In case you haven’t heard, the woman offering the only known version of “Our Lady of the Half Eaten Grilled Cheese Sandwich” on eBay is now $28,000 richer. That pales in comparison to the $70,000 dollars the grub once brought her while gambling at a casino.
Now there’s a man claiming to see the face of Jesus on a burnt fish stick. Wanna see it? Go here.
God help me.
In fact, after reading the comments below the above fish story on World’s blog … God help us all!
Happy Thanksgiving!
For Part 1 of this series go here. One way to handle the secularization or, depending on your source, (re)paganization of the Christmas holiday is to become a reactionary. This may not be the best option, but it is a valid one. Everyone’s tempted by something. Being a reactionary has never brought me many favors, but we’re pals nonetheless.
Back in 1997 our daughter came home from day care and informed us that her class wasn’t doing just one Christmas that year. Rather, they were going to be celebrating many holidays. Upon further inquiry we found that her class, she was 3 at the time, was going to be studying Christmas, Hanukkah and Kwanzaa — though there were no practitioners of either of the latter faith traditions in her day care class. We reacted by pulling her out of day care. [The good news is she was home schooled from that point until 4th grade.]
When she was coming of “Santa age,” we decided that, though it was the practice of our families, we weren’t going to do the Santa thing. Besides, back then we were in the Russian Church Abroad, therefore on the “old calendar,” and it didn’t make much since. To complicate matters further, our parish was named St Nicholas and we already had a “visit” with presents from our patron each year on his Feast, December 6/19.
The year before last, when my son was 4, we were doing last minute shopping in the mall on December 23rd. As we rested by a fountain, he saw the Mall Santa at a distance and said, “Dad, can I go talk to him?” “Basil, I thought you didn’t believe in Santa,” I replied. He said, “Dad, I don’t. I just wanna go talk to him.” I told him to look at how long the line was and reminded him that we didn’t have much time and were just sitting there waiting on mom and the girls. When the said party arrived, I no sooner exchanged news with them — a mere moment, mind you — when someone asked, “Where’s Basil?” Immediately my eyes shot toward the great line of people and, sure enough, there near the back of the 50 people or so was a little four year old boy. So, we let him. I went and waited with him. “No,” I told them, “we don’t want a picture.” He eventually got to sit on the old man’s lap. That’s about the time their camera/computer equipment broke. As they worked to repair it — for about 20 minutes — Basil sat right there and talked to Santa. No harm done, everyone went home satisfied, except maybe the old man.
The following year, on the eve of St Nicholas Feast (new calendar), we were having Vespers in the church. Basil was serving in the altar and he asked if I thought St Nicholas had visited St John’s [fellowship hall] Building yet. Having replied that I did not know, and though freezing rain and sleet was falling, he asked if he could go check. I’ll never forget the sight of my 5 year old son eagerly and expectantly running up the stairs through inclement weather to peer into a building to see if a Saint had yet visited with presents.
A week later we found ourselves traveling to visit my father on, as we said as kids, “Christmas Eve eve,” December 23rd. Our dinner was interrupted by the headlights of a car’s arrival. “Who’s that?” I asked. My dad said, “I don’t know. Basil, go to the door.” I was a little uncomfortable with my son being sent to answer a strange door … when in walked the best looking Santa I had ever seen. I swear to you for a moment I was a kid again. A grown man had a “Miracle on 34th Street” moment. I almost wept. This Santa knew all about my kids. He knew their names — all our names — and family trivia. He had wonderful answers to their questions about Rudolph and the other reindeer. His white hair & beard, costume, red cheeks, twinkling eyes … all came together to make me feel like a cad for ever doubting. When finally he approached me he said, “Howdy cuz” with a wink and a smile. Danged if I wasn’t just plain confused from that point on.
[Later in the evening, after Santa’s exit, my dad explained to me that the man was indeed a cousin of mine who played Santa during the season.]
Fast forward to 2004. Our oldest, Mary Catherine, is now in the 5th grade in the public school system. Their chorus is going to be performing at area malls during the season. Yet, here we go again, they are going to be singing some winter “holiday songs” — and some Kwanzaa songs.
To be continued …
Faithful reader, Erica, commented that the source for the story of karaoke in church is suspect. But doesn’t “Pravda” mean truth? The site is a hoot — but not recommended for the sober.
Interrupting my series on Christmas, here’s some helpful hints on the Feast.
A Dutch study has determined that smoke from candles and incense in church is harmful to your health — up to 20 times the carcinogens found on the street corner! Poking around the Net netted this related news story from Ireland.
Thanksgiving is just a couple days away and school children may thank anyone, except God. Question: Is it still alright to “thank God it’s Friday?”
Dan Rather received a bit of attention on this blog and others with his forged document story (among other things). Now Andy Rooney fesses up … he also calls Christians ignorant, etc.
Finally … so you don’t believe the Russian Karaoke story? How ’bout this one?
A pagan feast was causing problems for the Faithful. Therefore the Church in Her wisdom decided to move a Feast of Faith, the Nativity of Christ, to the time of the annual pagan festivities. This is commonly referred to as the Church baptizing a holiday. For a while, at least outwardly, it was effectual. Today? Hardly. Latin reason dictates a “sacrament” to be effectual if there is 1) proper Rite, 2) proper intent, and 3) proper substance. Assuming, as this writer does, that something is again amiss, where did we go wrong? What should we do?
First of all, December 25th (regardless of Julian or Gregorian calendar usage) is not believed to be the actual anniversary of Jesus’ birth. The first mention of the Feast being celebrated on December 25th is in the Philocalian Calendar, representing Roman practice, in the year 336. It’s listed as: natus Christus in Betleem Judeae. The common belief is that the date was chosen to oppose the feast of Natalis Solis Invicti — the celebration of the “Sun of Righteousness.” [This title will be revisited later.] By the middle of the 5th century the celebration of the Nativity on December 25th had spread to the Eastern churches (though the Church of Jerusalem held to the joint feast of Nativity & Baptism, on January 6th, until the year 549). The Armenian Church still observes January 6th as Christmas Day.
The Christological controversies that raged from the 4th to the 6th centuries — on the Incarnation and the Person of Christ — no doubt contributed to the growth of the importance of the Feast.
However, according to the Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, the popular observance of the Feast has always been marked by the joy and revelry formerly associated with the Roman feast of Saturnalia and the other pagan festivals it replaced. We Americans are influenced by the Feast’s development within English and German cultures. And … Charles Dickens.
For children it is a magical time of year. For adults who grew up within the culture noted above, its remembrance holds sway over all other feasts. The lights, the smells, the music, the climate, the trees, the silly outfits, Santa … there is no escape.
“There is no escape” can be awfulized into a sort of prison. The temptation is to overindulge in food, drink, and debt. The pressures surrounding the season are enormous. Obviously, given the roots of the annual celebration, this is nothing new.
What to do?
To be continued …
A temple of the Russian Orthodox Church in the city of Petrozavodsk conducts divine services with the use of computer technologies. One can watch priests on monitors and read prayers in the Russian language. The local eparchy intends to use the know-how for missionary purposes. The clergy plans to attract young people to the church, as well as those people, who find it difficult to attend divine services – prisoners and disabled people.
It was a young priest of the Temple of John the Divine, who put forward the idea to use computer technologies in the church. The idea occurred to him, when he saw several deaf people among the church-goers. The priests of the temple organized the hand-language translation for them during services at first. However, gesture-translators distracted other people’s attention in a small church.
Father Konstantin brought a computer to the church and asked “progressive” parishioners to make a special program. After that, deaf people were standing in front of the computer screen during a service, while a non-deaf attendant was using a mouse to click “next” on prayer slides.
It turned out all of a sudden, that deaf people had much more opportunities in comparison with normal parishioners. The texts of the prayers were written in the Russian language, not in the obscure Church Slavonic language. The amount of information on the slides was a lot larger in comparison with what other individuals could hear in the temple.
Father Konstantin is going to hang a big screen in the church so that all parishioners could see it. Computer specialists are currently working on a new program, which will help people read exactly the words that a priest says or a chorus sings during a service. The process will bear some resemblance to karaoke. The screen will be also displaying all actions of a priest.
The Temple of John the Divine is to have its website on the Internet too. Any user will be able to see the services online. The webpage of the church will also hold video-conferences devoted to Orthodox subjects. This service can become rather popular among prisoners and disabled people, who do not have an opportunity to go to the church.
Father Konstantin believes that there is only one field of the Orthodox life, where computer technologies will never be accepted. The Church will never start making computer games based on Gospel stories.
The faithful do not have any aversion to such technical means. “Of course, we use modern means of communication, computers and the Internet. Any technology can be used both for the benefit and to the detriment of the church. Everybody knows about online pornography, or those websites, which stir up religious or ethnic strife. The use of technologies must be linked to the cultural field too. It is very annoying, for example, when cellular phones start ringing during a divine service,” Father Vladislav Chaplin from the Moscow Patriarchy said.
There are about 600-700 Russian Orthodox websites on the Internet now. They have been created for missionary and educational purposes: priests answer people’s questions and publish their sermons there. Such activity is quite acceptable and desirable. Deacon Andrei Kurayev preaches on the Internet rather actively. The forum on his webpage is one of the most popular religious pages on the Russian Internet.
Natalia Konigina; ©1999-2003 “PRAVDA.Ru” …FWD from Fr Victor Potapov.
