Part 9 (1/2)

”I can see myself as a little girl, bundled up to the tip of my nose in furs and knitted shawls, tiny wooden shoes on my feet, a lantern in my hand, setting out with my parents for the Midnight Ma.s.s of Christmas Eve.... We started off, a number of us, together in a stream of light.... Our lanterns cast great shadows on the white road, crisp with frost. As our little group advanced it saw others on their way, people from the farm and from the mill, who joined us, and once on the Place de l'eglise we found ourselves with all the paris.h.i.+oners in a body. No one spoke--the icy north wind cut short our breath; but the voice of the chimes filled the silence.... We entered, accompanied by a gust of wind that swept into the porch at the same time we did; and the splendours of the altar, studded with lights, green with pine and laurel branches, dazzled us from the threshold.”{16}

In devout Tyrol, the scenes on Christmas Eve before the Midnight Ma.s.s are often extremely impressive, particularly in narrow valleys where the houses lie scattered on the mountain slopes. Long before midnight the torches lighting the faithful on their way to Ma.s.s begin to twinkle; downward they move, now hidden in pine-woods and ravines, now reappearing on the open hill-side. More and more lights show themselves and throw ruddy flashes on the snow, until at last, the floor of the valley reached, they vanish, and only the church windows glow through the darkness, while the solemn strains of the organ and chanting break the silence of the night.{17}

Not everywhere has the great Ma.s.s been celebrated amid scenes so still and devotional. In Madrid, says a writer of the early nineteenth century, ”the evening of the vigil is scarcely dark when numbers of men, women, and boys are seen traversing the streets with torches, and many of them supplied with tambourines, which they strike loudly as they move along in a kind of Baccha.n.a.l procession. There is a tradition here that the shepherds who visited Bethlehem on the day of the Nativity had instruments of this sort upon which they expressed the sentiment of joy that animated them when they received the intelligence that a Saviour was born.” At the Midnight Ma.s.s crowds of people who, perhaps, had been traversing the streets the whole night, came into the church

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with their tambourines and guitars, and accompanied the organ. The Ma.s.s over, they began to dance in the very body of the church.{18} A later writer speaks of the Midnight Ma.s.s in Madrid as a fas.h.i.+onable function to which many gay young people went in order to meet one another.{19} Such is the character of the service in the Spanish-American cities. In Lima the streets on Christmas Eve are crowded with gaily dressed and noisy folks, many of them masked, and everybody goes to the Ma.s.s.{20} In Paris the elaborate music attracts enormous and often not very serious crowds. In Sicily there is sometimes extraordinary irreverence at the midnight services: people take provisions with them to eat in church, and from time to time go out to an inn for a drink, and between the offices they imitate the singing of birds.{21} We may see in such things the licence of pagan festivals creeping within the very walls of the sanctuary.

In the Rhineland Midnight Ma.s.s has been abolished, because the conviviality of Christmas Eve led to unseemly behaviour at the solemn service, but Ma.s.s is still celebrated very early--at four or five--and great crowds of wors.h.i.+ppers attend. It is a stirring thing, this first Ma.s.s of Christmas, in some ancient town, when from the piercing cold, the intense stillness of the early morning, one enters a great church thronged with people, bright with candles, warm with human fellows.h.i.+p, and hears the vast congregation break out into a slow solemn chorale, full of devout joy that

”In Bethlehem geboren Ist uns ein Kindelein.”

It is interesting to trace survivals of the nocturnal Christmas offices in Protestant countries. In German ”Evangelical” churches, midnight or early morning services were common in the eighteenth century; but they were forbidden in some places because of the riot and drunkenness which accompanied them. The people seem to have regarded them as a part of their Christmas revellings rather than as sacred functions; one writer compares the congregation to a crowd of wild drunken sailors in a

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tavern, another gives disgusting particulars of disorders in a church where the only sober man was the preacher.{22}

In Sweden the Christmas service is performed very early in the morning, the chancel is lighted up with many candles, and the celebrant is vested in a white chasuble with golden orphreys.{23}

A Midnight Ma.s.s is now celebrated in many Anglican churches, but this is purely a modern revival. The most distinct British _survival_ is to be found in Wales in the early service known as _Plygain_ (dawn), sometimes a celebration of the Communion. At Tenby at four o'clock on Christmas morning it was customary for the young men of the town to escort the rector with lighted torches from his house to the church. Extinguis.h.i.+ng their torches in the porch, they went in to the early service, and when it was ended the torches were relighted and the procession returned to the rectory. At St. Peter's Church, Carmarthen, an early service was held, to the light of coloured candles brought by the congregation. At St. Asaph, Caerwys, at 4 or 5 a.m., _Plygain_, consisting of carols sung round the church in procession, was held.{24} The _Plygain_ continued in Welsh churches until about the eighteen-fifties, and, curiously enough, when the Established Church abandoned it, it was celebrated in Nonconformist chapels.{25}

In the Isle of Man on Christmas Eve, or _Oiel Verry_ (Mary's Eve), ”a number of persons used to a.s.semble in each parish church and proceed to shout carols or 'Carvals.' There was no unison or concert about the chanting, but a single person would stand up with a lighted candle in his or her hand, and chant in a dismal monotone verse after verse of some old Manx 'Carval,' until the candle was burnt out. Then another person would start up and go through a similar performance. No fresh candles might be lighted after the clock had chimed midnight.”{26}

One may conjecture that the common English practice of ringing bells until midnight on Christmas Eve has also some connection with the old-time Midnight Ma.s.s.

For the Greek Church Christmas is a comparatively unimportant festival by the side of the Epiphany, the celebration of

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Christ's Baptism; the Christmas offices are, however, full of fine poetry. There is far less restraint, far less adherence to the words of Scripture, far greater richness of original composition, in the Greek than in the Roman service-books, and while there is less poignancy there is more amplitude and splendour. Christmas Day, with the Greeks, is a commemoration of the coming of the Magi as well as of the Nativity and the adoration of the shepherds, and the Wise Men are very prominent in the services. The following hymn of St. Anatolius (fifth century), from the First Vespers of the feast, is fairly typical of the character of the Christmas offices:--

”When Jesus Our Lord was born of Her, The Holy Virgin, all the universe Became enlightened.

For as the shepherds watched their flocks, And as the Magi came to pray, And as the Angels sang their hymn Herod was troubled; for G.o.d in flesh appeared, The Saviour of our souls.

Thy kingdom, Christ our G.o.d, the kingdom is Of all the worlds, and Thy dominion O'er every generation bears the sway, Incarnate of the Holy Ghost, Man of the Ever-Virgin Mary, By Thy presence, Christ our G.o.d, Thou hast s.h.i.+ned a Light on us.

Light of Light, the Brightness of the Father, Thou hast beamed on every creature.

All that hath breath doth praise Thee, Image of the Father's glory.

Thou who art, and wast before, G.o.d who s.h.i.+nedst from the Maid, Have mercy upon us.

What gift shall we bring to Thee, O Christ, since Thou as Man on earth For us hast shewn Thyself?

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Since every creature made by Thee Brings to Thee its thanksgiving.

The Angels bring their song, The Heavens bring their star, The Magi bring their gifts, The Shepherds bring their awe, Earth gives a cave, the wilderness a manger, And we the Virgin-Mother bring.

G.o.d before all worlds, have mercy upon us!”{27}

A beautiful rite called the ”Peace of G.o.d” is performed in Slavonic churches at the end of the ”Liturgy” or Ma.s.s on Christmas morning--the people kiss one another on both cheeks, saying, ”Christ is born!” To this the answer is made, ”Of a truth He is born!” and the kisses are returned.

This is repeated till everyone has kissed and been kissed by all present.{28}

We must pa.s.s rapidly over the feasts of saints within the Octave of the western Christmas, St. Stephen (December 26), St. John the Evangelist (December 27), the Holy Innocents (December 28), and St. Sylvester (December 31). None of these, except the feast of the Holy Innocents, have any special connection with the Nativity or the Infancy, and the popular customs connected with them will come up for consideration in our Second Part.

The commemoration of the Circ.u.mcision (”when eight days were accomplished for the circ.u.mcising of the child”) falls naturally on January 1, the Octave of Christmas. It is not of Roman origin, and was not observed in Rome until it had long been established in the Byzantine and Gallican Churches.{29} In Gaul, as is shown by a decree of the Council of Tours in 567, a solemn fast was held on the Circ.u.mcision and the two days following it, in order to turn away the faithful from the pagan festivities of the Kalends.{30}

The feast of the Epiphany on January 6, as we have seen, is in the eastern Church a commemoration of the Baptism of Christ. In the West it has become primarily the festival of the adoration

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of the Magi, the manifestation of Christ to the Gentiles. Still in the Roman offices many traces of the baptismal commemoration remain, and the memory of yet another manifestation of Christ's glory appears in the antiphon at ”Magnificat” at the Second Vespers of the feast:--

”We keep holy a day adorned by three wonders: to-day a star led the Magi to the manger; to-day at the marriage water was made wine; to-day for our salvation Christ was pleased to be baptized of John in Jordan. Alleluia.”

On the Octave of the Epiphany at Matins the Baptism is the central idea, and the Gospel at Ma.s.s bears on the same subject. In Rome itself even the Blessing of the Waters, the distinctive ceremony of the eastern Epiphany rite, is performed in certain churches according to a Latin ritual.{31} At Sant' Andrea della Valle, Rome, during the Octave of the Epiphany a Solemn Ma.s.s is celebrated every morning in Latin, and afterwards, on each of the days from January 7-13, there follows a Ma.s.s according to one of the eastern rites: Greco-Slav, Armenian, Chaldean, Coptic, Greco-Ruthenian, Greco-Melchite, and Greek.{32} It is a week of great opportunities for the liturgiologist and the lover of strange ceremonial.

The Blessing of the Waters is an important event in all countries where the Greek Church prevails. In Greece the ”Great Blessing,” as it is called, is performed in various ways according to the locality; sometimes the sea is blessed, sometimes a river or reservoir, sometimes merely water in a church. In seaport towns, where the people depend on the water for their living, the celebration has much pomp and elaborateness. At the Piraeus enormous and enthusiastic crowds gather, and there is a solemn procession of the bishop and clergy to the harbour, where the bishop throws a little wooden cross, held by a long blue ribbon, into the water, withdraws it dripping wet, and sprinkles the bystanders. This is done three times. At Nauplia and other places a curious custom prevails: the archbishop throws a wooden cross into the waters of the harbour, and the fishermen

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