christmas doesn't end on the 25th - father totton - 12.29.11

8/3/2019 Christmas Doesn't End on the 25th - Father Totton - 12.29.11

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Christmas Doesn't End On the 25th

LiturgicalOctaves

by Father Joseph Totton

I am often struck at the impatience with which some folks end their celebration of

Christmas. Today, I walked into the local hospital, when I commented that theregistration area looked like it had been remodeled, the admitting nurse looked at me with

a blank face and replied, oh, yeah, they took down all the Christmas stuff! The reader

should note that the Christmas stuff had been up since around Thanksgiving coinciding with what we, in North America, have come to experience as the Holiday

Season. Not five minutes later I was in the chaplains office reviewing the Catholic

census when one of the hospital staff chaplains asked, Father, did you have a niceChristmas? My cheerful response was, Yes, and I am still having it, I celebrate

Christmas for at least eight days! Oh, he said, taking a page from the Jewish

playbook?! I stopped for a moment to think about it, and said, something like that. I

had parishioners to visit and didnt have time to talk to him about the concept of an

Octave, but his comment set me to thinking about the origin of this ancient Christianpractice of observing certain solemnities as Octaves.

Currently, only two major solemnities enjoy the prolonged celebration of a liturgical

Octave those of Our Lords Nativity and His Glorious Resurrection. When the

liturgical calendar was revised after the second Vatican Council, many such octaves weresuppressed, including one for Pentecost, for Epiphany, and even Corpus Christi, among

many others. Whatever one may think of the suppression (or celebration) of these

octaves, we should stop to consider the origin of the liturgical octave and its significancefor twenty-first century Catholic Christians.

The chaplains response set me to thinking of a celebration I had attended earlier in theweek. A Jewish friend with whom I play ice hockey had invited me (among others) tohis home for an informal celebration of Hanukkah. Many Christians are only vaguely

familiar with the custom, and usually only then as it often coincides, roughly, with out

celebration of Christmas. It is not my intention to go into great detail regardingHanukkah, but suffice it to say, it is a celebration of the triumph of the Maccabbean

revolt over the Hellenists who had defiled the Temple and compelled the Jews to abandon

their proper worship of the One True God, and to embrace the worship of the Greekpantheon of false gods. Hanukkah is celebrated for eight days to commemorate that a

single days supply of oil lasted for eight days. To this day, among Jewish families,

Hanukkah (a festival of lights, often symbolized by the menorah fashioned on the

menorah or lampstand from the Temple is celebrated not for a single day, but foreightdays.

It is not unreasonable to consider that the concept of an octave, or a period of eight days,was familiar to the apostles during the formation of the early Church. In addition to the

Maccabbean victory, the apostles, all Jewish, would have also been familiar with the

observance of the eight day festival Sukkotor Feast of the Tabernacles (see Leviticus23:34), but the resurrection brought about another reason for the observance of liturgical


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Octaves. In the Early Church, Sunday was reckoned to be the first day (the day of

creation) but following upon the Sabbath (of seventh day) early Christians observed it

also as an eighth day the day when Jesus Resurrection from the dead turned the worldupside down! So great was this change that it led the Church to move the observance of

the Sabbath to theDies Domini or Day of the Lord. Let us also recall that just as Jesus

had appeared to the Apostles in the upper room in the evening of His Resurrection andagain, eight days later when they were gathered once more. Thus the Christian liturgical

octave has its roots in Jewish observance, but developed as a natural means of celebrating

the Mysteries of Our Lord.

If we wish to understand the significance of the Octave, it is simply an extension of the

solemnity of whatever mystery is being observed. By observing the octave the Church is

saying, in effect, that this mystery (be it the Incarnation or the Resurrection the onlytwo official liturgical octaves in the [ordinary form] Roman Calendar) is too great to be

celebrated for a mere day. She says this Mystery must be unfolded, and we need time to

do that. Liturgically speaking, the prayers of the Mass and of the Office, the readings

chosen for these services, typically unpack various aspects of these Mysteries and helpus to celebrate more fully! Yet the octave goes a bit further. Just as the concept of

Sunday as an eighth day expresses the intersection of time and eternity, so thecelebration of a liturgical octave also helps us to understand the eternal significance, that

the Incarnation (or the Resurrection) is not a mere earthly event, but that these mysteries

represent the confluence of time and eternity.

Just as we celebrate such Solemnities (and their respective octaves) within the Church

(through official forms of worship) so we should also celebrate them in the home, in our

daily lives. While it is not possible to go full bore for eight days, with feasting, onemay, and should, insert some element of festivity into the principal meal. We should use

these days (whether of Christmas or Easter) to invite family and friends to share in our

celebration. In the case of Christmas, so many well-meaning people begin celebratingthe season on Thanksgiving day and are, understandably exhausted by the start of

Christmas. If we re-order our lives around the liturgical calendar, we will begin

observing the month of December as a time of preparation primarily interiorpreparation for the coming of our Lord, then when Christmas actually arrives we will

be poised to shift into the more festive celebration.

Finally, I would like to offer a reflection on the rich tapestry of feasts which are observedwithin the Christmas Octave. Unlike the Easter Octave, which trumps the sanctoral

calendar (feasts of various saints), the Christmas Octave, falling every year on the same

dates (12/25-1/1), encompasses various saints feast days. Days 2 and 3 of the octavecommemorate first century saints St. Stephen, protomartyr, and St. John, apostle and

evangelist. The fourth day of the octave (December 28) is in commemoration of the Holy

Innocents those children who were massacred by Herod in his rage as he sought todestroy Jesus. Day 5 is the feast of St. Thomas Becket, the twelfth century bishop who

was martyred for his defense of the primacy of the Roman Pontiff. The Sunday within

the octave is in commemoration of the Holy Family of Nazareth (This year, since the

Octave begins and ends on Sunday, the Holy Family is transferred to Friday, December


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30). Finally, the penultimate day of the octave is in commemoration of St. Sylvester, the

fourth century pope whose reign coincided with the Constantinian reforms of that period.

I mention each of these saints and/or mysteries as a means of considering that in the livesof His followers, we see the impact of the Divine Word who became man and was born at

Bethlehem. We might wish to imagine a nativity scene which includes men and women

from throughout the twenty-one centuries of the Church whose lives, motivated by theMystery of the Incarnation, had an impact upon the world around them. In this, we can

grasp the call for our lives to be energized, motivated, by the liturgical celebration of

these same mysteries, but lives whose impact is felt far beyond the doors of the Church,or a single calendar day! Merry Christmas!!!

christmas doesn't end on the 25th - father totton - 12.29.11

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