The Vigil of Epiphany…………..
Christmas Stilton
Well we’ve made it safely to the end of the Christmas season….today is traditionally the day you exchanged gifts or presents…like the kings who brought their gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh….
Today is the day to go a-wassailing….the carol of the twelfth night….this was the night the king and queen dressed down and the lord of misrule dressed up….and the game at the mask was to identify the king and queen….women and men routinely cross-dressed and the streets were full revellers drinking and dancing…into the dawn. The themes of this topsy-turvy world is picked up by Shakespeare in his play Twelfth Night ( first performed in fact on Candlemas in Middle Temple)…Viola the heroine dressing up as a man…and Malvolio, a commoner, imagining he might become a nobleman…
Let’s get something clear about these twelve days and the Twelfth Night….the first day begins at Midnight Mass…indeed putting a mass at Midnight is for that very purpose…to enable the feast to begin on the turn of the day…The Easter Vigil is another such festival where the service takes place around midnight. This makes the last night of Christmas the night of 5th January that carries over and into the 6th January as the Season of Christmas actually ends with the Mass of Epiphany (which was usually said at six in the morning). That Mass was a grand public occasion in the European courts… the whole court changed into flamboyant gold costumes…for a great procession onto the royal chapel….and afterwards there was a grand breakfast feast…a term we still apply to a Wedding Feast…the wedding breakfast…
These sorts of traditions still survive in such occasions as May Balls in Cambridge where the ball ends with breakfast…a breakfast that traditionally could only be served after Mass….
I also note from shopping on the Web that many entrepreneurs seem to think the twelve days of Christmas are the twelve days before Christmas Day. It would not have been possible for a medieval peasant to make such a mistake since Advent…the season leading up to Christmas was one of fasting and abstinence…these days there’s a similar confusion over Easter….the Saturday before Easter being Holy Saturday the last day of Holy Week…and Easter Saturday being the Saturday after Easter and the last day of Easter Week….the following day being Low Sunday….
Does any of this matter….probably not a fig or even piece of figgy-pudding…but ignorance is always a hindrance to understanding the world about us……
Let’s end the season with a Carol and one that aptly takes us on the journey of the kings…..Epiphany….was one of the greatest feasts…it means to Manifest or make known…it is the first time God made Man is made manifest, shown to, the Gentiles…the non-Jews…and the three kings coming to worship Jesus at the Manger stand proxy for all of us…
Below one of my favourite carols….Three kings from Persian lands afar…
Cornelius – The Three Kings
► 2:28► 2:28
www.youtube.com/watch?v=a2dNKv48WJQ
12 Feb 2007 – 2 min – choralfan
A perform