Nov. 16th, 2006 01:07 pm
Sanctus, Sanctus, Sanctus
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muckefuckSo all this talk of saints and saints' day has got me thinking of what a surprisingly small part they played in my pious Catholic adolescence. Leaving aside Marian observances (which, if you know anything about Roman Catholicism, you know deserve their own separate treatment; the typical saint gets a day a year in their memory, whereas the Mother of God gets a whole month and then some), I can think of only three that we regularly commemorated when I was growing up.
The first was the Feast of St Blaise, a third-century doctor. According to legend, he saved a youth incarcerated with him from choking on a fish bone and is therefore prayed to for protection from ailments of the throat. Another part of his story is that wild beasts brought him food, wine, and candles why he was in prison. But back in Catholic school, we didn't know any of this. All we knew was that every February 3rd we had a special mass that was indistinguishable from every other damn mass we went to except for one thing: At some point, we all filed up to have the altar boys hold two consecrated candles to our throats while the priest said a blessing. That was it: No special foods, no reenactment of stirring moments from St Blasius' life and martyrdom, no decorations, nothing.
The second I hesitate to even mention since our observance of it doubtless had more to do with secular priorities than sacred. That was St Patrick's Day, which we celebrated the same way any American not old enough to drink would: With shamrock decorations and green food. I remember once I drew a map of Ireland (freehand) for the bulletin board, which also had a least one depiction of the driving of the snakes from the Emerald Isle. At home, we might have corned beef, although we generally gave the boiled cabbage a miss since there was no one in the family who liked it.
The only one we really looked forward to was St Nicholas' Day, which marked the official beginning of the holiday getting season. In later years, when we regularly had an Advent wreath (a green styrofoam base with pink and purple tapers), the decorations would be out and hung by the First Sunday in Advent. But they always had to be up by Dec. 5 since that was the evening we hung the stockings on the mantlepiece, and these were kept in the "Christmas box" with all the other tinsel and such.
St. Nicholas was a paragon of reliability. For as long as I can remember, we always got exactly the same thing in our stockings:
Influenced by my reading, I was responsible for some odd variations in certain years. For instance, after I read about the Dutch Sinterklaas leaving nuts and candy in shoes, I wanted to leave my sneakers out instead of my dedicated stocking. I was a master of restraint as a child and was the only one of us four who could reliably make his Halloween candy last all the way through November and up until the saint resupplied us on the morning of December 6th. One year, I asked if he couldn't split the bounty and bring part of my haul at Christmas in order to help me make it last longer into the New Year. He complied, but he brought candy for everyone, thereby providing an early lesson in the pernicious tendency of liberalism to reward moral turpitude. All in all, St Nick's was one of those customs--like Christkinds/Secret Santas--that was such a part of my childhood, it never even occurred to me that there were Christians who didn't observe it.
Note the conspicuous absence of Valentine's Day. This is a holiday so overwhelmed by commercial considerations that we didn't even call it "St Valentine's Day". I've heard that there are valentines out there with depictions of the eponymous martyr on them, but in all my days at school, I don't think I ever saw one. We had the same cheesy pre-printed cards from the five-and-dime that I think every American child of my generation grew up with. Sure, we knew the saint's story in broad outline, but didn't everyone?
It's interesting that even though my family is ethnically German and the Catholic communities I grew up in were more German than Irish, we didn't observe any typical German Catholic feasts like St Martin's. Even more striking to me is the lack of Kermessen or other celebrations of patron saints. I mean, every parish we went to had an annual picnic, but their dates were determined by the meteorological calendar rather than the liturgical: They were held sometime in the summer, when the weather was good, regardless of the date of the founding of the church or the eponymous' saint's feast day. My first parish in St. Louis, for instance, was St Luke's the Evangelist, but I didn't have any idea his feast day was 18. Oct. until I looked it up just now. Almost every Catholic order of clergy is dedicated to a saint and/or has a saint for its founder, but I don't remember these being memorialised in any way either.
The one exception I can think of is Chaminade Day, the feast of the founder of the Society of Mary. Technically, he's still awaiting one or two proven miracles before he can be canonised, so rather than being "St Chaminade", he's "the Blessed William Joseph Chaminade". So although it wasn't a "saint's day" in the strictest sense, for the four years I attended the high school named for him, on Father Chaminade's feast day I had to--you guessed it--attend a special mass in his honour.
The first was the Feast of St Blaise, a third-century doctor. According to legend, he saved a youth incarcerated with him from choking on a fish bone and is therefore prayed to for protection from ailments of the throat. Another part of his story is that wild beasts brought him food, wine, and candles why he was in prison. But back in Catholic school, we didn't know any of this. All we knew was that every February 3rd we had a special mass that was indistinguishable from every other damn mass we went to except for one thing: At some point, we all filed up to have the altar boys hold two consecrated candles to our throats while the priest said a blessing. That was it: No special foods, no reenactment of stirring moments from St Blasius' life and martyrdom, no decorations, nothing.
The second I hesitate to even mention since our observance of it doubtless had more to do with secular priorities than sacred. That was St Patrick's Day, which we celebrated the same way any American not old enough to drink would: With shamrock decorations and green food. I remember once I drew a map of Ireland (freehand) for the bulletin board, which also had a least one depiction of the driving of the snakes from the Emerald Isle. At home, we might have corned beef, although we generally gave the boiled cabbage a miss since there was no one in the family who liked it.
The only one we really looked forward to was St Nicholas' Day, which marked the official beginning of the holiday getting season. In later years, when we regularly had an Advent wreath (a green styrofoam base with pink and purple tapers), the decorations would be out and hung by the First Sunday in Advent. But they always had to be up by Dec. 5 since that was the evening we hung the stockings on the mantlepiece, and these were kept in the "Christmas box" with all the other tinsel and such.
St. Nicholas was a paragon of reliability. For as long as I can remember, we always got exactly the same thing in our stockings:
- one apple
- one tangerine
- one small toy
- a handful of mixed nuts in the shell (almond, brazil, filbert, pecan, and walnut)
- one candy cane
- candy (usually--but not always--consisting of a mix of cheap chocolate balls in foil, Christmas tree nougats, and bell-shaped marshmallow creams)
Influenced by my reading, I was responsible for some odd variations in certain years. For instance, after I read about the Dutch Sinterklaas leaving nuts and candy in shoes, I wanted to leave my sneakers out instead of my dedicated stocking. I was a master of restraint as a child and was the only one of us four who could reliably make his Halloween candy last all the way through November and up until the saint resupplied us on the morning of December 6th. One year, I asked if he couldn't split the bounty and bring part of my haul at Christmas in order to help me make it last longer into the New Year. He complied, but he brought candy for everyone, thereby providing an early lesson in the pernicious tendency of liberalism to reward moral turpitude. All in all, St Nick's was one of those customs--like Christkinds/Secret Santas--that was such a part of my childhood, it never even occurred to me that there were Christians who didn't observe it.
Note the conspicuous absence of Valentine's Day. This is a holiday so overwhelmed by commercial considerations that we didn't even call it "St Valentine's Day". I've heard that there are valentines out there with depictions of the eponymous martyr on them, but in all my days at school, I don't think I ever saw one. We had the same cheesy pre-printed cards from the five-and-dime that I think every American child of my generation grew up with. Sure, we knew the saint's story in broad outline, but didn't everyone?
It's interesting that even though my family is ethnically German and the Catholic communities I grew up in were more German than Irish, we didn't observe any typical German Catholic feasts like St Martin's. Even more striking to me is the lack of Kermessen or other celebrations of patron saints. I mean, every parish we went to had an annual picnic, but their dates were determined by the meteorological calendar rather than the liturgical: They were held sometime in the summer, when the weather was good, regardless of the date of the founding of the church or the eponymous' saint's feast day. My first parish in St. Louis, for instance, was St Luke's the Evangelist, but I didn't have any idea his feast day was 18. Oct. until I looked it up just now. Almost every Catholic order of clergy is dedicated to a saint and/or has a saint for its founder, but I don't remember these being memorialised in any way either.
The one exception I can think of is Chaminade Day, the feast of the founder of the Society of Mary. Technically, he's still awaiting one or two proven miracles before he can be canonised, so rather than being "St Chaminade", he's "the Blessed William Joseph Chaminade". So although it wasn't a "saint's day" in the strictest sense, for the four years I attended the high school named for him, on Father Chaminade's feast day I had to--you guessed it--attend a special mass in his honour.