As I write this, on December 18, I have been home for most of the last week with a head cold. My head is still stuffed up, and I am still in something of a fog from the DayQuil I have been taking. But I have to write a homily for the 4th Sunday of Advent and of course for Christmas. Mariana has just come in to tell me that I need to write this column because the bulletin for December 29 needs to be submitted by tomorrow. What to write on? So I thought, “What exactly are the 12 days of Christmas?”
We are all familiar with the old English Christmas carol about the 12 days of Christmas. Some of you may know that from 1558 until 1829, Roman Catholics in England were not permitted to practice their faith openly. Someone during that era wrote this carol as a catechism song for young Catholics. It has two levels of meaning: the surface meaning plus a hidden meaning known only to members of the Church. Each element in the carol has a code word for a religious reality which the children could remember. A quick search of the Internet will reveal the meaning of each of the code words in the carol, or you can read Ann Ball’s book, Handbook of Catholic Sacramentals. Yet, clearly there was already the idea of 12 days of Christmas before the carol.
The 12 days themselves are simply the time between the two major Christmas feasts: the Nativity of the Lord on December 25 and Epiphany on January 6. Since Christmas was the major “birth” feast in the ancient Western churches and Epiphany was the biggie for the Eastern churches, the days between them inevitably gained significance. The exact origins of particular observances and festivals, though, are a little harder to nail down.
But the 12 days are really only part of our Christmas observance, which also includes important feast days in honor of Stephen, the first martyr (December 26); John the evangelist (December 27); and the Holy Innocents, the infants slain by King Herod (December 28, Matt. 2:16–18). These are known as the comites Christi, “companions of Christ,” because their lives gave unique witness to Jesus through martyrdom (Stephen and the Innocents) and the written word (John).
Other Christmas feasts include the Holy Family (Sunday after Christmas) and Mary, Mother of God (January 1). The liturgical season of Christmas ends with the feast of the Lord’s Baptism (Sunday after Epiphany).
Unfortunately, like the 50 days of Easter joy that we often forget after a rigorous 40 days of Lenten fasting (notice which is longer!), our Christmas party often ends too early. But though we wait a bit to get our holy days going, they carry us far beyond the Orange Bowl. So don’t eat all the cookies on Christmas Day!