The Hispanic tradition is to begin the celebration either at Midnight (which is what they are did at Los Angelos) or at dawn. The local bilingual parish opens its doors at 5a.m. There is a steady stream of people coming with roses, and the singing is non-stop until the 7pm. evening Mass.
Ireland had its own traditions. In the case of the 12th century Wexford Carol almost forgotten by the rural village . America has the story
This Irish Christmas carol was once nearly forgotten. Now it’s newly famous.
Below are some YouTube versions of the carol:
Wexford Carol" arranged by Elaine Hagenberg
Elaine Hagenberg Music
This one has the text embedded so it gets first place.
The Tabernacle Choir Version
The Libera Version
They begin in Gaelic!
The Yo-Yo-Ma Version
So all of us can celebrate the season in our own ways.
Thanks, Jack. The Wexford Carol is haunting and lovely. I first heard it in the late 60s or early 70s; we had a vinyl LP album of Julie Andrews singing Christmas carols. The Wexford Carol was one of them. She really did have a beautiful voice.
ReplyDeleteIt is interesting to read about the history of Christmas carols. I have a book, The Shorter Oxford Book of Carols which has the music and background information on a bunch of them. It's a fairly large book, and one of my choir friends joked, " If that's the shorter book, what is the longer book like?"
I don't follow apparitions too much, but Our Lady of Guadalupe is different. She took a hurting people under her wing, and now she is Patroness of the Americas.
ReplyDeleteReporting from Poland: If you like to listen to hokey American Exmas songs, stay at a Polish hotel. They never ever end.
ReplyDeleteThought of you over there when I heard the Poles got rid of the right wingers in their election last week. Maybe there's hope Americans will resist the siren song of Trump in 2024. But sorry about the Xmas pop song loops. Do Polish people seem to enjoy them?
DeleteGlad the Poles got rid of their MPGAs (make Poland great again).
DeleteAustralians have some silly Christmas songs too. My sister sent me this link yesterday, "Six White Boomers"
https://m.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=105&v=hlSsffF2xhA&embeds_referring_euri=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.bing.com%2F&source_ve_path=Mjg2NjY&feature=emb_logo
Check it out if you need a smile. Keep in mind that Six White Boomers doesn't mean six Caucasian older guys. It's six white large male kangaroos!
Yesterday, a tour of Częstochowa conducted by a charming little old priest, Fr. Roman, a Pauline. They run this holy shrine since the 14th century. Told me to pray to the Blessed Virgin for a wife.
DeleteUnrelated, please keep the deceased priest and the parishioners and family members affected by his murder in your prayers:
ReplyDeletehttps://www.ncronline.org/news/few-details-are-released-fatal-stabbing-catholic-priest-rocks-small-nebraska-comunity
The news story says that Ft. Calhoun is a small community, which it is, but it is also about ten miles from Omaha. Most of the people there work in Omaha. The part of Omaha it is closest to is pretty sketchy, and sometimes stuff spills over. My sister belongs to this parish. I have met the deceased priest, though I didn't know him well. He officiated at my brother in law's funeral.
The incident happened early Sunday morning, and I was impressed that Archbishop Lucas took the Mass that Fr. Gutgsell was to have said at the sister parish of Ft. Calhoun, in Blair, NE., and met with parishioners and talked to them. The parish in Ft. Calhoun was cordoned off as a crime scene so there were no Masses there.
I have seen a few news articles. I am sorry for the people of the parish.
DeleteOne story I saw stated that Fr. Gutgsell (btw, how is that pronounced? Is the 2nd g silent? Or is it sort of like "Gooch-sell"?) had a bit of a checkered priestly past, having been caught with his hand in the till at a former parish. (And his brother, also a priest, apparently had a similar incident in his past.) Seems the bishop saw fit to forgive him, though.
The g is silent, it is pronounced Gutsell (German, I'm guessing?)
DeleteYeah, there is a little past history. With this priest, it was pretty straightforward, he got into trouble with credit card debt (guessing there might have been a gambling problem?). Anyway he had to go to some kind of rehab and pay back all the money (over time, I suppose). He hasn't been a pastor since that time, just a parish administrator and nursing home chaplain. No money handling duties!
With his brother it was more complicated. The brother is a lot older, and had held some fairly high up positions. He had a canon law degree, and at one time was cathedral rector. He taught one of the classes when my husband was in formation; very knowledgeable and a good instructor. The story was that he gave the large sum of money that was embezzled to a homeless guy. For the amount of money involved he could have paid the man's rent for 20 years. The cops thought it sounded like blackmail, but he swore up and down it wasn't. He left active ministry at that time and committed to restitution of the money. Word is he won't be returned to ministry and is well past retirement age now anyway.
I guess I don't have a problem with forgiving this kind of crime if they make restitution. Kind of hard to do that if you're in jail. "Debtor's prison" never has made much sense. Also there should be strings attached to the forgiveness, which there seems to have been. Apparently the older brother was either restricted or didn't want to return to ministry.
With the older brother's crime, if it actually wasn't blackmail, it may have been some kind of dementia thing, because otherwise it didn't make any sense.
DeleteOver the years, there have been several incidents (perhaps more than several) of priests in our archdiocese getting caught embezzling parish funds. Much has been written about canon law's lax monetary controls; traditionally, the pastor had very few limits on what he could do with parish money. I know, in our archdiocese, more stringent financial controls have been rolled out at a diocesan and vicariate level - perhaps more stringent than canon law envisions.
DeleteHow merciful to be toward priests who commit significant crimes like this is an interesting question. The Dallas charter has sort of conditioned us to zero tolerance. I agree with you that, at the very least, priests who have stolen from parishes in the past can't ever be put in a position again where they have unmonitored access to parish funds. As you note, the role of parish administrator, while seemingly similar to a pastor, is restricted in its ability to spend money.
More generally, I think mercy is not risk-free. If we are going to be merciful to others, we are embracing the possibility that the recipient of our mercy will abuse it.
Katherine, you mentioned that Gutgsell's brother was an instructor in your diaconate formation program. While it's not exactly the same case, we had a priest with a history of abusing minors as one of our instructors in diaconate formation. Here is a story about him, from the 1990s (which I hope isn't behind a paywall):
Deletehttps://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-1997-03-05-9703050202-story.html
When the story was published, the outcome for him and his parish assignment wasn't yet known. Eventually, the parish refused to accept him. This was in the late 1990s. The course he taught to us would have been around 2001 - prior to the Dallas Charter. At the time we were in the course, we had no idea this was the same guy. I think the archdiocese's line of thought at the time was: this guy can't be assigned to anything that would expose him to children, so let's have him teach deacon formation.
Btw, I am told (so take this with a grain of salt) that when the parish in Winnetka, IL, which is the subject of the news story I linked to above, refused to accept Fr. Swade's assignment, it was a couple of deacons at the parish who led the opposition to Swade's reinstatement - got the parishioners riled up enough to show up to meetings to oppose the appointment. I'm also told that Cardinal George was furious that deacons would seek to work against his prerogative of appointing priests wherever he saw fit. (That this is how George viewed the question of appointing a priest with a history of abuse to a parish with an elementary school - as an affront to his prerogatives - is telling.) George subsequently instituted a policy for deacons that they were to be transferred to another parish after 10 years of service. Within the deacon community, this policy was widely viewed as a way to get even with these deacons (and, apparently, all deacons) for opposing his will. Under the new policy, if any deacon didn't want to be transferred after 10 years, he'd have to file paperwork explaining why an exception should be made.
On the surface, the 10-year-appointment rule seems similar to the existing practice of assigning a priest to a parish for six years (with the possibility of extending it another six years). But the new policy was extremely unpopular with the deacons. Most deacons serve in the same parish to which they belonged before they became deacons. In some cases, the deacon couples/families already have decades-long roots in the parish. Some deacon couples' children are enrolled in the parish school. And unlike the situation with parish priests, the parish is not the deacon's entire life. He and his spouse usually both work outside the church, and frequently they own the home they live in. Their lives are arranged to accommodate both the parish and various other responsibilities and commitments. Trying to reassign him to another parish - possibly on the other side of the diocese - without taking all these factors into account is, frankly, a poor policy.
As a practical matter, the policy never was enforced systematically. The diaconate office never had its heart in the policy. The granting of exceptions was legion. I don't know if the policy ever has been officially overturned, but I think it's pretty much considered a dead letter now.
FWIW, I would have been "in scope" for the policy, when I hit my 10 year ordination mark. I had to write exception requests (with my pastor's vehement concurrence) a couple of times over the years. Now that I've reached age 62, I think I'm exempt from further transfers under the policy - if it even exists anymore.
As far as the "zero tolerance" of the Dallas Charter, to me this type of financial crime is different than sexual abuse. Because the material damage can be repaired, restitution can be made, but sexual abuse can't be undone.
DeleteThat is an odd policy re moving deacons around after 10 years.
DeleteIn my life as an Episcopalian, deacons served as anchors in the parish, helping to identify parish needs and encourage parishioners to fulfill needs in the larger community. Deacons also discouraged any ideas a new priest had that would not go over well in the parish.
Episcopal deacons are usually wealthy and have high-profile positions within the community (judges, school superintendents, bank presidents, small business owners, etc). No way the bishop is going to mess with them. But an Episcopal bishop has a lot less power to impose a priest on a congregation.
I've only known two Catholic deacons in the local parish. One was a complete disaster. Supposed to do all the marital counseling and Cana stuff, and made free with his opinions about the couples in his care. He decided he wanted to get married after his first wife died and was released from his vows or whatever the process is.
The current one seems to be a sweet old guy, nearly 80, with a lot of health problems and run ragged by the priest. Raber worries about him and wishes he would retire.
As far as I have ever heard, there is no policy here to move deacons after 10 years, or after any length of time. My husband is going on 24 years serving in the same parish. With the "family of parishes" thing they're doing now, he is occasionally asked to help out in one of the sister parishes, which is fine with him. The three parishes are all within ten miles of each other.
DeleteWe have the policy here to (supposedly) move priests after 6 years. But usually the older ones get to stay if they want to. I don't know if the six year policy for the younger ones is good or bad. They can extend it for another six years. We lost one priest whom everyone liked after his 12 years were up. People would have liked him to stay. But we had to grit our teeth for 6 years with another one and heaved a sigh of relief when his term was up. He left the priesthood after that, so we weren't stuck for 12 years. Don't think he liked us any better than we liked him.
Jim, about the elder Fr. Gutgsell who taught the formation class, that was way before the embezzlement thing came up, so they weren't actually pushing the problem priest off on the deacons.
DeleteKatherine/Jim, curious about whether there is something in a Catholic deacon's training or vows that indicates he needs to be prepared to relocate. Seems like that would be a deal breaker for a lot of men.
DeleteThey do promise obedience to the bishop or archbishop, and his successors. But as far as I know that doesn't include a requirement to relocate. Would be pretty hard to make that stick, since most of them aren't paid employees of the church.
DeleteI think the practical effect of the policy of limiting a priest's assignment is to prevent him from getting too ensconced in the community. I think many priests would admit that, as often as not, being given a new assignment is good for everyone: him, the old community and the new community.
DeleteOver time, the dynamic tends to be as Jean described in the Episcopal church: the deacons become symbols/sources of community stability, whereas the priests are symbols of communal dynamism and reform. In my 19 or so years as a deacon, we've had three pastors and an administrator. And still another pastor originally invited me to pursue the diaconate. I'm becoming a moss-gatherer at this place. When the kids were in school, moving to another parish seemed unthinkable. No I don't find it unimaginable, although I'm extremely happy with my current pastor and situation. But things don't stay the same, so who knows what will happen with my assignment?
I see that the funeral for the deceased priest is scheduled for Monday at the cathedral.
DeleteBack to the topic at hand: Jack, thanks for that post on the Wexford Carol. We've sung it over the years, although not at the parish I've been at since the early 1990s. We learned it during the 1980s. I think the combination of the Oxford Book of Carols, and John Rutter's recordings (certainly including the one you've linked to in your post) has been a "force multiplier" in making traditional carols from the British Isles more well-known to a large-ish audience.
ReplyDeleteI like a lot of the lesser-heard carols, such as The Snow Lay on the Ground, Good King Wenceslaus, Now the Holly Bears a Berry, There Is No Rose of Swych Vertu, etc. But mostly the group I'm in at church like to stick to the standards. Once in a while I can talk them into Lo How a Rose E're Blooming.
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