Possibly My Favorite Piece of Holy Season Music (Video)

"Our God, heaven cannot hold him, 

nor earth sustain;

heaven and earth shall flee away

when he comes to reign."

This tops my list of favorite music for the season. Anyone surprised?

Text: Christina G. Rossetti

Music: Gustav Holst

Performed by: Chanticleer

The Last Wordle for Christmas Day 2012

Wonderful Counselor, 

Mighty God, 

Everlasting Father, 

Prince of Peace 

Isaiah 9:6

December 24: O Holy, Holy, Holy. . .

'Tis the Season to be Unconscious

Back in October, the American Family Association* starting polling members about Christmas blah blah. Would members be willing to boycotting at least one national retailer for failing to use the word "Christmas" in holiday advertising? Guess they were, because at the beginning of November the AFA called for a two-month boycott of Gap, Old Navy, and Banana Republic stores.

I believe in First Amendment rights, which I liberally interpret to include every American's right to sound/read unaware, insensitive, or downright stupid. Normally, I choose to ignore these kinds of campaigns. I'm having more difficulty doing so this year, probably because I'm more focused than usual on what passes (or doesn't) as interfaith dialogue.

Ever the glutton for aggravation, I've spent time trolling the blogosphere for posts and comments about the AFA campaign. First, the good news: a fair number of observers manage to zoom in on the offensiveness of turning an important Christian holy day into a celebration of retail transactions. I'm with them on that, but my non-rhinoplastied nose is still out of joint.

These commentaries still fail to zero in on what, as far as I am concerned, a more radical issue: not everyone in the world magically becomes Christian during December. Assuming that everyone does (or should) is beyond insensitive. It's insulting to Jews and Muslims.

Old habits of being die hard -- or not at all. I was baptized (as an adult) years ago, but having been raised Jewish, I nevertheless derive some seasonal cheer from knowing Christianity didn't even exist when Jesus was born. Heck, December 24th didn't even exist.

I confess: pondering this generates the same frisson of glee I feel whenever I have an opportunity to explain that Jesus wasn't Catholic and Christ was not his last name.


*The AFA "represents and stands for traditional family values and exists to motivate and equip citizens to reform our culture to reflect Biblical truth on which it was founded."

Unto Us a Child is Born Again and Again...

"Glory to God in the highest
and on earth peace to those on whom his favor rests."

Luke 2:14

The Nativity of the Lord

Now it feels like Christmas!

Let every heart prepare Him room...

It's Almost the Night Before Christmas...Go Fish!

Years ago, when I told my Jewish mother I was on my way to becoming Catholic, she had the chutzpah to ask, "How did this happen?" Amazing. How could she forget about foisting fish on Fridays?

On Shabbat, instead of roasted chicken or a nice brisket (note: "brisket" is always modified by "nice"), we usually had fish. Often scallops, sometimes shrimp scampi. Is it any surprise that on the night before Christmas I so easily come under the thrall of Sicilian Catholics?

Their pre-Christmas Vigil meal involves at least three fish dishes (representing the Holy Trinity) and as many as thirteen (representing the Last Supper) but usually net out at seven (representing either Creation or the Seven Deadly Sins).

The Feast of the Seven Fishes includes a variety of seafood and shellfish. It's all prepared with enough garlic to guarantee spacious pew seating even if you arrive late for midnight Mass.

You could try cooking this extravaganza at home following menus and recipes on Epicurious or What's For Dinner? But why? More fun and less labor intensive to wrangle an invite from first generation Italians. Just be prepared for the high-decibel-and-velocity conversation and unless you were also raised Italian or Jewish, don't even try keeping up -- with any of it.

Making Light for the Season: Candles Never Taper Off

My dear friends are so dear. Yesterday, one wanted to know if I display candles in every window at dusk during this holy season. I do not because of technical difficulties having to do with my window sills and window treatments.

She loves them. What do they represent?

Apparently, Christmas candle lighting customs are not explained to congregants of Temple Beth Emmanuel. But then, these customs aren't routinely explained to (adult) church goers either. No joke! Every year I get asked about these traditions by baptized-at-birth Christians.

Here's a very short list of ethnic Christmas candle traditions:

Displaying candles in windows was started by 19th century Irish immigrants. These candles are supposed to be lit after praying the evening Angelus.

Lighting one red candle big enough to last the 12 days of Christmas is another Irish tradition. Children receive small colored candles that are lit from the flame of the big one during a home-based ceremony on Christmas Eve after the Angelus.

In France and England, a three-candle candelabra is lit on Christmas Eve to represent the Holy Trinity.

Slavic families keep their large Christmas candle at the center of the table. Ukrainians use a loaf of bread as the candle holder. (Probably not challah.)

They do represent the light of Christ, the promise of peace. They are not intended to light the way for Santa or grandparents bearing gifts.

Later this week, I'll have more to say about Christmas food traditions, a slew of which are listed in The Catholic Home. Hint: Fish.

Find a Messiah Sing-Along! Make a Joyful Noise!

It's beginning to sound a lot like Christmas.

No, not around here. Here, I'm still listening to Advent music, which basically means putting O Come, O Come Emmanuel on continuous play. And not at the mall, which I avoid -- can't risk hearing I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus.

What sounds like Christmas and welcomed by me during Advent is Handel's oratorio, The Messiah. If I had enough energy and throat lozenges, I could spend almost all next week and weekend participating in The Messiah Sing-Along events.

I'd tote my very own copy of the score. (Note: Makes a great gift, that's how I got mine.) I'd be warmed up from singing along with my current favorite recording. I'd certainly know enough to stand with one ear in the alto section and another with the sopranos for easy access to both. I, for one, do not attempt high octave runs any more.

I'd go even if I couldn't read music or sing tolerably well. I stand by what I wrote in The Catholic Home years ago: "Lip sync if you must, but don't pass up the opportunity to be embraced by what is perhaps the most glorious musical tribute to Jesus the Christ ever written."

A Child's [Jewish] Christmas in New Jersey

Yes, many American Jews really do deal with the annual Baby Jesus Birthday Bash by going out for Chinese food and then to the movies. No, this is not a goofy offensive stereotype. "Chinese and a movie" is a treasured memory of my Reform Jewish childhood in the New Jersey suburbs. This, by the way, was the childhood I was forced into having when my parents moved from the Holy Land (New York City/Brooklyn) to the New World (Bergen County).

Lifetimes -- all of them mine -- have passed since those years of Suburban Captivity and although I've long since converted to sushi, I start jonesing for Chinese food on the morning of Christmas Eve. It's probably a good thing that the Chinese chow of my childhood is almost impossible to find these days. It was often dreadful. We thought it was delicious.

During the 1950s and 1960s, "going out for Chinese" meant going to a Cantonese restaurant, usually located in a shopping center, a few doors down from the supermarket and the one-and-only pizzeria in town. Cantonese cuisine was so subtle as to be nearly without flavor; totally unlike the Schezwan style that's now ubiquitous. It was a great corrective to the heavy, acid reflux-inducing fare of Eastern Europe. It was also a great way to assert assimilation and flirt with forbidden food for a greater good, viz., repudiating Christian holy days.

My parents had no problem eating treyf inside or outside our home. The rules of kashruth had been laid to final rest, along with the Orthodox family members who had faithfully observed them. My parents were not unusual in this (dis)regard. Thus, it would come to pass that an entire generation of Jews celebrated Christmas by scarfing down the following, carefully selected from columns A & B:

Won Ton SoupBarbecued Spare RibsEgg RollsMoo Goo Gai PanWor Shu OpSweet and Sour Pork
Pepper SteakShrimp with Lobster SauceWhite Rice or Pork Fried RiceFortune Cookies(Not Green) Tea

I don't remember anyone ever using chop sticks.

What am I eating before tonight's Midnight Mass? Chicken soup.

ADVENTure Continues (4th Week)

It's the fourth Sunday in Advent and I'm busy sucking on lemon mint herbal throat lozenges. My throat doesn't hurt, I just like the taste of church music. It's the closest I ever get to synesthesia.

I'm getting ready for Christmas and excited about singing with a choir again. I haven't sung the Christmas Vigil Mass at midnight in years. My reasons?

Quite frankly, I was growing tired of spending Christmas Day wiped out with oratorio-induced adrenal fatigue. While I loved the rush that resulted from hours of singing, I did not love the subsequent crash. Or, for that matter, the time tripping. It's one thing to stay up all night at home, wandering around in flannel jammies and eating pretzels. It's quite another to begin peeling off pantyhose, swabbing off make-up, and chowing down a full meal at 2:30 AM. Plus, I couldn't help but notice that prayer was slowly being eclipsed by performance.

The lemon mint herbal throat lozenges that had once tasted like hymns, anthems and psalms, started tasting bitter. And so, I opted out and focused on making a joyful noise unto the Lord in my acoustically superior shower stall.

Whenever I think that healing happens in the strangest ways, I remind myself that nothing is impossible -- or strange -- for God. In June, I participated in a Gregorian chant and polyphony workshop. Last month, I went to lots of funerals and sang everything, including whatever the Cantor was offering up.

At one funeral, the healing mercy of God appeared to my right in the form of a former choir mate, one whose voice is like molten gold with threads of silver and flashes of sapphire. By the Alleluia, we were one voice interwoven and lifted in prayer. Shortly thereafter, I realized that singing with others was, for me, an essential spiritual practice. As for singing Christmas Vigil, this seems like the perfect time to celebrate birth as well as resurrection. Gloria in excelsis deo, et in terra pax hominibus bonae voluntatis!

Purple Madonna

This gem arrived in this morning's email from one of my whimsical and super-literate friends who always finds great stuff while wandering the world wide web. Here's the Story of the Day at Story People:

Purple Madonna

One time on Hollywood Boulevard I saw a young girl with a baby. It was a crisp winter morning & her hair shown dark purple in the sun. She was panhandling outside the Holiday Inn & the door clerk came out & told her to be on her way & I wondered if anyone would recognize the Christ child if they happened to meet. I remember thinking it's not like there are published pictures & purple seemed like a good color for a Madonna so I gave her a dollar just in case.