This will be Dr Ian Elmer's last commentary for Catholica for a while. He has been called to higher things and the long voluntary commitment he has made to Catholica since we started has come to an end. Catholica is not an academic journal and in the new year Ian will be moving on to write for academic journals where his work is subject to the "peer review" which is essential to further consolidate his credentials now that he has been awarded his doctorate. I trust the readers of Catholica will join me in extending our deep appreciation to you, Ian, for the enormous contribution you have made to Catholica Australia in our first 18 months of publishing. We will certainly look forward to seeing your work in more august journals around the world and, from time to time, borrowing from them to publish here. Ian, we are already aware of the wonderful reputation you have established amongst the young people you have been teaching. It has been wonderful having here in Catholica two gifted teachers like yourself and Dr Andrew Kania who both have exceedingly high rapport with young people as teachers. We need many more like you who can open up "the Good News of Jesus Christ" in a world that has been closing its ears to his "Good News". We wish you well in now going on to enthuse much larger audiences. Ian's final commentary for us today is a joy-filled Advent commentary looking at the guy who helped start all this Christmas caper, St Stephen..

St Stephen and Our Earliest "Christmas" Feast…

Good King Wenceslaus went out
On the Feast of Stephen,
When the snow lay round about
Deep and crisp and even.

We sing these words every Christmas, probably with little thought to their meaning. Many may not even be able to guess the date of the "Feast of Stephen", let alone the significance of saint whom this day commemorates. For those who may not know, we celebrate the "Feast of Stephen" on December 26, the day after Christmas, and he is chiefly remembered as the Church's first martyr (Acts 6:1-8:1); indeed, we call him the "Protomartyr". But how did the Feast of Stephen come to be associated with the Christmas festival?

Feasts and Festivals…

Icon of St Stephen

The Feast of Stephen holds an important place in the cycle of the seasons as Advent gives way to Christmas, and as the stories of the Hebrew Scriptures and the "ancient dispensation" (John of the Cross, Romance IX: The Birth of Christ) make way for the stories of Christ and his followers.

The term "Christmas" literally means "Christ's Mass" — that is, the Mass celebrated on the day of the Christ's birth. The mood of the festival, the decoration of the church, and the tone of the liturgy signal a radical transition from the preceding period of Advent.

In the western Christian tradition, the four Sundays prior to Christmas were called Advent, coming from the Latin verb advenire, meaning "to come towards". The church is decorated in purple, along with the priest who wears the same colour, reflecting the words of the first reading from the Midnight Mass, which speaks of "a people who lived in the land of deep shadow" awaiting the coming of a "great light" (Is 9:2). In this vein, the Scripture readings of Advent are drawn from those texts in the Hebrew prophets and the Gospels that speak of the coming of the Messiah and the ministry of John the Baptist in preparing the way for Christ, respectively (Jungmann, 1959).

By contrast, at the "Christ Mass" on December 25th, the church is decorated and ablaze with lights. The liturgical colours have shifted from purple to gold and white and the traditional green/red themes. Much incense is used. Christ has come. This was a time of great celebration and, hence, we designate this day a "feast" in the liturgical calendar.

Immediately after this high feast day, we remember Stephen who, according to Acts (6:1-8:1), was the first convert from Judaism to die for his new faith in the Messiah Jesus. Like John the Baptist, whose story figures prominently in Advent, Stephen stands as testament to the coming of Christ. John the Baptist, speaking for the "prophets of old" (Mk 6:15; cf. Acts 7:52) looks forward to the messianic age; Stephen, as "a man full of grace and power" (Acts 6:8) demonstrates the arrival of that age by working "great signs and wonders" (Acts 6:8). The eschatological hopes expressed in the readings and liturgies of Advent find fulfilment in the story of Stephen. This all comes together in a package that appear to be nice and neat — but, as in all things to do with the human history, that is not entirely correct!

The Feast of Stephen…

The Feast of Stephen actually predates the Christmas feast, and originally stood at the head of a series of feasts commemorating the holy martyrs (Jungmann, 1959: 270). So, for example, the memory of the sons of Zebedee, James and John, was traditionally celebrated on December 27th; since James is reckoned the second martyr of the Church's history (Acts 12:1-5).

Christmas was only established on December 25th in 336 C.E. (Julian calendar) to, some would say, offset the pagan celebration of the winter solstice at the Saturnalia (Chadwick, 1993). The reality, however, is probably more likely to involve an attempt to counter Arianism and its central claim that Jesus was not fully divine (except in an inferior and derivative sense). The season of Advent was added even later (c. 550 C.E.) as a time of preparation.

The Feast of Stephen was celebrated as the major holy day of the period for at least two centuries. Even when it was first introduced, Christmas remained a relatively minor feast day in comparison to Stephen's Day. Indeed, so ancient is the feast of Stephen it appears in our oldest prayer books and, hence, liturgist Josef Jungmann (1959) argues that the date chosen for Stephen's feast day, December 26th, may represent a genuine memory of the actual date of the Protomartyr's death.

Even after Christmas began to emerge as a major season in the liturgical calendar, St Stephen remained a perennial favourite amongst the faithful. In time he became the patron saint of casket makers, coffin makers, deacons, headaches, masons, stone masons and horses!

"Horses?" you say! I kid you not…

Probably beginning some time in the early middle ages, Saint Stephen was venerated as patron of horses. A poem of the tenth century pictures him as the owner of a horse which was cured by Jesus — thus explaining Stephen's conversion. As there is no historical basis for the tale of the horse, various explanations have been attempted. Some are founded on ancient Germanic ritual celebrations of pagan horse sacrifices at Yuletide. Others mention an obscure Swedish saint called Staffan who was killed by pagans in Helsingland and whose shrine at Norrtalje became a place of pilgrimage to which sick horses were brought. The "Staffan Riders" parade through the towns of Sweden on 26th December, singing ancient carols in honour of the "Saint of Horses".

In later medieval times, the farmers in a number of European countries would also decorate their horses on Stephen's Day, and then bring them to the Church to be blessed by the priest. After the blessing, they would then ride them three times around the church, a custom still observed in many rural areas, and later in the day the whole family would go for a ride in a wagon or sleigh (Saint Stephen's ride). This latter practice may account for the association of Santa and his sleigh. In many western European countries, like Holland and Denmark, Santa appears riding a white horse — again, with possible links to Stephen traditions.

To pursue this theme further, in Medieval Europe horses' food, mostly hay and oats, was also blessed on Stephen's Day. In sections of Poland, historical research suggests that there was a widespread tradition of tossing oats at the priest after Mass on December 26th. Popular legends say this custom is an imitation of stoning, performed in honour of the St Stephen's martyrdom; others say, predictably, that it is the remnant of some ancient pagan fertility rite (Southern, 1959).

Boxing Day Test match

Nevertheless, St Stephen's Day remains in the secular calendar an important date for leisure and sporting events. Traditionally, many of the American "blockbuster holiday movies" are released to Australian cinemas on December 26th. In some parts of England there is an annual fox hunt. In a throwback to earlier associations, Boxing Day is commonly set aside for horse racing carnivals, as is the case here in Australia — although, December 26th is probably best noted for the start of the Boxing Day Cricket Test and the Sydney-to-Hobart Yacht Race. And that raises another interesting question: how did St Stephen's Day become "Boxing Day"?

Boxing Day and Gift Giving…

Today, we associate December 26th with "Boxing Day"; but this too has a direct link to older Stephen traditions and, indirectly, stands behind the practice of giving gifts at Christmas. It is interesting to note the fact that earthenware "boxes" were used by the Romans in Ancient times for collecting money to help pay for the pagan festivities at the winter Saturnalia celebrations. But perhaps any links between this practice and "Boxing Day" are a bit tenuous; the association between Stephen's feats and boxing gifts dates from the middle ages, long after the last vestigial remains of the Greco-Roman pagan cult had disappeared.

From the earliest beginnings of monasticism in Western Christendom, St Stephen's Day was the day when the alms boxes from the monasteries and churches were opened and the money given to the priest or used to help the poor and needy (Chadwick, 1993). The carol with which we began this commentary, Good King Wenceslas, is set on St Stephen's Day and outlines how the Catholic king of Bohemia in the 10th century made charitable attempts to give food to the poor.

In like vein, today, many parishes in Australia hold their annual collection for St Vincent de Paul on Christmas day. Most of us are also familiar with the little boxes used by Project Compassion during Lent each year. In the seventeenth century, a similar practice was used to collect money to give poor apprentices what we today would call a "Christmas bonus". The donations were collected in earthenware containers, which resembled modern day "piggy banks" and which could only be opened by being smashed. On the day following Christmas Day the apprentices would eagerly have a "smashing time".

Over the next century, the practice of giving "Christmas boxes" on St. Stephens Day became more widely practiced, even beyond the trades. Gifts were traditionally given to all who provided "services" — posties, policemen, lamp-lighters, scavengers, butchers' and bakers' boys, tradesmen's journeymen, and household servants. This tradition has now mostly ceased and any Christmas tips, given to people such as garbage collectors, postal workers and newspaper delivery children, are not normally given or collected on Boxing Day. The focus of gift-giving has now shifted to Christmas day; although its roots are firmly embedded in the much older "Feast of Stephen".

In our culture, the Feast of Stephen has become a day for horse racing, cricket tests, "Holiday" movie releases, and of course, the first post-Christmas sales. Quite a change from the day set aside for the remembrance of the Church's Protomartyr, and perhaps a return to the old pagan festivities of Saturnalia?

Bibliography and Further Reading:
Chadwick, H. (1993), The Early Church. Rev. Ed. (London: Penguin).
John of the Cross (1959), Poems. Trans. R. Campbell (Glascow: Collins).
Jungmann, J. A. (1959), The early liturgy: To the time of Gregory the Great. Trans. F. A. Brunner (London: Darton, Longman & Todd).
Southern, R. W. (1959), The Making of the Middle Ages (London: Arrow Books).

Photo Credits:
"Boxing Day Test 2007" What is Happening inMelbournme 2007.
URL: www.hotelbakpak.com/www/33/files/fans.jpg
"Boxing Day Test 6 B.C.E." © 2007 Nicholson
URL: www.nicholsoncartoons.com.au/cartoons/beach/img9.jpg
"St Stephen" by Giotto c. 1320 C.E. St Stephen and the Wren (2006).
URL: www.geocities.com/Paris/LeftBank/9314/giottosteve.jpg

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©2007 Ian Elmer

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