Category Archives: Church “seasons”

On Epiphany ’26, Plough Monday and Plough Pudding

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January 6 – the last of the 12 Days of Christmas – leads in time to “Plough Monday…”

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January 12, 2026 – The last post talked about Christmastide – also called the 12 days of Christmas – that begins on December 25 and ends on January 6 with the Feast of Epiphany. (Which also celebrates the visit of the Wise Men – the Magi – and their bringing gifts to the infant Jesus.) But January 6 also marks the start of the Season of Epiphany, which typically ends with Ash Wednesday and the start of Lent. (This year Ash Wednesday comes on February 18, and Lent ends on April 5, Easter Sunday.) But we’re getting ahead of ourselves.

Each year, January 6 is the traditional day to celebrate the Feast of the Epiphany.  (In this sense, an “annual religious celebration.”) See also the Satucket piece on Epiphany:

“Epiphany” is a word of Greek origin, related to such English words as “theophany,” “phenotype,” and “phenomenon.”  It means an appearance, a displaying, a showing forth, a making clear or public or obvious.  On this day, Christians have traditionally celebrated the making known of Jesus Christ to the world.

Note that “making Jesus known to the world.” In other words, the Epiphany celebrates the world getting “first introduced to Jesus.” And aside from this feast day, January 6 and others close to it – which sometimes overlap – have other names like Plough Monday, Three Kings Day (as in, “We Three Kings of Orient are”), and Twelfth Night. And now for some lesser-known details.

Plough Monday comes right after Plough Sunday, of which more below. And Plough Monday – following the first Sunday after January 6 – once marked the start of the agricultural work year in Merry Olde England. (References to it go back as far as the 15th century.) And as noted that first Sunday after the Epiphany is Plough Sunday, when a ploughshare was brought into the local Christian church, with prayers for blessing human labor, tools, and the land. However:

Plough Monday customs declined in the 19th century. The advent of mechanised farming meant that agricultural workers were less numerous and relatively better paid, and thus did not have to beg for money in the winter. Additionally, the rowdy and threatening behaviour of the plough gangs was increasingly controversial in this period, and there was pressure from authorities to stop, or moderate their excesses. (Emphasis added.)

All of which bears some explaining. For starters, the Church of England had a long church service on Plough Sunday, with prayers especially for a bountiful harvest in the season to come. The service included a prayer for the Blessing of the Plough: “By your [God’s] blessing, let this plough be a sign of all that you promise to us. Prosper the work of our hands, and provide abundant crops for your people to share.” It also helps to remember that back then life was generally “nasty, brutish and short.” Mostly living hand to mouth, meaning if the harvest was bad, people starved. Which helps explain the rowdy behavior authorities looked down on.

So Plough Sunday was a way to celebrate – and maybe boost – farming and farm workers. (“On whom” the community relied on to survive.) But since you couldn’t work on Sundays – back in the good old days – the new agricultural year didn’t really start until the next work day, Plough Monday. (When the farm-workers could start plowing again.)

The point of all this – Twelfth Night, Plough Sunday, Plough Monday, etc. – was to give those hard-working farm-workers one last big blast before getting back to work. (Resuming work after the long winter holiday season when little farming could be done.) And as such it was a good occasion for the general tomfoolery shown in the image at the top of the page. (Which included enough rowdy, boisterous behavior to get the celebrations banned in some places):

In some areas, particularly in northern England and East England, a plough was hauled from house to house in a procession, collecting money. They were often accompanied by musicians, an old woman or a boy dressed as an old woman, called the “Bessy,” and a man in the role of the “fool.”

And finally, people celebrated Plough Monday with Plough Pudding, shown below: A “boiled suet pudding, containing meat and onions. It is from Norfolk and is eaten on Plough Monday.” But again, the Epiphany “celebrates the revelation of God the Son as human in Jesus Christ:”

The observance [of Epiphany] was a general celebration of the manifestation of the Incarnation of Jesus Christ. It included the commemoration of his birth; the visit of the Magi[and] all of Jesus’ childhood events, up to and including his baptism in the Jordan by John the Baptist…

And the Epiphany starts the Epiphany Season, the four to nine weeks from January 6 through the Tuesday before Ash Wednesday. The season’s Gospel readings describe events manifesting the divinity of Jesus, including the coming of the Magi and Jesus’ baptism. The gospels for the other Sundays of the Epiphany season describe the wedding at Cana, the calling of the disciples, and various miracles and teachings of Jesus. The Last Sunday after the Epiphany is always devoted to the Transfiguration. Jesus’ identity as the Son of God is dramatically revealed.

And that’s the Reason for the [Epiphany] Season. In the meantime, enjoy the Plough Pudding.

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The upper image is courtesy of the December 28, 2015, post, “Here’s to Plough Monday!”

The Book of Common Prayer reference: The “corporate-mystical” prayer is on page 339, the post-communion prayer for Holy Eucharist, Rite I.

Feast days are designated days on the liturgical (church) calendar “set aside to commemorate events, saints, or doctrines that are important in the life of the Church. These can range from Solemnities, which are the highest-ranking feast days like Easter and Christmas, to optional memorials that celebrate lesser-known saints.” Feast Days: Celebrating the Church’s Calendar.

Re: Magi. From the original Greek μάγοι or ‘magoi,’ the term originally referred to the Iranian priestly caste of Zoroastrianism. “Within this tradition, priests paid particular attention to the stars and gained an international reputation for astrology, which was at that time highly regarded as a science. Their religious practices and astrological abilities caused derivatives of the term Magi to be applied to the occult in general and led to the English term magic.”

For this post I borrowed from posts including 2017’s To Epiphany – “and BEYOND,” Happy Epiphany – 2018, and “Happy Epiphany (season) – 2025!” For a more personal, maybe morbid note see Epiphany ’23, the end of Christmas and “farewell Mi Dulce.” The latter included links to both Infinite Frogs and the Infant [Jesus] of Prague – Wikipedia. And the quote, “as they say, ‘in teaching you will learn.'” And that through the lady in question, “I learned that there actually are websites for Infinite Frogs.”

Re: “Olde England.” See Merry England Explained: In one sense it “was not a myth. They really did used to dance around the maypole, feast all day and drink beer all night. And not only was it more merry, the merry-making was actually encouraged by the Church, particularly in the later medieval period.” But in another sense, it “may be treated both as a product of the sentimental nostalgic imagination and as an ideological or political construct, often underwriting various sorts of conservative world-views. Favourable perceptions of Merry England reveal a nostalgia for aspects of an earlier society that are missing in modern times.” The link goes into great detail.

The link Twelfth Night (holiday) – Wikipedia details some of the confusion around deciding which night was “twelfth,” as in January 5 or 6. It also noted that “Twelfth Night in the Netherlands became so secularised, rowdy, and boisterous that public celebrations were banned by the Church.”

Note: Although “reason for the season” is usually applied to Christmas, I’d say it applies to all seasons in the Liturgical year, “each with their own mood, theological emphases, and modes of prayer.” They all culminate in Easter Sunday, per Romans 10:9: “If you declare with your mouth, ‘Jesus is Lord,’ and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.” (Emphasis added.)

The lower image is courtesy of Norfolk Plough Pudding for Plough Monday – Lavender and Lovage.

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On 2025 and its “12 days of Christmas”

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“Twelfth Night (The King Drinks)” – One way to celebrate the end of Christmastide…

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December 31, 2025 – Ten years ago I wrote that I was driving up north “to face the icy arctic blasts of Yankee-land for Christmas.” Meaning before I left, I needed to post an ode to the 12 days of Christmas. (Which is both a “festive Christian season and title of a host of songs and spin-offs, including one on a Mustang GT,”) And lo and behold, this year I’m once again “enjoying” a festive Christmas season up here in the icy arctic blasts of Yankee-land.* (And frankly, after days of too-cold-to-hike I’m getting a bit of cabin fever.) But back to the festive Christmas season:

The Twelve Days of Christmas is the festive Christian season, beginning on Christmas Day (25 December), that celebrates the birth of Jesus Christ, as the Son of God. This period is also known as Christmastide… The Feast of the Epiphany is on 6 January [and] celebrates the visit of the Wise Men (Magi) and their bringing of gifts to the child Jesus. In some traditions, the feast of Epiphany and Twelfth Day overlap.

See Twelve days of Christmas, included within the article The Twelve Days of Christmas (song) – Wikipedia. The song is said to have begun as an English Christmas Carol – thought to be of French origin – first published in 1780. It’s a “cumulative song,” meaning each verse “is built on top of the previous verses.” Each verse describes a gift from “my true love” on one of the 12 days of Christmas. And as most people know – hearing them ad nauseum starting weeks before Thanksgiving – there are “many variations in the lyrics.” (Like the Redneck 12 Days version.)

One common theory is that the original lyrics were part of a “secret Catholic code:”

In 1979, a Canadian hymnologist, Hugh D. McKellar, published an article, “How to Decode the Twelve Days of Christmas”, claiming that [the] lyrics were intended as a catechism song to help young Catholics learn their faith… McKellar offered no evidence for his claim and subsequently admitted that the purported associations were his own invention. The idea was further popularized by a Catholic priest, Fr. Hal Stockert, in an article he wrote in 1982…  In 1987 and 1992, Fr. James Gilhooley, chaplain of Mount Saint Mary College of Newburgh, New York, repeated these claims. None of the enumerated items would distinguish Catholics from Protestants, and so would hardly need to be secretly encoded.

See Twelve Days (above), and also 12 Things You Might Not Know About “The Twelve Days”. The latter noted the story that “from the 16th to the 19th century, when being a Catholic was a crime in Protestant England,” Catholic children used the song to learn their faith.

And speaking of the 12 days of Christmas, the one celebrated tomorrow – January 1 – is called The Feast of the Holy Name of Jesus. But there’s another, more earthy name for it:

On January 1st, we celebrate the Circumcision of Christ. Since we are more squeamish than our ancestors [ – “easily shocked, offended, or disgusted by unpleasant things” – ], modern calendars often list it as the feast of the Holy Name of Jesus, but the other emphasis is the older. Every Jewish boy was circumcised (and formally named) on the eighth day of his life, and so, one week after Christmas, we celebrate the occasion when Our Lord first shed His blood for us. It is a fit close for a week of martyrs,* and reminds us that to suffer for Christ is to suffer with Him.

(See the Holy Name link, emphasis added.) Which is pretty much a theme for those 12 Days, many of which have such different names. For example, the last of the 12 days – by church reckoning, January 6 – is Epiphany the day, not the season. (Which “celebrates the revelation of God incarnate as Jesus Christ.”) It’s also known as the last of the Twelve Days of Christmas, but to confuse things a bit, the evening of January 5 is called Twelfth Night. (?) But there’s one more name for January 6: It’s also called Three Kings Day. (As in, “We Three Kings of Orient are.”)

A note: The Three Kings were originally called Three Magi, and in its original sense that meant “followers of Zoroastrianism or Zoroaster.” But starting about 1200 A.D., the term commonly referred to the “‘μάγοι’ [‘magoi‘] from the east who visit Jesus.” (As noted in Matthew 2, verses 1-12. And incidentally, these “Three Wise Men” were mentioned only in Matthew’s Gospel.) The idea that there were three seems to have arisen because they brought three gifts: Gold, frankincense, and myrrh. And while one view of the story indicates they arrived at the manger shortly after the birth of Jesus, the truth of the matter seems a bit harder to pin down.

The Bible specifies no interval between the birth and the visit [by the Magi, but] artistic depictions … encourage the popular assumption that the visit took place the same winter as the birth…  [L]ater traditions varied, with the visit [said to occur] up to two winters later. This maximum interval explained Herod’s command at Matthew 2:16–18 that the Massacre of the Innocents included boys up to two years old.

But now we’re ranging far afield, and the main thing to remember is: The season of Christmastide celebrates the birth of “something new under the sun.” It celebrates a new – non-conservative – way of thinking about God. It celebrates the birth of a new – and I think better – way to approach God. It celebrates the birth of a new way to get closer to God.

Which brings up the question, “What is this ‘Christmas Spirit’ anyway?” Last year I Googled the phrase and got 4,180,000 results. One answer: Christmas Spirit – Its Real Meaning | 7th Sense: It shows in three simple actions: Giving, Appreciating, and Doing service. Another answer came from the link, “What is Christmas Spirit?” – Scientific American Blog Network:

The code of generosity, kindness, and charity toward others is enforced by no one other than ourselves. There are places where this code is strong, and these places (or people) are said to have strong Christmas spirit… After all, we are the sum of the individuals around us who generate the collective force that governs and organizes our social structure… When we “act out” Christmas spirit, we’re making visible this collective force, and we give it power.

So, one message from all this Christmas spirit – in spite of all the obstacles life throws at us – could be that “A ‘time of pestilence’ can show there are more things to admire in people than to despise.” (A quote from Camus’ 1947 novel The Plague that seems appropriate these days.)

Which brings up this time last year, when Jimmy Carter died at the ripe old age of 100. In response to Jimmy’s death, Donald Trump – not known for sensitivity – called Carter “’a truly good man’ who will be missed.” He also ordered flags to fly at half-mast in Carter’s honor at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach. Who knows, in a 2026 Christmas miracle our president may find his way back to such a frame of mind, when he can honor “a truly good man who will be missed.”

Maybe with a bit of next-Christmas Magi?

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The Adoration of the Magi, by Bartolomé Esteban Murillo…

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The upper image is courtesy of The Twelve days of Christmas, with the full caption, “Twelfth Night (The King Drinks) by David Teniers c. 1634-1640.” 

The Book of Common Prayer reference: The “corporate-mystical” prayer is on page 339, the post-communion prayer for Holy Eucharist, Rite I.

Feast days are designated days on the liturgical (church) calendar “set aside to commemorate events, saints, or doctrines that are important in the life of the Church. These can range from Solemnities, which are the highest-ranking feast days like Easter and Christmas, to optional memorials that celebrate lesser-known saints.” Feast Days: Celebrating the Church’s Calendar.

Re: Yankee-land. On Sunday December 21, 2025, I left the sunny-south ATL and got to the Springfield (MA) Metropolitan Area two days later.

For this post I borrowed from 2015’s On the 12 Days of Christmas, 2016’s Epiphany, circumcision, and “3 wise guys,” The 12 days of Christmas, 2018-2019, The 12 DAYS of Christmas – 2021-22, and 12/31/24 – Ten years of “12 days of Christmas.”

Writing this I checked the link Cabin Fever: Definition, Symptoms, Causes, and Ways to Cope, on the “relatively common reaction to being isolated or confined for an extended period of time.” Among the ways to cope: Create a Routine, Normal Eating Patterns, Set Goals, Use Your Brain, and Exercise. Over the last week I’ve created a bit of a routine, but my eating patterns are way different. (No more “normal” breakfasts of organic egg whites mixed with kale, spinach, wheat germ, flax seed and a dash of olive oil, but when I get home, I’ll resume my “normal” Spartan kosher diet.) As for using my brain I’ve resumed doing my blog posts, along with crossword puzzles and book-reading; you know, with real books? And I manage a semblance of my normal high-intensity aerobics, though not as much outdoor hiking as I like.) On the other hand, the “cabin fever” is really a bit of hyperbole, so far anyway.

“Week of martyrs.” The Daily Office Readings – see the link below, What’s a DOR? – for the days following Christmas are generally the same each year. For December 26, St. Stephen; for December 27, St. John; for December 29, the Feast of the Holy Innocents. See e.g. The 8 Days of Christmas: Understanding the Christmas Octave.

Re: The Camus quote. See What we learn in time of pestilence – PMC.

The lower image is courtesy of Epiphany (holiday) – Wikipedia. The full caption: “Adoration of the Magi by Bartolomé Esteban Murillo, 17th century.”

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On the REAL St. Nick – 2025

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“Saint Nicholas” – the bearded guy in the middle – “saves three innocents from death…”

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December 20, 2025 – This time of year many parents wonder: Should [We tell our kids] the Truth About Santa? (As in, “When does a fun, fanciful tradition risk becoming harmful deception?” Or as in, “do parents risk harming their children when they pretend that he exists?”)

Fortunately, Christians have a good short answer: There really is – and was – a Saint Nicholas. (Actually, several foundational prototypes for today’s “Santa Claus,” a name that comes from Sint Klaas, the Dutch for Saint and also “from a hypocoristic form of Nicholas.”) Anyway, one of the first prototypes was Nicholas of Myra. He was a bona fide 4th-century saint and Bishop of Myra (part of today’s Turkey). People called him “Nikolaos the Wonderworker,” thanks to miracles attributed to his intercession. See also Saint Nicholas … Britannica:

Saint Nicholas, also called Nicholas of Bari or Nicholas of Myra [is] one of the most popular minor saints commemorated in the Eastern and Western churches and now traditionally associated with the festival of Christmas. In many countries children receive gifts on December 6, Saint Nicholas Day.

Which brings up the fact that officially his day came last December 6. Then there’s the question whether – as a saint – he is so “minor” these days. (Considering the money spent ostensibly in his honor.) Anyway again, old stories told of Nicholas of Myra’s love for God and neighbor, like providing dowries for three poor unmarried daughters. (He walked by the man’s house on three successive nights and each time threw a bag of gold in through a window, thus saving them from a life of prostitution.) Or of three children killed and “pickled” by a butcher – in a time of famine and cannibalism – who planned “to sell them off as ham.” But Nicholas both saw through the butcher’s horrific crime and resurrected the three children from the barrel.

And a side note: “Myra” is now the city of Demre, in Turkey, where it doesn’t get that cold in the winter. But when the story of this St. Nick got repeated in colder northern climes, they had to tweak it a bit. (No one “up there” would have their windows open in December.) Once the story got tweaked, St. Nick started delivering his gifts by coming in through the chimney. (On a related note, “In pre-Christian Norse tradition, Odin would often enter through chimneys and smoke holes or fire holes on the solstice, which marks the beginning of winter.”)

As to the image atop the page, here’s how the first St. Nick “saved three innocents:”

Nicholas was visiting a remote part of his diocese [when he heard of the three men. He set out and] found a large crowd of people and the three men kneeling … arms bound, awaiting the fatal blow. Nicholas passed through the crowd, took the sword from the executioner’s hands and threw it to the ground, then ordered that the condemned men be freed from their bonds. His authority was such that the executioner left his sword where it fell…

Then there’s the story of how “Santa Claus” was basically a gift to America from Holland. It seems Dutch colonists took the tradition of St. Nicholas with them to New Amsterdam (now New York City) in the American colonies in the 17th century. After that:

Sinterklaas was adopted by the country’s English-speaking majority under the name Santa Claus, and his legend of a kindly old man was united with old Nordic folktales of a magician who punished naughty children and rewarded good children with presents.

And so, back in 1897 – when Francis P. Church of The (New York) Sun responded to a letter to the editor – he was pretty much telling the truth when he wrote, “Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus.” (The letter responded-to was written by eight-year-old Virginia O’Hanlon.)

Of course, the whole idea of “Santa Claus” – and Christmas itself – has gotten glossed over and commercialized over the years. See How Christmas Became the Most Commercialized Holiday. Or as Lucy Brown (of Peanuts) once told Charlie Brown: “Let’s face it… We all know that Christmas is a big commercial racket. It’s run by a big eastern syndicate, you know.”

Simply put, Christmas became big business, and as such spawned a host of cottage industries: Books published, woodsmen “heading into the forests each December to cut evergreens to sell on street corners,” tinsel, toys, candleholders, candles, candies, garlands, ornaments, and hand-colored Christmas cards, to name a few. All of which is great for the economy, but Christmas is also a good time to go back to the original source. To go back to the jolly – and brave – original St. Nick, and of course, to remember Jesus, The Reason for the Season.

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The upper image is courtesy of Saint Nicholas – Wikipedia, with the caption:  “Saint Nicholas Saves Three Innocents from Death (oil painting by Ilya Repin, 1888, State Russian Museum).”   See also St. Nicholas Center … Saint Who Stopped an Execution.

The Book of Common Prayer reference: The “corporate-mystical” prayer is on page 339, the post-communion prayer for Holy Eucharist, Rite I.

Feast days are designated days on the liturgical (church) calendar “set aside to commemorate events, saints, or doctrines that are important in the life of the Church. These can range from Solemnities, which are the highest-ranking feast days like Easter and Christmas, to optional memorials that celebrate lesser-known saints.” Feast Days: Celebrating the Church’s Calendar.

For this post I borrowed from 2014’s On the original St. Nicholas, 2015’s On St. Nick and “Doubting Thomas,” 2016’s On the REAL “Jolly Ol’ Saint Nick,” 2017’s There really IS a “Saint Nick” (Virginia…), and On the real “Saint Nick” – 2023.

Hypocorism, usually used to refer to a pet name, means a name used to show affection for a person; “It may be a diminutive form of a person’s name, such as Izzy for Isabel or Bob for Robert.” Wikipedia.

The lower image is courtesy of Jesus Reason For The Season – Image Results.

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Advent ’25 – and “Buy your way into heaven?”

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Can you say, “Those Who Cannot Remember the Past Are Condemned to Repeat It?”

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December 6, 2025 – Sunday, November 30 was the First Sunday of Advent. It began a four-week church season calling us to look in four directions: “back to the past, forward to the future, upwards to heaven, and downwards to earth.” A time of anticipation, and not just for Christmas:

The first Sunday of Advent is the start of a new liturgical year, and yet there is a continuity with the end of the liturgical year just finished… One does not have to be a prophet of doom to recognize that this year [ – going back to 2020 – ] has been filled with terrible events… We need God to come and fix a broken world. The season of Advent is about [the] “devout and expectant delight” that God will do that.

Those comments – from 2020 – were perhaps a Foretaste of the Not-so-Heavenly Banquet to Come, considering the events of this past year of 2025. (Though perhaps a Closer-to-Heavenly Banquet is nearer than we could hope?) Which is being interpreted: The year 2020 certainly challenged us, and yet the year 2025 presented us with newer and more daunting challenges. (Not to mention the years coming up.) And yet – if we have that peace of God which passes all understanding – we can think that the coming year(s) offer us new opportunities as well.

More on that in a bit, but for now: Back to Advent, which actually starts with the Feast of St. Andrew. He’s the disciple who met Jesus first, then brought his brother (Saint) Peter along to meet Him too. As such he is called the “First Apostle,” and this year his feast day came last Sunday (which meant his feast day got transferred to the following Monday).

There’s more on him in the last post, but this one is about Advent, which as a church season has been around a long time. For example, starting about 300 A.D. Advent was “kept as a period of fasting as strict as in Lent.” But then around 1917 the Catholic Church “abolished the precept of fasting … but kept Advent as a season of penitence.” And it’s also a time of “joyful anticipation.”

Another thing to note is that for three of the four Sundays of Advent, the Old Testament readings – in many churches – will be from the prophet Isaiah, shown below:

Isaiah is the prophet who guides our journey through Advent as we prepare for Christmas. Advent is a season of joyful anticipation, and Isaiah invites us to look forward to the coming of the Messiah, to prepare the way of the Lord.

Beyond that, “Isaiah urges us to straighten out our crooked ways, tear down our mountains of misdeeds, and fill in the valleys of our bad habits.” Which brings up the part about “trying to buy your way into heaven.” It seems that Donald Trump has sparked new controversy with a fundraising email that frames small donations as part of his personal bid to reach Heaven. (Blending “religious language with political solicitation in a move the White House insists was sincere.”) The email, from late August and early September, opened with a line “‘I want to try and get to Heaven’ before asking supporters to contribute $15 (£11) to a 24-hour fundraising drive.”

And just to be sure, Snopes and other fact-checkers verified the authenticity of the message after screenshots spread across social media, confirming the campaign genuinely used salvation-themed language to solicit donations. And see for example, Trump Fundraising Email Claims Donations Will Help Him ‘Get to Heaven’ as Campaign Defends Spiritual Appeal.

Which prompted my thought, “It’s Like Déjà Vu All Over Again.”

But I wasn’t the only one wondering, “Where do I begin?” For one answer I found this: Priest shares whether Trump and his MAGA cronies can actually get into heaven. There Professor Michael Halcomb, a pastor, noted Trump’s saying – while speaking with reporters aboard Air Force One – “I don’t think there’s anything that’s going to get me into heaven. Okay? I think, I’m not, maybe, really heaven bound.” As happens frequently, Trump said he was joking, but he did take the step of soliciting help, in the form of monetary donations.

Which brings us back to Professor Halcomb, who explained, “Could Donald Trump enter God’s Kingdom? Could Kristi Noem or Mike Johnson? The biblical answer is yes, but only in the same way anyone else can, only in the same way that you and I can.” He then elaborated, “Sin, in this framework, is not just bad behavior. It is a form of high treason against the rightful King, namely, Jesus. This means forgiveness is not just about feeling sorry. It is about renouncing rebellion against the King and swearing loyalty to him, that is, to Jesus.” (Hmmm.)

For other answers you could Google “can you buy your way into heaven?” I did that and found Acts 8:20 (NIV), where Peter answered Simon the Sorcerer: “May your money perish with you, because you thought you could buy the gift of God with money!” But for me the strange thing is that for months now I’ve been praying for Trump’s immortal soul. (Trying to do my Christian duty under Ezekiel 33:7-9, mostly because I think it and he are in great danger. In the alternative I’ve been praying that God will bring him to a Damascus Road Experience, like Paul’s.)

So maybe it’s a good sign that our current president is at least now thinking about maybe he needs to change his ways a tad? (And I thought my prayers weren’t making any difference. And as I’ve discovered in old age, “God answers prayer but often not the way we expect.”) Then there’s one other factor: he may not have that much time left. (Estimates vary from three to five months – with the three months up next March 2 – to “he won’t serve out his full second term.”) Meaning those of us trying to do our Christian duty under Ezekiel 33:7-9 should get busy.

In the meantime, and for whatever reason, “Happy Advent, full of joyful anticipation!”

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The prophet Isaiah, featured in this season’s Advent O.T. readings…

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The upper image is courtesy of Martin Luther 95 Theses – Image Results. It was included in a page, The Good News Today – 95 Theses to the Modern Evangelical Church. (Review the editorials contained with it yourself to see if they display a bit of irony.) See also Explainer: What are indulgences? – Catholic Review, Selling Forgiveness: How Money Sparked the Protestant Reformation, and How Did Indulgences Inspire the Protestant Reformation? The latter said that in the eyes of the Church at the time, the financial cost of an indulgence would discourage people from further sin.

However, over time, monetary purchases of indulgence became the sole method of penance. These purchases became viewed as the penitential act itself, for which one would receive penance and absolution. In essence, the sacrament of penance dissolved into solely purchasing indulgences, thus eliminating any elements of real repentance, as people knew they could do whatever they pleased and just pay to receive a pardon from the Catholic Church.

(Emphasis added.) As for the quote in the caption, see Quote Origin: Those Who Cannot Remember the Past, on the question whether it can be attributed to “American philosopher George Santayana, Anglo-Irish philosopher Edmund Burke, and British statesman Winston Churchill.” Or see George Santayana – Wikiquote.

The Book of Common Prayer reference: The “corporate-mystical” prayer is on page 339, the post-communion prayer for Holy Eucharist, Rite I.

Feast days are designated days on the liturgical (church) calendar “set aside to commemorate events, saints, or doctrines that are important in the life of the Church. These can range from Solemnities, which are the highest-ranking feast days like Easter and Christmas, to optional memorials that celebrate lesser-known saints.” Feast Days: Celebrating the Church’s Calendar.

For this post I also borrowed from Advent 2023 – “Happy New (Liturgical) Year,” and On Advent ’24 – and “Woe unto you Israel?” For a sidelight see also Advent ’22, Tradents, and “Scriptio continua,”

Re: Heavenly banquet. See The Lord’s Supper: A Foretaste of the Heavenly Banquet, A Foretaste Of The Feast To Come Revelation 21:1-6, and Revelation 21:1-6 (NIV).

The original quote had Trump saying he might not be “heaven-bound,” with a hyphen between the two words, but spell-check on my new laptop had a fit with that so I corrected it.

See The Unexpected Answers of God – Desiring God.

On Trump’s time left see such sites as Healthcare Specialist Claims Donald Trump Has Dementia and – from June 2025 – Trump health concerns: Trump won’t last in office for four years, according to Republican strategist Rick Wilson and as reported by The Economic Times, which probably doesn’t count as a “pointy-headed liberal rag,” as some on the far-right may say. (The site Economic Times – Bias and Reliability said its policy leanings were “Center.”)

The lower image is courtesy of Isaiah – Wikipedia, with the full caption, “Isaiah, by Michelangelo, (c. 1508–1512, Sistine Chapel ceiling, Vatican City).” See also, on “the prophet who guides our journey”: Isaiah: Old Testament prophet for the Advent season.

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St. Andrew – and the start of Advent 2025

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Caravaggio: The calling of Sts Peter and Andrew
“The Calling of Saints Peter and Andrew” – the two brothers – by Caravaggio…

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November 27, 2025 – This year Thanksgiving fell on Thursday, November 27th. Three days later comes the First Sunday of Advent and the feast of St Andrew. (Both on November 30, but officially “Andy’s Day” got transferred to Monday, December 1st, as detailed in the Notes.)

The First Sunday of Advent and St. Andrew’s Day also fell on the same Sunday back in November 2014. My post back then said Andrew was one of Jesus’ closest disciples, but few know much about him. So: He was St. Peter’s brother and is regularly mentioned after him, which suggests he was the younger brother. And like Peter and his partners James and John, Andrew was a fisherman on the Sea of Galilee. (One note: The name Andrew is Greek, which may reflect a “mixed Jewish-Gentile environment” in Galilee in the time of Jesus.)

He was one of four disciples closest to Jesus but seems to have been the least close of the four. That’s ironic because Andrew found Jesus before Peter. (He was an early disciple of John the Baptist who saw Jesus at the beginning of John’s Gospel: “From the Fourth Gospel we know [that] Andrew had previously been a disciple of John the Baptist: and this shows us that he was a man who was searching, who shared in Israel’s hope, who wanted to know better the word of the Lord, the presence of the Lord.”) And because he was first to find Jesus he is called the Protoclete or ‘First Called’ apostle.” On that note see John 1:35-42:

The next day John [the Baptist] was … with two of his disciples, when he saw Jesus walking by. “There is the Lamb of God!” he said. The two disciples heard him say this and went with Jesus. Jesus turned, saw them following him, and asked, “What are you looking for?” They answered, “Where do you live, Rabbi?” (This word means “Teacher.”) “Come and see,” he answered. (It was then about four o’clock in the afternoon.) So they went with him and saw where he lived, and spent the rest of that day with him. One of them was Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother. At once he found his brother Simon and told him, “We have found the Messiah.” (This word means “Christ.”) Then he took Simon to Jesus. 

So, you might say Andrew was sine qua non; “Without which there is none.” Then there’s his death: Early tradition told of his death at Patras, in Greece, where he too was crucified.   

At that supreme moment, however, like his brother Peter, he asked to be nailed to a cross different from the Cross of Jesus. In his case it was a diagonal or X-shaped cross, which has thus come to be known as “St Andrew’s cross.”

That x-shaped cross – called a Saltire – is a “heraldic symbol in the form of a diagonal cross, like the shape of the letter X in Roman type. Saint Andrew is said to have been martyred on such a cross.” See Saltire – Wikipedia, which added the Saltire is featured in national flags of Scotland and other countries. (Andrew is also the patron of Scotland, and of fishermen.)

The notes have more detail on him, but now a word or two about Advent. (I’ll write more about it in the coming weeks, in part because the next feast day doesn’t come until December 22 and St Thomas, Apostle; officially it’s the 21st but it too got transferred to the following Monday.)

For starters, Advent Sunday (the First Sunday of Advent) is the first day of the liturgical year in Western Christian churches. It marks the start of the season of Advent. The symbolism of the day is that Christ enters the church. Advent Sunday is also the fourth Sunday before Christmas Day, and the Sunday nearest St. Andrew’s Day, 30 November. (And the Sunday following the Feast of Christ the King.) Another thing to remember is that for those four Sundays of Advent, the Old Testament readings will be from the prophet Isaiah:

Isaiah is the prophet who guides our journey through Advent as we prepare for Christmas. Advent is a season of joyful anticipation, and Isaiah invites us to look forward to the coming of the Messiah, to prepare the way of the Lord.

The theme of the season is getting ready for the Second Coming of Jesus and the Last Judgement, as reflected in the Sunday readings. The season’s liturgical color is violet (since the 13th century or so). Yet another tradition is the Advent Wreath, with three blue candles, one rose candle and a central “Christ Candle.” The candles are said to symbolize the stages of salvation before the Second Coming of Jesus, exemplified by 1) the forgiveness of Adam and Eve, 2) the faith of Abraham, 3) the joy of David and his lineage (leading to Jesus), and 4) the teaching of the prophets who announce a reign of justice and peace. (Let’s hope…)

So here’s wishing you a happy Advent – after you finish all those Thanksgiving leftovers…

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The upper image is courtesy of Caravaggio: The calling of Sts Peter and Andrew – Art, which added:

A beardless Jesus gestures Peter (who was still called Simon at the time) and his brother Andrew to follow him: “Come ye after me, and I will make you to become fishers of men.” According to the gospel Peter and Andrew were out fishing on the lake when they were called. Caravaggio gives his own interpretation. Because of his prominence, the man on the left is thought to be Peter. It is only since 2006 that this painting is attributed to Caravaggio…

On the painting see also The Calling of Saints Peter and Andrew – Wikipedia.

The Book of Common Prayer reference: The “corporate-mystical” prayer is on page 339, the post-communion prayer for Holy Eucharist, Rite I.

Feast days are designated days on the liturgical (church) calendar “set aside to commemorate events, saints, or doctrines that are important in the life of the Church. These can range from Solemnities, which are the highest-ranking feast days like Easter and Christmas, to optional memorials that celebrate lesser-known saints.” Feast Days: Celebrating the Church’s Calendar.

On St. Andrew’s Day transferred to the following Monday, see Precedence, Rules of – The Episcopal Church: “Sunday takes precedence over all other feasts and observances of the church year. When a feast of our Lord or other major feast appointed cannot be observed because it occurs on a Sunday, the feast is normally transferred to the first convenient open day in the following week.”

For this post I borrowed from 2014’s St. Andrew, the “First Apostle,” 2016’s On Andrew – “First Apostle” – and Advent, On Advent 2022 – and St. Andrew, and On Advent 2023 – “Happy New (Liturgical) Year!”

The lower image is courtesy of Wikipedia on Advent. The full caption: “An Advent wreath with three blue candles and one rose candle surrounding the central Christ Candle.” The symbolism in full:

The candles symbolize, in one interpretation, the great stages of salvation before the coming of the Messiah; the first is the symbol of the forgiveness granted to Adam and Eve, the second is the symbol of the faith of Abraham and of the patriarchs who believe in the gift of the Promised Land, the third is the symbol of the joy of David whose lineage does not stop and also testifies to his covenant with God, and the fourth and last candle is the symbol of the teaching of the prophets who announce a reign of justice and peace. Alternatively, they symbolize the four stages of human history; creation, the Incarnation, the redemption of sins, and the Last Judgment.

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“Happy Epiphany (season) – 2025!”

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“Triumph of the Innocents,” emphasizing the link between suffering, salvation, and hope,..

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Last year I posted on December 17, 2023, but then not again until January 6, 2024. This year I last posted on December 31, ’24, and it’s now January 12, 2025, so I’m getting a bit better. (A 12-day lapse instead of 20.) I also had better luck this past December, driving up to Massachusetts and back, for a family Christmas up there and then one down here in the ATL.

Back in December ’23, driving home, I caught some kind of nasty bug in Wilkes-Barre PA, which led to a “sore throat of Biblical proportions.” Which became a long period of recuperation when I could hardly swallow. (Helped in large part by “generic NyQuil, DayQuil, and lots of new-discovered Vicks VapoCOOL Severe cough drops.” By the way – I wrote – “Those things work great!“) But before getting back to Epiphany ’25, a word about the lead painting above.

The painting recalls the Massacre of the Innocents, from the Feast Day back on December 28, the fourth of the 12 Days of Christmas. I’ll have more on that in a few, but it reminds us that with Jesus, our times of suffering lead to the ultimate hope of redemption. (Not that there’s any connection to current events or anything.) And speaking of 12 days of Christmas, the Feast of Epiphany – celebrated each January 6 – officially ends that shortest of church seasons:

The Twelve Days of Christmas is the festive Christian season beginning on Christmas Day … that celebrates the birth of Jesus Christ, as the Son of God. This period is also known as Christmastide… The Feast of the Epiphany is on 6 January [and] celebrates the visit of the Wise Men (Magi) and their bringing of gifts to the child Jesus. In some traditions, the feast of Epiphany and Twelfth Day [or “Twelfth Night”] overlap.

Which covers a lot of ground and leads to another tidbit: Aside from being The Epiphany, January 6 and some days close to it – sometimes they overlap – include Plough Monday, Three Kings Day (as in, “We Three Kings of Orient are”), and – as noted – Twelfth Night. To review, the Epiphany “celebrates the revelation of God the Son as human in Jesus Christ:”

The observance [of Epiphany] was a general celebration of the manifestation of the Incarnation of Jesus Christ. It included the commemoration of his birth; the visit of the Magi[and] all of Jesus’ childhood events, up to and including his baptism in the Jordan by John the Baptist…

One of those “childhood events” in the life of Jesus was His having to get circumcised. (A subject “good Christians” don’t like to talk about much.) That event is celebrated each January 1, as the eighth day after Jesus was born. (Assuming that happened on Christmas Eve.)

On January 1st, we celebrate the Circumcision of Christ. Since we are more squeamish than our ancestors, modern calendars often list it as the feast of the Holy Name of Jesus, but the other emphasis is the older. Every Jewish boy was circumcised (and formally named) on the eighth day of his life, and so, one week after Christmas, we celebrate the occasion when Our Lord first shed His blood for us. It is a fit close for a week of martyrs, and reminds us that to suffer for Christ is to suffer with Him. (E.A.)

So much for reviewing some of the 12 Days of Christmas, but one more thing: January 6 also starts the Season of Epiphany, which runs from the day of Epiphany to Ash Wednesday. (In 2025 it comes on March 5, almost a month later than 2024’s February 14, Valentine’s Day, which I found highly ironic if not incongruous.) And Ash Wednesday starts the season of Lent.

Put another way, Epiphanytide runs from January 6 to the Tuesday just before Ash Wednesday, what we call Mardi Gras. (Which in turn means this year Easter comes on April 20.) But, do you see a pattern here? Mardi Gras, Lent and then Easter? These alternating times reflect how life moves in cycles, as shown in both secular politics and the Spiritual Calendar of the Church. And we too tend to alternate between times of spiritual challenge – when our faith is sorely tested – followed by a celebration of the spiritual growth we just experienced.

Or put it this way: “To everything there is a season, and a time for every purpose under heaven.” A time to be born and a time to die. A time to tear down and a time to build up. A time to weep and a time to laugh. A time to keep and a time to throw away. Which means if you are weeping now – metaphorically or otherwise – you can be sure that after any coming times of challenge, there will be a celebration in your future. (Even if it takes four years.) In the meantime:

Here’s hoping for a happy and prosperous “Epiphany 2025…“

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“To everything there is a season” – so let’s look ahead to a time of celebration…

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The upper image is courtesy of the Wikipedia article, “Massacre of the Innocents,” remembered on December 28, “the fourth day of Christmastide.” Caption: “Triumph of the Innocents by William Holman Hunt.” See also The triumph of the Innocents by William Holman Hunt:

Hunt paints a detailed scene where the Holy Family travels in the dead of night, accompanied by the spirits of the innocent children slain by Herod… Hunt delves into the spiritual significance of this journey, highlighting Mary’s compassion for the innocents and the divine mercy bestowed upon them. Through rich imagery and deep symbolism, the narrative emphasizes the connection between suffering, salvation, and hope, ultimately portraying the triumph of innocence amidst grief. 

The Book of Common Prayer reference: The “corporate-mystical” prayer is on page 339, the post-communion prayer for Holy Eucharist, Rite I.

“Feast days” are designated days on the liturgical (church) calendar “set aside to commemorate events, saints, or doctrines that are important in the life of the Church. These can range from Solemnities, which are the highest-ranking feast days like Easter and Christmas, to optional memorials that celebrate lesser-known saints.” Feast Days: Celebrating the Church’s Calendar.

For this post I borrowed from 2017’s To Epiphany – “and BEYOND,” On the Epiphany SEASON – 2022, and “Happy Epiphany, 2024!” (Not to mention Epiphany, circumcision, and “3 wise guys,” from January 2016.) A side note: Last year I noted that 2024 was “a Leap Year, meaning we get an extra day, on Thursday, February 29,” and that there was “an election coming up in November, which ‘may determine the future of the Free World.’” But of course, all that’s behind us now…

Re: The 12 Days of Christmas as the shortest church season. See Liturgical year – Wikipedia, from which you could argue that the Easter Triduum – Good Friday, Holy Saturday, and Easter Sunday – is the shortest, but I’d say those three days are all part of Lent. (I suppose it depends on how you “define your terms,” a quote attributed to Voltaire and Socrates.)

As to the “to everything” notes, see Ecclesiastes 3 (NIV), and also Turn! Turn! Turn! – Wikipedia.

On a related subject see also Topical Bible: Growth Through Trials:

The concept of growth through trials is a recurring theme throughout the Bible, illustrating how adversity and challenges can lead to spiritual maturity and a deeper relationship with God… Trials serve to purify and strengthen faith, ultimately bringing glory to God.

Citing 1 Peter 1:6-7, and also Romans 5:3-5 and James 1:2-4.

The lower image is courtesy of Mardi Gras – Wikipedia. Captioned: “Mardi Gras Day, New Orleans: Krewe of Kosmic Debris revelers on Frenchmen Street.” (I used it in last year’s post…)

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12/31/24 – Ten years of “12 days of Christmas…”

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“Twelfth Night (The King Drinks)” – One way to celebrate the end of Christmastide…

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12/31/24 – It’s been 18 days since I last posted, in December 13’s Advent ’24 – and “Woe unto you Israel?” In the time since, I’ve taken a 10-day, 2,000 mile road trip up to West Springfield Massachusetts (and back), taken six hours of train rides (one long Sunday, 12/15) down to New York City and back, seen the play Chicago at the Ambassador Theater just off Broadway, and gone through a process of preparing for and going through two family Christmases, one on the day itself and one three days later for the whole extended family. (Including out-of-towners.)

So yeah, I’ve been busy…

But not to despair, we are still within the “12 days of Christmas,” both a festive Christian season and title of a host of songs and spin-offs (including one on a Mustang GT):

The Twelve Days of Christmas is the festive Christian season, beginning on Christmas Day (25 December), that celebrates the birth of Jesus Christ, as the Son of God. This period is also known as Christmastide…  The Feast of the Epiphany is on 6 January [and] celebrates the visit of the Wise Men (Magi) and their bringing of gifts to the child Jesus. In some traditions, the feast of Epiphany and Twelfth Day overlap.

But also mixed up in this slew of Christmas-season celebration-days we find the urge to ponder the past year (2024), and Christmastide-times of years before, and maybe – with enough time and energy – some thoughts about what kind of 2025-year we may be heading into.

For starters we could look back at The 12 Days of Christmas, from January 4, 2015. (And yes that was 10 years ago; I counted on my fingers.) That post noted that aside from a church season, the “12 days” were also featured in an English Christmas Carol – thought to be of French origin – first published in 1780. (A “cumulative song,” meaning each verse “is built on top of the previous verses.”) One common theory said the original lyrics were part of a “secret Catholic code,” going back to a time – from the 16th to the 19th century – “when being a Catholic was a crime in Protestant England.” (As a sneaky way for Catholic children to learn their faith.) 

But enough of way-long-ago history. (Aside from the fact that Catholics survived “even to this day,” despite being persecuted for their faith by the powers that be.) From that 2015 post we could fast forward to 2020 – A Christmas[tide] like no other? Four years ago at this time of year we were just at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic; the first case in China happened in mid-November 2019 and the first confirmed U.S. case came on January 19, 2020. But as to that “like no other” question, the short answer is, “No, we actually had a similar near-Christmastide-time of disaster, back in 1918. when the Spanish flu pandemic started in February that year and lasted until April, 1920.” (Two years and two months? And in another “deja vu all over again,” the culprit was the H1N1 flu virus, which also caused the 2009 swine flu pandemic.)

Then we could move on to Welcome to Christmas, 2021, which led off with the image at left, “Stink, stank, stunk!” (A year that started off with the January 6 Capitol attack and ended – as of December 5 – with COVID and its variants having claimed the lives of some 803,045 Americans.) Perhaps not surprisingly, I included a note on why it seems that so many bad things happen to so many good people? Which could include at least one silver lining:

There is much we can do to alleviate each other’s suffering when adversity strikes. Our support and empathy toward our fellow human beings in their time of need helps them not only materially but demonstrates to them that they matter… When we act kindly, it also gives meaning to our own life, as we see that we matter to others.

Which I thought was pretty much what Christians are supposed to do anyway. (Show empathy, and try to alleviate the suffering of others. And which was pretty much the point of my post, Another view of Jesus feeding the 5,000.) That rather than waiting on God to perform miracles, we should get to work on problems ourselves. Which brings up the “Christmas spirit.”

The fact that we’ve survived these past catastrophes had to do with Christmas spirit. (Plus the fact that Americans are so ornery; we hate being told what to do.) Anyway, I Googled the phrase “what is Christmas spirit” and got 4,180,000 results. One answer: Christmas Spirit – Its Real Meaning | 7th Sense: That spirit shows in three simple actions: Giving, Appreciating, and Doing service. Another answer: What is Christmas Spirit? – Scientific American Blog Network:

The code of generosity, kindness, and charity toward others is enforced by no one other than ourselves. There are places where this code is strong, and these places (or people) are said to have strong Christmas spirit… After all, we are the sum of the individuals around us who generate the collective force that governs and organizes our social structure… When we “act out” Christmas spirit, we’re making visible this collective force, and we give it power.

So one message from all this Christmas spirit – in spite of all the obstacles life throws at us – could be that “A ‘time of pestilence’ can show there are more things to admire in people than to despise.” (Not that that has anything to do with the coming year, or two, or four…)

Speaking of which, Jimmy Carter just died – at the ripe old age of 100 – and his passing led to some “temporary moments of rapprochement” amid the barrage of “insults and smack talk” so much a part of politics lately. Even Donald Trump – not known for sensitivity to political opponents – was led to call Carter “’a truly good man’ who will be missed,” and to have flags flying at half-mast – in Carter’s honor – at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach.

Which could be a good start. “Way to go Jimmy!” Now maybe we’re ready for 2025?

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The upper image is courtesy of The Twelve days of Christmas, with the full caption, “Twelfth Night (The King Drinks) by David Teniers c. 1634-1640.” I borrowed from the 2015 post, On the 12 Days of Christmas. Although it was posted on January 4, 2015, I noted that I’d “left town at 5:00 on the afternoon of Sunday December 21, thinking that he had already published this post on the “12 Days of Christmas.” But somewhere along the line [I] dropped the ball – metaphorically or otherwise – and here it is, Sunday, January 4th.” Meaning I meant to post it before leaving town, “to face the icy arctic blasts of Yankee-land for Christmas;” i.e., Massachusetts. The post includes a link – “for the sake of completeness” – to Jeff Foxworthy – Redneck 12 Days Of Christmas Lyrics, and/or 12 Redneck Days of Christmas by Jeff Foxworthy – YouTube.

The Book of Common Prayer reference: The “corporate-mystical” prayer is on page 339, the post-communion prayer for Holy Eucharist, Rite I.

“Feast days” are designated days on the liturgical (church) calendar “set aside to commemorate events, saints, or doctrines that are important in the life of the Church. These can range from Solemnities, which are the highest-ranking feast days like Easter and Christmas, to optional memorials that celebrate lesser-known saints.” Feast Days: Celebrating the Church’s Calendar.

For this post I borrowed from the 2015 post, On the 12 Days of Christmas, then later The 12 days of Christmas, 2018-2019, and 2020 – A Christmas like no other? That was a Christmas like no other – except maybe this one – but then came Welcome to Christmas, 2021 and The 12 DAYS of Christmas – 2021-22. (And finally – looking ahead – Epiphany ’23, the end of Christmas and “farewell Mi Dulce.”)

The full “COVID” link, Timeline of the COVID-19 pandemic – Wikipedia.

The lower image is courtesy of Jimmy Carter set the standard for the modern post-presidency. See also, From ‘worst president’ to ‘highest respect’: Trump softens opinion of Jimmy Carter in death, noting in part, “Trump offered a far less charitable view of Carter when he was alive.” Also:

Amid the barrage of insults and smack talk were temporary moments of rapprochement between the 39th and the 45th presidents… During Trump’s first term, Carter occasionally came to his defense… Carter not only attended Trump’s first inauguration, he was the first former president to RSVP. Later that year, in 2017, Carter suggested the media had been harder on Trump than any other president. Trump responded by tweeting a message of thanks to Carter for “the nice remarks.”

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On Advent ’24 – and “Woe unto you Israel?”

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Advent 2024 – a time to prepare for a challenging year to come – or maybe two, or four…

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This time last year I posted The First Sunday of Advent. (Last year December 3, this year, December 1) And about how that First Sunday starts both a new church year and a four-week church season that calls us to look four different directions: “back to the past, forward to the future, upwards to heaven, and downwards to earth.” I added that it’s a time of anticipation, and not just for Christmas. Then I hearkened back to a blog post on Advent in 2020:

The first Sunday of Advent is the start of a new liturgical year, and yet there is a continuity with the end of the liturgical year just finished… One does not have to be a prophet of doom to recognize that this year [2020] has been filled with terrible events… We need God to come and fix a broken world. The season of Advent is about [the] “devout and expectant delight” that God will do that. [Fix a broken world that is…]

Those comments – from a post back in 2020 – showed the blogger was right. 2020 was filled with bad events that presented a host of problems, old and new. They included a just-new COVID epidemic and an Election That Seemed Like It Would Never End. And this time last year I said that 2023 would also present even more daunting problems, but then again – as the Bible says – “man is born to trouble as as sparks fly upward.” And it looks as if – in 2025, the new year starting after this Advent 2024 – the trouble and the sparks promise to continue.

On the plus side, the troubling uncertainty that marked the last year or two is over. In the election just past the Sovereign People made their choice. Which means – by all accounts – that we are about to embark on a new adventure in which the limits of American democracy will be tested. Which makes this a good time for a parable of sorts. That is, a short simple story that teaches or explains an idea, “especially a moral or religious idea.”

This parable takes us back to the Children of Israel wandering in the wilderness. It’s also about how they came up with an early version of “Golden Age Fallacy.” For starters, they were slaves in Egypt for 400 years, and that form of slavery was both “evil in motive and cruel in nature:”

Work may be physically and mentally taxing, but that does not make it wrong. What made the situation in Egypt unbearable was not only the slavery but also its extreme harshness. The Egyptian masters worked the Israelites “ruthlessly” (befarekh, Exod. 1:13, 14) and made their lives “bitter” (marar, Exod. 1:14) with “hard” (qasheh , in the sense of “cruel,” Exod. 1:14; 6:9) service. As a result, Israel languished in “misery” and “suffering” (Exod. 3:7) and a “broken spirit” (Exod. 6:9). Work, one of the chief purposes and joys of human existence (Gen. 1:27-31; 2:15), was turned into a misery by the harshness of oppression.

But later on they changed their view of that harsh misery and oppression. Simply put, they reinvented history because they couldn’t handle the problems that come with freedom.

Simple solution? Blame somebody. As in Exodus 16:3, where they blamed Moses for the fact that they couldn’t handle their new-found freedom. (It turned out harder to handle than expected.) “If only we had died by the LORD’s hand in Egypt! There we sat around pots of meat and ate all the food we wanted, but you have brought us out into this desert to starve this entire assembly to death.” Another example? Numbers 11:5, “We remember the fish we ate freely in Egypt, along with the cucumbers, melons, leeks, onions, and garlic.” And also Numbers 16:13, “Is it not enough that you have brought us up out of a land flowing with milk and honey to kill us in the wilderness? Must you also appoint yourself as ruler over us?”

But they didn’t sit around pots of meat and eat all they wanted. What happened? Those ancient Hebrews may have been the first – in recorded history anyway – to fall victim to the Golden Age Fallacy. Feeling nostalgic about a past that never was. The problem? “Nostalgia is denial – denial of the painful present.” And who falls prey to such fallacies? People who “find it difficult to cope with the present.” (See also Political Lies: Altering Facts and Rewriting History.)

And again, who did the Children of Israel blame for their problems? Moses, the agent of God who delivered them out of slavery. And just to reiterate: They did not sit around pots of meat and eat all they wanted back in Egypt. There were no great quantities of fish, cucumbers, melons, leeks, onions, and other goodies. They were slaves, and they were given slave rations; just enough to keep them functioning, barely. As such they initially reveled in being set free, but then found out they couldn’t handle it. Being “free” was harder than they thought.

I also wrote in a past post that “a free people doesn’t go back in time, and especially not to a ‘better time that never was.’” Except that in the election just past, the Sovereign People seem to have done just that. So what happens now? In the case of those Children of Israel reinventing history – wanting to back to a time that never was – their journey to the Promised Land from Egypt should have taken no more than 11 days. Instead it took 40 years, 40 years of mostly wandering around in circles, and not just metaphorically.

Oh yeah, there was also that moment, “Woe unto you, Israel! You have sinned a great sin.” I just hope we don’t have to spend 40 years wandering out of this Wilderness we’re entering.

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“Moses doesn’t like this.  Moses doesn’t like this one bit…*“

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The upper image is courtesy of Advent 2024 – Image Results.

The Book of Common Prayer reference: The “corporate-mystical” prayer is on page 339, the post-communion prayer for Holy Eucharist, Rite I.

“Feast days” are designated days on the liturgical (church) calendar “set aside to commemorate events, saints, or doctrines that are important in the life of the Church. These can range from Solemnities, which are the highest-ranking feast days like Easter and Christmas, to optional memorials that celebrate lesser-known saints.” Feast Days: Celebrating the Church’s Calendar.

Past-post sources on ancient Hebrew whining in the wilderness include On Moses getting stoned, January 2016, and July 4, 2024 – and a “What would have happened?” See also, from March 2017, On Moses and Paul “dumbing it down.”

Past-post sources on Advent include December 2020, Advent, and a “new beginning,” Advent 2021 – “Enjoy yourself,” On Advent ’22, Tradents, and “Scriptio continua,” On Advent 2022 – and St. Andrew, and On Advent 2023 – “Happy New (Liturgical) Year!”

The “evil in motive and cruel in nature” quote is courtesy of The Harshness of the Israelites’ Slave Labor in Egypt. See also The Golden Age Fallacy – Beyond the Rhetoric.

The Sovereign People reference. See Constitution101: The Sovereignty of the People:

The federal government acts like it stands as sovereign in the American system, but that was never intended by those who created it. In fact, the federal government was never meant to serve as anything more than an agent, exercising the specific powers delegated by the true sovereign – the people… While many Americans assume the federal government sits at the top of the power pyramid, it actually belongs on the bottom.

Something to keep in mind over the next four years…

On why the 40 years for an 11-day journey, see Why did Israel spend 40 years in the wilderness? – BibleAsk and Why was Israel cursed with forty years of wilderness wandering?

I borrowed the lower image from the March 2016 post, On Eastertide – and “artistic license.”See also The Ten Commandments (1956 film) – Wikipedia. I was originally going to use an image courtesy of Wandering In The Wilderness Image – Image Results. It came with a page, Take Bread Crumbs: We Really Do Walk in Circles When Lost, which noted “people really do literally wander in circles when there are no visual clues to keep them on track. The behavior has been observed in other animals before, but until recently it hadn’t been studied in humans.” (Interesting.)

I borrowed the caption from the May 2014 post, On Moses and “illeism.” I tried to go back and bring it up to date, but failed. It was just too old, so I left it that way it was, in part so the reader can see whatever progress I may have made and what this platform sometimes does to old images.

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On Pentecost Sunday – 2024

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“Commemorating the descent of the Holy Spirit“ – the very first Pentecost Sunday…

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Before this week’s post on Pentecost Sunday, I reviewed two posts from the distant past. I updated and revamped them on Friday, May 17. First, On Jonah and the bra-burners, from January 2015, then The True Test of Faith, from February 2014. And they needed updating…

The Jonah post talked of the whale in the story as an “attention getter” that got out of hand, like feminists burning bras at 1968’s Miss America pageant. That got attention, but ended up a trivializing “negative and trite association.” (The post added that the real message of Jonah is that God’s love is universal.) The “true test” post talked of how some might handle dying and finding out there is no God. (And how I got assured by the First law of thermodynamics.)

Now it’s time to move on to Pentecost Sunday, 2024, but first a story of my own.

I graduated high school in 1969 and went off to college. Like many young people who do that I stopped going to church. That lasted until 1987 when I met Karen, the lady who became my first wife. She died in 2006, after 19 years together, but in 1987 she was looking for a church to call home. She tried many, and I started going to these different churches with her.

She found a place, “Faith Community” south of Largo (FL), and soon her daughter Candy started going too. One Sunday Karen and I got there after the service started. We entered the front hallway and heard a strange murmuring from inside the main auditorium. Then Candy burst out and announced, “these people are crazy!” It seems every one of the 200 or so people inside were “speaking in tongues.” It freaked Candy out, and I wasn’t too crazy about it either. And it wasn’t long after that I said to Karen, “I have an idea. Why don’t we try the church I grew up in. St. Dunstan’s here in Largo.” We tried it and she loved it. We got married there on Valentine’s Day, 1993, and Bishop Harris confirmed her the following February 28.

The point? I may not have returned to “the church of my yoot” if it hadn’t been for the babblers – those “speakers in tongues” – back in 1987. The connection is that Pentecost is also called “Tongue Sunday.” That’s partly because of those Tongues of Fire discussed further below, and because some onlookers expressed the functional equivalent of “those people are crazy!” Just like Karen’s daughter Candy did in 1987, hearing people ostensibly speaking in tongues. (The Lord does indeed work in mysterious ways.)

Back on track: First of all, “Pentecost” comes from the Greek for “50th day.” It always comes 50 days after Easter Sunday.  (Seven weeks plus one day.) And it’s been around a long, long time. (Wikipedia said the feast in Judaism is called Shavuot, and celebrates the giving of the Law on Sinai.) Yet another name for Pentecost is Tongue Sunday, as noted.

There were the “tongues of fire,” but also the disciples “spoke in tongues.” (Glossolalia.) As it says in Acts 2:4, “All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit enabled them.“ That made some onlookers skeptical. As noted in Acts 2:12 and 13, some who saw the event were amazed, but “others sneered and said, ‘They are filled with new wine!’” But as Isaac Asimov noted, the Apostles weren’t just “babbling.”

They spoke in known languages. People from different nations understood. Asimov wrote: “In their ecstasy, they uttered phrases in a number of languages,” including the marketplace Koine Greek used in the Roman Empire as well as the disciples’ native Aramaic. Those “who listened to them from the various nations … would have understood something.” Acts 2, verse 8-11:

“How is it that we hear, each of us, in our own native language?  Parthians, Medes, Elamites, and residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya belonging to Cyrene, and visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes, Cretans and Arabs – in our own languages we hear them speaking about God’s deeds of power.” (Emphasis added.)

Of course all that is well and good, but the important thing about Pentecost Sunday as described in Acts is that it was a “momentous, watershed event.” For the first time in history, God empowered “all different sorts of people for ministry.” That was drastically different from Old Testament times, when “the Spirit was poured out almost exclusively on prophets, priests, and kings.” But on this first Pentecost Sunday the Holy Spirit was given to all people. All of us, from that day forward, were “empowered to minister regardless of their gender, age, or social position.” (What is Pentecost? Why Does It Matter? – Patheos.)

And finally, Pentecost Sunday is when we get to say, “Happy Birthday, Church!”

Before the events of the first Pentecost – a few weeks after Jesus’ death and resurrection – there were followers of Jesus, but there was no movement that could be meaningfully called “the church.” So, from a historical standpoint, Pentecost is the day when the Church as we know it was started. (“The Spirit brings the church into existence and enlivens it.”) 

So here’s wishing you a “Happy Birthday, Church,” and also a Happy Pentecost, both the day and the season. (A season that can take up half the church year, as shown below.)

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“Ordinary Time” – Pentecost Season – can take up half the Church year…

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The upper image was originally courtesy of Pentecost Sunday Images – Image Results. But see also El Greco – Pentecost, 1610 at Prado Museum Madrid Spain, which I went on to “glean.” The caption is from the Wikipedia article, gleaned from the following: “The Christian High Holy Day of Pentecost is celebrated on the 50th day (the seventh Sunday) from Easter Sunday. It commemorates the descent of the Holy Spirit upon the Apostles and other followers of Jesus Christ while they were in Jerusalem celebrating the Feast of Weeks, as described in the Acts of the Apostles (Acts 2:1–31).”

The Book of Common Prayer reference: The “corporate-mystical” prayer is on page 339, the post-communion prayer for Holy Eucharist, Rite I.

“Feast days” are designated days on the liturgical (church) calendar “set aside to commemorate events, saints, or doctrines that are important in the life of the Church. These can range from Solemnities, which are the highest-ranking feast days like Easter and Christmas, to optional memorials that celebrate lesser-known saints.” Feast Days: Celebrating the Church’s Calendar.

For this post I borrowed from On Pink Floyd and Pentecost Sunday – 2021, Pentecost 2020 – “Learn what is pleasing to the Lord,” and – from 2015, On Pentecost – “Happy Birthday, Church!”

Confirmation in the Episcopal Church is the sacramental rite in which the confirmands “express a mature commitment to Christ, and receive strength from the Holy Spirit through prayer and the laying on of hands by a bishop.”

Re: “Church of my yoot.” Referring to what I call the My Cousin Vinny psalm. Psalm 25:6 reads, “Remember not the sins of my youth.” Or “yoot,” as in “Dese two yoots.”

Also, the “more boring detail” follows these standard notes, separated by another four asterisks.

The lower image is courtesy of Liturgical year – Wikipedia. See also Ordinary Time – Wikipedia.

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Here’s that “more boring detail,” some of which I may use in future posts. For one thing I researched this speaking-in-tongues business and found 1st Corinthians 14, where the Apostle Paul talked a lot about it. In verse 19, “in the church I would rather speak five intelligible words to instruct others than ten thousand words in a tongue.” Verse 23, “if the whole church comes together and everyone speaks in tongues, and inquirers or unbelievers come in, will they not say that you are out of your mind?”

Also, “babbling” can mean the “sound of people talking simultaneously,” or to “talk rapidly and continuously in a foolish, excited, or incomprehensible way,” or to utter meaningless or foolish words or sounds.

Another thing Pentecost does is mark the beginning of “Ordinary Time,” as it’s called in the Catholic Church. “Ordinary Time” takes up over half the church year, though in the Episcopal Church and other Protestant denominations, it goes by another name. In the Anglican liturgy, the Season of Pentecost begins on the Monday after Pentecost Sunday and goes “through most of the summer and autumn.” It may include as many as 28 Sundays, “depending on the date of Easter.”

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More Lenten meditation – 2024

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One of many thought-provoking ideas – I hope – for this Lent 2024…

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As part of my ongoing 2024 meditation, Lent as Pilgrimage, I went back and checked some older posts on the subject. I typed “Lent contemplation” in the search box above right, and found this post from December 2015: Develop your talents with Bible study.

I’m not sure what the connection was between that near-Christmas 2015 post and Lenten contemplation, but maybe it was the theme, “opening your mind with Bible study and developing your talents.” And those two subjects certainly seem worthy of contemplation during this Lent.

The post started with Matthew 25:14-30 and the Parable of the talents. The lesson?

Develop your talents! That’s the point: That you can’t be a “good and faithful servant” unless you give back to God more than what He originally gave you. And you can’t do that by being too literal, too focused on “avoiding sin.”

It went on to talk about how humans will always make mistakes and that maybe “the concepts of sin, repentance and confession are simply tools to help us realize the purpose Jesus had for us.” Also about not developing a “holier than thou” attitude, and not becoming just another “Carbon Copy Christian.” (Instead, “Sing to the LORD a new song.”)

But mostly it was about developing your talents, as a way of “obtaining unity with God, through Christ.” In other words, becoming someone “who seeks by contemplation and self-surrender to obtain unity with or absorption into the Deity or the absolute.”

Which is the definition of a mystic, one who “attempts to be united with God through prayer.” I also noted the term “mystic” seems to throw Southern Baptists and other conservatives into apoplexy, adding, “Try it sometime!!!” But of course, that was only joking…

The post also noted the story of Shadrach and the Fiery Furnace. That’s when he and his buddies – Meshach and Abednego – were about to be thrown into a burning fiery furnace. Those three men knew that God could save them if He wanted to, but they also knew that might not fit in with His (God’s) purpose. Thus their response to the king in Daniel 3 (16-18):

Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego answered the king, “O Nebuchadnezzar…  If our God …  is able to deliver us, he will deliver us…  But if not, be it known to you, O king, that we will not serve your gods and we will not worship the golden statue that you have set up.”

Note the emphasized “But if not…” The three men were really saying something like this: “O Nebuchadnezzar, it’s up to God Himself to decide if He’ll deliver us… God certainly has the power to save us, but even if He decides not to, we will still believe in and follow Him…”

Definitely a great lesson for this 2024 year of political turmoil and polarization.

And finally, the Notes in that 2015 post had a link to an earlier post, from May 2014, The Bible as “transcendent” meditation. That post also talked about “so-called Christians” who focus on sin – usually someone else’s – rather than all the positive things that regular Bible-reading can give you. (A discipline like the one Paul mentions in Hebrews 12:11, that “produces a harvest of righteousness and peace.”) And it should be a gentle but persistent discipline. As one writer said, the would-be meditator (or “work-in-progress” Christian) should give himself permission to make mistakes. “You will make them anyway and will be much more comfortable – and get along better with this exercise – if you give yourself permission in advance.”

Or as Jesus said in Matthew 11:30, “My yoke is easy and My burden is light.” Which may not always seem true, especially when you’re going through a trial. However, with faith you’ll know, “God will save us. He will see us through this trial, so we come out stronger when it’s over.”

Another not-bad set of lessons to ponder this Lent…

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The upper image is courtesy of www.pinterest.com/pc554/leadership-quotes/

The Book of Common Prayer reference: The “corporate-mystical” prayer is on page 339, the post-communion prayer for Holy Eucharist, Rite I.

Re: “Carbon copy Christian.” The link is to “Another brick in the wall,” from February 2015. Which is another term for such a Christian, and that post was pretty close to Lent in 2015.

On singing new songs. Isaiah 42:10 and Psalms 98:1 and 144:9, from [S]inging a NEW song to God.

Re: The discipline of Bible-reading producing “a harvest of righteousness and peace.” It can also give your life structure and purpose, things many people seem to be missing these days.

Re: Matthew 11. For the full reading see Matthew 11:28-30. In the King James Version (the one God uses), it reads, “Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.” (For some reason I remember the first part reading, “Come unto me, all ye that travail and are heavy laden…” Travail meaning “work especially of a painful or laborious nature.”)

The lower image is courtesy of Jesus Yoke Is Easy Burden Is Light – Image Results. It comes with a page, My Burden Is Light – Love, Grief and Healing, worth reading.

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