in violation of the 1964 Venice Charter, which provides guidelines for preserving historic buildings. It states that “items of sculpture, painting or decoration, which form an integral part of a monument, may only be removed if this is the sole means of ensuring their preservation,” and that “the valid contributions of all periods to the building of a monument must be respected.” (Read more.)

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The Lion in Winter (1968)

My life, when it is written, will read better than it lived. Henry Fitz-Empress, first Plantagenet, a king at twenty-one, the ablest soldier of an able time. He led men well, he cared for justice when he could and ruled, for thirty years, a state as great as Charlemagne's. He married out of love, a woman out of legend. Not in Alexandria, or Rome, or Camelot has there been such a queen....
~ The Lion in Winter (1968)

Eleanor of Aquitaine (1122-1204) is one of those historical personages about whom there are many wild stories. In Eleanor's case, most of the stories are probably true, although it is highly unlikely that she poisoned her husband's mistress, Fair Rosamund. Fair Rosamund was idealized at Eleanor's expense by later generations, especially the Victorians, for reasons surpassing comprehension. No doubt Rosamund was sweet and lovely, but Eleanor is immensely more interesting, or at least modern people have found her so.

Perhaps part of the contemporary fascination with Eleanor is that she is seen as being a feminist before her time. I doubt that Eleanor saw her actions in terms of being a liberated woman, asserting herself on behalf of the freedom and dignity of women everywhere. Eleanor's motives were usually part of a larger political maneuver which as a queen, a mother and a duchess she found necessary for retaining her power and influence. For a lady of rank, especially rank as exalted as Eleanor's, the loss of power and influence could mean imprisonment or death. Scheming was a matter of expediency; there is no question that she played the game well.

The film The Lion in Winter captures the spirit of the tempestuous relationship between Eleanor and her unfaithful husband, Henry II of England, and their perpetual attempts to outwit each other. Alison Weir's biography of Eleanor sifts through the legends and plumbs the truths. Eleanor left Henry after many years and many children, the murder of St. Thomas Becket being the last straw. She returned to France and became the catalyst for the development of the courts of love. Courtly love was not so much about sex as it was about music, Arthurian legend, chivalry, charming repartee, and showing respect for ladies.

Eleanor eventually found herself imprisoned by her husband for making war against him. He would let her rejoin the family at Christmas and Easter. Their daughters were accomplished and lovely; their sons were mostly wretches, and caused no end of trouble. Eleanor was a generous benefactress of the Church and the poor. She retired at last to the abbey of Fontevrault where she made religious vows before she died. A wonderful book for young readers about Queen Eleanor is E.L. Konigsburg's A Proud Taste for Scarlet and Miniver. 

Below is the scene of Queen Eleanor's arrival for the Christmas court at Chinon in France.

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