On magic and festivals...
Nov. 2nd, 2007 10:31 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
annwfynI went to Mass for All Saints yesterday.* It was a very pretty Mass, by the way, with a lot of chanting in Latin. There was also a guest preacher at the church I'd gone to, who's sermon was on All Saints, All Souls, and why Christianity does traditional celebrate a festival at this time of year.
Now, I know everyone and their dog has heard the old line 'the Christians nicked this pagan festival when they weren't looking'. This preacher took a slightly different tac which I found interesting. His line was that All Souls, in particular, comes from Ireland. According to this (very nice, Anglo-Catholic man) there has always been a celebration of this nature in Ireland because (and I quote) 'this is the turning of the year, the time when the boundary between the material world and the spiritual world is less substantial'. Or, in gamer geek terms, this is the time of year when as a matter of almost objective fact, the shroud is a bit lower, so of course that's when people celebrate their festivals of the dead.
Not so much a case of Christianity nicking someone else's festival. More a case of people celebrating at certain times of year because there is a spiritual landscape, there are times when certain things are more likely to occur.
He then went on to talk about St Christina the Astonishing, who hid in an oven to hide from the smell of sin, which was much more colourful, and I should note as well that the local priest murmured to me as I left "that was a slightly heretical sermon", but it did get me thinking. I thought it might be of especial interest to![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
lanfykins considering recent discussions on the Community Which Shall Not Be Named about why various different cultures seem to have very similar festivals at the same time of year.
Feel free to debate, discuss, or just ignore.
*This revelation is made only to set the scene for the rest of this entry. Please try and mostly ignore it.
Now, I know everyone and their dog has heard the old line 'the Christians nicked this pagan festival when they weren't looking'. This preacher took a slightly different tac which I found interesting. His line was that All Souls, in particular, comes from Ireland. According to this (very nice, Anglo-Catholic man) there has always been a celebration of this nature in Ireland because (and I quote) 'this is the turning of the year, the time when the boundary between the material world and the spiritual world is less substantial'. Or, in gamer geek terms, this is the time of year when as a matter of almost objective fact, the shroud is a bit lower, so of course that's when people celebrate their festivals of the dead.
Not so much a case of Christianity nicking someone else's festival. More a case of people celebrating at certain times of year because there is a spiritual landscape, there are times when certain things are more likely to occur.
He then went on to talk about St Christina the Astonishing, who hid in an oven to hide from the smell of sin, which was much more colourful, and I should note as well that the local priest murmured to me as I left "that was a slightly heretical sermon", but it did get me thinking. I thought it might be of especial interest to
lanfykins considering recent discussions on the Community Which Shall Not Be Named about why various different cultures seem to have very similar festivals at the same time of year.Feel free to debate, discuss, or just ignore.
*This revelation is made only to set the scene for the rest of this entry. Please try and mostly ignore it.
