Here is All Aright

 A Christmas Carol by G. K. Chesterton has always been one of my favourite Christmas poems. It is simple enough, but has some lovely imagery, and the lines "and all the flowers looked up and Him, and all the stars looked down." tugs on my heart as few other things do. I was absolutely delighted to discover that it has been put to music by a traditional Catholic composer. You should go to One Peter Five to read the lyrics, and find out a wee bit more about it. (very wee-- humble, the folks in the making of it seem to be. I gather that it is something of a labour of love, and that the singers are Catholic musicians volunteering to make beautiful things in a dark time. But there is not much actually about the making of this that I can find.) 

The Flight into Egypt.

 Today is the Feast of the Holy Innocents, and it seems fitting to share this haunting old irish carol, An Teicheadh Go hEigipt (The Flight into Egypt) sung by Nóirín Ní Riain & the Monks of Glenstal Abbey. The translation is included in the description-- and yes, it inaccurately depicts the angel speaking to Mary, rather than St. Joseph, but the tune, and the imagery are very beautiful:

Brightest and Best of the Sons of the Morning

 I first came across this very American sounding carol last year, and liked it well. For some reason, it has been stuck in my head for the last couple weeks... Much to my surprise, it is not originally an American carol, but an English one, and it is slightly older than I would have pegged it: 1811, rather than mid 1800s. Hymns and Carols of Christmas has a write up on it, after the lyrics. 

On the Second Day of Christmas.....

 ..... I discovered a new song. I do not believe that this is meant specifically to be a Christmas song, though it is from Andrea Bocelli's Christmas concert in Assisi. It is composed by Riz Ortolani, an Italian film composer, and (judging from the notes provided by Senore Bocelli) this particular song appears to be from the movie Brother Sun and Sister Moon.* In spite of both of these facts, it seems a good song to share with everyone on this, the feast day of the first martyr, the great St. Stephen:

*A movie I have not seen, nor intend to see, understanding that it is gravely deficient from a Catholic point of view, and makes poor St. Francis out to be something along the lines of a hippie. Why exactly, people have to devalue the knightly heroism of St. Francis by turning him in to a flower child is beyond me, but it is one of those odd and niggling things that never seems to entirely go away. 

Merry Christmas

It is late in the day to be posting, and, as I have made rather merry (as Bob Cratchit would say) with my family upon this most blessed day, also rather late in the day to be thinking up deep and insightful things to say. I shall, therefore, simply post this lovely Christmas song, sung by Nat King Cole:

Introspection

I had good intentions, at the beginning of this year, to focus more on this blog. To write more. To create pages for poetry, and for the Christmas posts. And here we are, well into August, and not a word have I put to this endeavour. Not a single alteration has occurred. Indeed, I see that I have again left the Christmas playlist up, far after I could reasonably argue for it being there.

What can I say? This year has been something unlike I have ever lived through before. Something my parents, and sundry aunts and uncles aver, is unlike anything they have ever seen, in spite of living through the upheaval of the 60s and 70s. I do not want to write about any of the extraordinary things that have come upon us in this most singular of years. I have nothing to say that has not been said before-- more eloquently by some, and done to death by others. I do not understand the fear that oppresses and drives so many into behaviours that I find unfathomable, nor why we are discounting so many societal red-flags in the interest of a safety, which, in this case, has nothing whatsoever to do with actually being safe, but has everything to do with not getting sick. Nor I do not understand how the reasonable anger at a cruel and needless death, translates into months of rioting, burning and looting, much less into a wholesale iconoclasm, without even a thread of connection to the original grievance. Nor how we-- an ostensibly civilised society-- can look upon this great upheaval and do nothing at all to stop it. I am a creature of habit, a lover of order and the natural rhythms of ordinary life, where one attends Mass on Sundays, visits with one's friends and family in the evenings, or the weekends. Where the holy days and the holidays are marked with the same, tradition-worn pleasure and comfort with which they are always marked. I cannot comprehend a willingness to allow such an upending of these cycles. It seems that we are in the midst of a great unravelling, and I do not know how to make sense of it. I know that it is not right, nor healthy, nor wholesome, and I have on me a great desire to fight for the return and preservation of these ordinary good and human things.

And yet, for all of the grievances this year has given me, and the anger, outrage, anxiety and panic that have accompanied it, I cannot honestly see it as a bad year. The big and incomprehensible things going on about me... I cannot do anything about them, but live as a good Catholic (or as good as I am able), to pray, to fast when I can, to offer up the daily sufferings (which are manifold and idiotic) for this poor, Godless world. And while the Wide World around me falls apart under the weight of its own hubris, my own, small world has enjoyed much blessing. A particularly troublesome quandary that was plaguing me last autumn, was largely assuaged by a Providential (and completely unexpected) educational opportunity, and even the burdensome lockdowns have given me a breathing space in which I do not have to make any great decisions for my future. A two week precautionary isolation period allowed me the luxury of participating, via livestreams, in all the Holy Week and Easter Week services-- a holy and wholesome experience indeed. The good priest was able to keep our local Catholic church open for visits to the Blessed Sacraments during all of this time (even when he could not celebrate the Mass), so I have gotten into the habit of making daily visits. There is much calm and courage to be gained from this, even if I am a dry and brittle creature, often insensible of its grace.

And the world is still a very beautiful place, full of hopeful new mornings, flaming sunsets, the balm of summer rains coming in unexpected and thunderous downpours in the midst of summer heat. A friend and I have made frequent pilgrimages to that little strip of meadowy land between the Marsh and the sandy edge of the Lake, where chickadees, juncos, wrens and sparrows make noisy communion from the willow breaks. We have walked in the twilight, beneath a sky alive with swallows, when the world is darkening, but the lake holds fast to the silver light. We have seen ravenous young coots, calling pitifully from the shelter of the reeds and cattails, while their harried parents hunt in pools for little silver fish. Have stood on the opposite bank of the river, where it widens into the Lake, and seen a mama black bear, swimming lugubriously in midstream, tossing her head and chuffing at her three timorous cubs, who sat on their furry haunches and refused to follow her into deep water. We have watched the terns and osprey, wheeling for fish, their hover-hunting, and subsequent straight-down plunge, a thing of heart-stopping joy and exhilaration. Have seen the great blue heron make its long, slow flight up from the half-hidden marsh water, its elegance marred by a most ridiculous calling-- as though God, in designing so lovely a creature, gave to it harsh and hilarious voice to keep it humble. We were privileged to see unusual things: the uncommon nighthawks, with their raptors' bodies, and sparrows’ flight, the windows on their wings making for easy identification. A river otter... a river otter, here! I never knew we had them in the mountains.... bounding along the far bank of the river, like a sleek, playful dog before slipping  back into the current with that liquid grace that all water creatures display when they are in their element, however clumsy they might be upon land. The arching leap of small fishes as they went after the mayflies, swarming just above the evening lake, the curve of their straining bodies describing some perfect joy. The pair of summer-bright tanagers-- normally a canopy bird, seen in quick, yellow glimpses as they streak from tree to tree-- feeding among the bitter brush and meadow grasses. Strangely unafraid they were, concerned only with the hunting of seeds, and patient with us for watching.

To me, these are the real things, the important things in life-- the glimpses of a greater beauty, those odd moments when the veil between heaven and earth wears thin, and those little creatures of God somehow manifest a faint, and almost incomprehensible aspect of His own great beauty and perfection. Please understand me here. I do not mean to suggest anything pagan in this, no environmental, New Agey nonsense of God being in and composed of the things of this material realm. I mean that God the Artist (as all great artists do) left behind something of Himself in His works. That His distinctive touch, His fingerprints, are pressed all over His creation, and that in studying it, as one studies a masterpiece in a museum, we are startled to see something of the Artist Himself looking back at us in a way we cannot wholly comprehend. And so we-- in these fleeting moments that somehow have the mark of eternity upon them-- are able to glimpse, ever so dimly, something of God's great glory in the indescribable fire of a cloud-streaked sunset. Something of His gentle care, in that single-minded attention the coots and the bear show to their poor, crying, silly offspring. Something of the sheer exhilarating fineness of Him, in that arrow straight stooping of the tern and osprey. Magnificent as these things are, they are poor images of God Himself, and yet, for that bare instant in which we are able to glimpse it, we have the immense privilege of looking through the veil, through the tangle of the temporal, and seeing (imperfectly) the Face of God. And we are better for that barest of glimpses.

And so,  I cannot see how any year that is blessed with the mysterious hand of Providence (however it chooses to bless, with comfort, or with a much needed wakeup call), with beautiful holy-tides, magnificently shot through with the most unlooked-for moments of grace and growth, and so filled with the immutable beauty with which God, for sheer joy and goodness, chose to shape His world, could ever be a bad year. Perhaps there is foolishness in this-- I have known years of great sorrow and they have seemed very bad indeed to me. But perhaps this year has taught me to see with a wisdom I was not able to bear during those other years. Perhaps God has used this mad and chaotic time to bring me another step further along that steep, and treacherous path to the Light. I cannot be the judge of it, for I have failed more often than not in holding on to those moments of grace. I have prayed by route, more often than from the heart. Have complained bitterly that I know we are to accept the crosses that He sends us, but crippling panic attacks at work are a stupid cross-- and strained mightily against all of the senseless and unreasonable dictates that have upended so much of my orderly little world... 

And yet, all of this madness will pass away, as all things must eventually. And I suspect that the things that will be remembered most, are not the troubles themselves, but the lives lived in spite of them. I suspect that I shall look back on this year, and shall remember Holy Week and Easter Week, and homemade pasta, and sourdough bread. Will remember the otter, and the heron, and hunting terns, and the way my days had shaped themselves around the Blessed Sacrament, even while I was unable to receive the same. Will remember that my sisters and I learned to sing Sicut Cervus in 4 part harmony, and sang it on the last day of Easter Week, at Communion time, during a tiny, private Mass, in an abandoned, decaying old church out in the Nevada desert (the only place that was available to us) when our family friend was received with great joy into the Church. (And remember too, that being us, and incapable of not making things nice, we were able to make that desolate spot a clean and blessed place for our dear Lord to come.) Will remember that there was joy and grace, blessing and courage, freely given, and with them, a great and deep down peace, that remained steady, however tempestuous the surface might be. 

And perhaps.... just perhaps... it will not be myself alone, but all of us, who look back in this time, and call it blessed. 

...Our Hearts, Illumined By Invisible Fire...

Today is the feast of Candlemas, the beautiful feast that finishes the Christmas season. It ends as it begins, with the beautiful homage of the Light. In traditional Catholic liturgy, beeswax candles are bless on this day, and distributed, lighted, to the congregation. It is a simple ceremony, but the prayers that at said to bless the candles are very beautiful: 

V. The Lord be with you.

R. And With your spirit.

1st Prayer: O holy Lord Father almighty, eternal God, who didst create all things out of nothing, and by Thy command didst cause this liquid to come by the labor of bees to the perfection of wax; and on this day didst fulfill the petition of the just man Simeon, we humbly beseech Thee, that by the invocation of Thy most holy name, and by the intercession of blessed Mary ever virgin, whose festival is this day devoutly celebrated, and by the prayers of all Thy saints, Thou wouldst vouchsafed to bless + and sanctify + these candles for the use of men, and the health of bodies and souls whether upon the earth, or on the waters; and wouldst hear from Thy holy heaven, and from the seat of Thy majesty, the voices of this Thy people, who desire to bear them with honor in their hands, and to praise Thee with hymnals, whom Thou has redeemed with the precious blood of Thy Son; who lives and reigns with Thee in the unity of the Holy Ghost, God, world without end.

R. Amen.

2nd Prayer: O almighty and everlasting God, who didst this day present Thy only-begotten Son to be received in the arms of holy Simeon in Thy holy temple; we humbly implore Thy clemency, that Thou wouldst vouchsafe to bless +, sanctify +, and kindle with the light of heavenly benediction these candles, which we Thy servants receiving desire to carry lighted to magnify Thy name; that by offering them to Thee, the Lord our God, being worthily inflamed with the holy fire of Thy most sweet charity, we may deserve to be presented in the holy temple of Thy glory. Though the same our Lord...

R. Amen.

3rd Prayer: O Lord Jesus Christ, the true light, who enlightenest every man coming into this world, pour forth Thy blessing + upon these candles, and sanctify + them with the light of Thy grace; and mercifully grant, that as these lights enkindled with visible fire dispel the darkness of night, so our hearts illumined by invisible fire, that is, the brightness of the Holy Spirit, may be free from the blindness of every sin; that the eye of our minds being purified, we may be able to discern what is pleasing to Thee and conducive to our salvation; so that after the perilous darkness of this life we may deserve to arrive at never-failing light. Through Thee, Christ Jesus, Saviour of the world, who in perfect Trinity livest and reignest God, world without end.

R. Amen.

4th Prayer: O almighty, everlasting God, who didst command the purest oil to be prepared by Thy servant Moses to keep lamps continually before Thee; graciously pour forth the grace of Thy blessing + upon these candles; they may so afford external light, that by Thy gift the light of Thy Spirit may not fail interiorly in our minds. Through our Lord Jesus Christ...in the unity of the same Holy Spirit....

R. Amen.

5th Prayer: O Lord Jesus Christ, who appearing this day among men in the substance of our flesh, and wast presented by Thy parents in the temple; whom the venerable and aged Simeon, enlightened by the light of Thy Spirit, recognized, received, and blessed: mercifully grant, that enlightened and taught by the grace of the same Holy Spirit, we may truly acknowledge Thee, and faithfully love Thee; who with God the Father in the unity of the same Holy Spirit livest and reignest God, world without end.

R. Amen.

There is a procession with those lighted candles, and in theory, they are supposed to be held, lighted, throughout the entire Mass. I have had the privilege of attending Candlemas only once in my life, when I was 15, and attending a little school away from home. I loved the candlelight so very much, and I remember that it pierced me with the sharp, sweet joy of Christmas, even though it had been a month since I had been home, and celebrating. I wanted to keep my candle going all the way through Mass, but the smoke from all those hundreds of little lights set off the fire alarm, and we all had to blow them out. I was unbelievably annoyed at that fire alarm, and (not for the last time in my life) I thought a trifle bitterly how very unromantic modernity is. Who cares if flaming candles are unsafe? The glory of them is more than worth the risk.

I am posting the following video of the blessing of the candles, so that you can read the prayers along with the chant they go to. (And for any of the Tolkienists who may be reading this-- yes, this is the Birmingham Oratory which the young Tolkien attended. No I did not chose this video for that reason. It was the first video to come up, and if it happens to have a Tolkien connection to it, well so much the sweeter.)

And, I am also going to recommend that you go to this website for a full description of the blessing and procession of the candles; that you go to this website for a bit of information on the feast day itself, and the customs that go with it; and that you take the time to listen to this very short, and beautiful sermon for this feast day.

Feast of the Three Kings

Today was a lovely holiday-- a very perfect, merry Little Christmas to end of the Long Christmas. I spent most of the day with my sisters, and there was much singing of carols, much partaking of good foodstuffs, and fine drink, and much jollity in general. Several of the girls made individualised crowns for all of us, from cardstock and glitter, and we feasted whilst wearing them, which did, indeed, add to the occasion.

Before sharing today's song, I would like to share this short little sermon on the feast of the Epiphany. It is good, and beautiful, and interesting, and since I found it to be food for the soul, it seems well to pass it along to other people as well.

Today's song is The March of the Three Kings. I first heard it on the Chieftains' Christmas in Rome CD, where it, like Cazone de Zampognari form one of the reoccurring motifs of that album. I have only ever known it as a tune, nor did I think that there were words associated with it, until this rather satisfying French version of it came up as a recommended video. I nearly posted this version, but wondered if it might be possible to find an English version. So I went searching, and found a very nice -- albeit rather slick-- version of it by The Mormon Tabernacle Choir. There were also a good many version of it as lavish orchestra pieces, with much braying of brass, and pomp and deliberation... and one truly weird version, which you should definitely take a short listen to, and which probably takes the cake for the weirdest adaption of a Christmas song I have ever come across. I finally settled on this one, because every now and again, you just really want a pull-out-all-the-stops Italian approach to a song, and I enjoyed it. I also enjoyed the slightly distorted, scratchy, old record sound very much indeed. And it medleys into Hark the Herald Angels Sing, so you get two songs for the price of one:

Entre le Bœuf et l'âne Gris

Tonight, you are getting an old French Carol-- the tune of which I have been passingly familiar with for some years now, though I had no idea it was a Christmas song. According to several sources (see here, here, and here) it is one of the the oldest Christmas carols in existence. It is quite a charming song, with the sort of simple-yet-profound lyrics that I tend to favour. I like the children's choir in this version - children's voices seem particularly suited to this carol - and I like the fact that the translation plays on the video in time to the music: 

The Professor!

Today is the Good Professor Tolkien's 128th birthday. I have no idea if the hobbits would say "twelvity-eight" or "one-hundred and twenty-eight", but they would no doubt have been very respectful of his great age. As is usual, I spent the evening being a Tokienist:

Writing out Toasts and Playing with Sealing
Wax -- Please note the Tree of Gondor.

Getting Set Up for the Toast: Whisky, Toast
Picture, Candles, Sealing Wax and Seal.

Toasting the Professor-- Yes, I Have a Giant
Gondorian Flag Hanging Above My Table--
It Was a Gift and I Love It.

In honour of the Hobbits, who valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold, I am posting the following Christmas song. I have heard this before, but always sung in a rather slow and stately fashion, or if it is a woman singer, with a tendency towards icy, ethereal tones. This version is both quicker than the average and the tune is slightly different, and it really reminds me of Hobbits. (It also reminds me of my family celebrating Christmas):

And, because it is Tolkien's birthday, and I found it, and I can't resist, here is a video in which an entire decade of the Rosary is said in Quenya. It helpfully provides the Quenya text in both Tengwar and in Latin letters, as well as the English:

Carol of the Birds

Every now and again, a newer Christmas song comes along that I quite like. This doesn't happen so often as most modern Christmas songs... well aren't. They are set around Christmas incidentally, but nothing about the tune, the subject matter, or the feel of them have anything to do with Christmas at all. In fact, I tend to go through a bah-humbug period early on every December, when the deplorable stuff starts showing up on the radio and driving me crazy. 

This one, however, rather struck my fancy. Birds show up on several carols--  there is a Catalan carol, an Irish one, and (if I remember aright) a Polish one as well. I am not sure which one Tim Eriksen was drawing from here, (not the Irish) nor how much of it is new, but the overall effect is quite good, I think... and really, I do not understand why more artists don't do this sort of thing. I mean, who wants to hear another cheesy love song, that is made into an even cheesier Christmas song, because we happened to have snow and and a reference to Santa in it? Wouldn't we all rather hear about birds?

God Bless You and Send You a Happy New Year

While it is true that today is the beginning of a new year, and that I welcomed in 2020 with the customary Pipes At Midnight (in this case, playing a long medley all in one go: Canzone de Zampognari (twice through), Adeste Fideles (also twice through), Scotland the Brave, The Minstrel Boy, and Auld Lang Syne (twice through seemed a good thing for the traditional New Year's tune, so twice through it was.) followed by a long toast in which I faced the Crucifix and saluted Our Lord, drawing on Jacobite traditions and Tolkien, and mentioning Friendship, Truth, Beauty, and All Good Things, before downing a lovely whisky in a quiet house, lit only by the Christmas tree and various candles..... you are not going to get a post that reflects that New Year tradition, nor even a wassail song. (Look at me getting halfway through the Long Christmas without a wassail yet!). Instead you are getting an odd little carol which seems fitting to the other commemoration of this Holy Day of Obligation, the Circumcision of Our Lord. 

I know that it can seem strange to non-Catholics to celebrate such a feast day, but we do it for two reason. The first is that it marks the first occasion in which Our Lord shed blood for us. So great is the Majesty of God, that this small suffering would have been more than enough to save the world from sin. This should be a comfort for those of us who sometimes think that we have committed a sin too great for God to forgive-- or that we are just plain too sinful (without being particularly ostentatious in our wickedness) for His forgiveness. God is so great that a single drop of His blood is more than enough to wipe out the sins of the entire world, from its Fall to its End: how then, can any or our own personal sins, become so great that He cannot forgive them? Granted, His Love could not be satisfied by a small suffering, but insisted in pouring Itself out until It was utterly spent and there was nothing else to give, but that is because His is Love, and True Love, in God as in Man, is foolish in Its need to show Itself to the Beloved. The bare fact of the matter is that our Redemption was accomplished by the mere fact of God becoming Man entirely, and this first of His sufferings for us, had in it all that was necessary for our salvation. This is, indeed, a thing well worth celebrating! 

The second reason is that it was on this day that Our Lord was officially given His name: Jesus, that is to say, Saviour. In taking the name, on this day, which the Angel had given Him at the time of His conception, He was announcing the purpose for which He had come into the world. He was, in a very real way, taking up His mission, and all the pain and suffering that went with it, by the taking of His name-- again, a thing well worth celebrating!

So, the carol you are getting today, seems appropriate to this feast day in which the shadow of the Cross first peaks into the Nativity narrative. It is a variation on the Corpus Christi Carol, which I have posted here a couple times before. This version, however, is specifically meant for Christmas-- and, indeed, there are actually two lyrical version of this as a Christmas carol. The version I have chosen to give you strikes me as the more Christmassy of the two, though this particular arrangement of this particular version is lighter and more delicate than almost every other version I have found of it. (The music that goes with this particular variant tends to be rather dark, and while I like it very much indeed, it seems weirdly aggressive for my purposes.)