On the twelfth day of
Christmas,
my true love gave
to me
Twelve drummers
drumming,*
Eleven pipers
piping,
Two
turtledoves, and
* On the twelfth
day of Christmas, the American bishops said to me ... Tomorrow's not
Epiphany! ... In their infinite
wisdom (is there an emoticon for sarcasm?),
although the Feast of the Epiphany is historically and properly
celebrated on 6 January, the US bishops have pretty much universally decreed a transferal of the feast to the nearest Sunday.
... But tonight is "Twelfthnight," and tomorrow really is Epiphany.
Cheers!
I attended Mass and quietly celebrated the Epiphany on January 6. There seems to be the sense among the bishops that important feast days need to be moved to Sundays if enough people are going to be aware of them or attend them. Of course, this is nothing new, as considerable controversy was created when Easter itself was moved permanently to Sunday. So no, I would prefer Epiphany ON Epiphany, but I try not to be cranky about it. I'm only a half-baked fundamentalist ... 80)
ReplyDeleteYes, but I think it's an unfortunate giving in to religious laxity and putting spiritual commitment last. Most of the time it doesn't grate on me so much, but times like this when it wrecks the whole gist of the Twelve Days of Christmas, or when we celebrate Ascension Thursday on Sunday.... (In the latter case it gets surreal: In our small southern town we share our pianist with the Lutherans - she's Methodist, by the way - and it's a yearly conflict when she can't make our weekly Thursday-night practice to practice for the Ascension because she's playing for the Lutherans celebrating it on the right day!)
ReplyDeleteAnd sometimes I just like to be cranky.