Abbey Chat 10/20/99 Beirdd Tue Nov 2 18:12:09 1999 The following is a transcript of the Abbey Chat of October 20, 1999. This transcript is comprised of the "official" portion of the chat, from opening to closing. The "afterchat," which was also quite interesting, will appear shortly in another post.*p*--Beirdd*p*-----------------------------------------*p*Beirdd: Welcome to the Abbey Chat of the Summerlands Spiritual Synchronicity Series...*br*Beirdd: (I love being able to name new things ;-)*br*Beirdd: The purpose of this and future chats of the series is to provide a peek at the sacred ground shared by the Celts/Druids *br*Beirdd: and others so as to deepen our own appreciation of Celtic tradition and druidry while helping us to understand*br*Beirdd: a bit more how the greatest aspirations of all people create for humanity a worthy gathering place.*br*Beirdd: Please feel free to interrupt with a ? or a ! at any time -- I’m a great believer in the “teachable moment” :-)*br** TopazOwl smiles*br*Beirdd: And I promise not to keep us here too long :-)*br*Beirdd: Tonight’s topic is “Celtic and Catholic: How Celebration and Ritual Reveal a Common Nemeton.”*br*Beirdd: Let me begin with a video ;-)*br*Beirdd: I'm not sure if any of you have seen this one before...*br*Beirdd: It is close to midnight. The people have gathered in the dark with their white robed leaders in their midst.*br*Beirdd: The night wind carries with it both the memory of Winter’s chill and the promise of spring.*br*Beirdd: *br*Beirdd: A small flame is ignited and from this small flame a large bonfire soon erupts, filling the gathering place with light and warmth.*br*Beirdd: The people each take a bit of the fire and all follow their leaders to the place of sacrifice.*br*Beirdd: Three blows against the gate and the way is opened. All enter the sacred place where they listen to*br*Beirdd: the tale of the king accepting the triple death for the sake of his people.*br*Beirdd: They watch as fire and water, are mingled to bring about the spiritual births of the year’s initiates.*br*Beirdd: The people are blessed with sacred water sprinkled with a fresh sprig of evergreen.*br*Beirdd: The offerings are sanctified by fire as the leader gestures in three threes while circling the altar deocil.*br*Beirdd: The sacrifice is offered and a new king comes with the promise and power of another world and gifts to strengthen the chilled spirit.*br*Beirdd: The gathering disperses in song and revelry.*br** Beirdd clicks off the VCR*br*Beirdd: So...*br*Beirdd: The Feast of Beltaine 2500 years past?*br*Beirdd: Actually....no.*br*Beirdd: *br*Beirdd: It’s the Easter Vigil celebrated in a Catholic Church in 1999.*br*TopazOwl: I'll bet not.*br*Deborah: A Catholic Mass???*br*Beirdd: yep*br*TopazOwl: :-)*br*Beirdd: The primary celebration of the year and one of the oldest*br*Searles: !The 15th inning at Shea Stadium?*br*Beirdd: LOL*br*Beirdd: Don't torture me...*br** Beirdd is a Mets fan*br*LdyHarp: wow, Ive never attended an easter vigil like that*br*Beirdd: That's how it's supposed to be done*br*TopazOwl: I have.*br** LdyHarp feels like shes missed out*br*Beirdd: LOL*br*Deborah: yup*br*Beirdd: and it is, more and more*br*Beirdd: anyway...*br*Beirdd: There has been much recent discussion about the Catholic Church and its relationship with the pagan peoples of Europe. *br** TopazOwl rolls her eyes*br*Beirdd: I hate to disappoint anyone, especially not you, Owl, but this is not the matter for tonight’s presentation. *br*Beirdd: For that, you will have to continue to depend on the amazingly acute historic scholarship *br*TopazOwl: Fine by me, Shweetie. :-)*br*Beirdd: of those leaders of the pagan community who are quite willing to share and air the contents of their sapiential fonts*br*Beirdd: with whomever they deem it necessary to teach.*br*Beirdd: Tonight, I’d like to give you a brief and very incomplete idea of the sacred ground shared by pre-Christian Celtic culture*br*Beirdd: and the rituals practiced by the Catholic Church, historically and even to this day.*br*Deborah: cool*br*Beirdd: All of you are familiar with some of the coincidences between Celtic and Christian religious celebrations.*br*Beirdd: Most would attribute these to, let’s see, “The Church co-opting the traditions of the people in an effort to*br*Beirdd: solidify its authority over the common folk.”*br*Beirdd: ;-)*br*Searles: !*br*Beirdd: yes Searles?*br*Searles: I was just thinking about this on the way home from work today*br*Searles: and it seemed to me that spirituality is an expressionof itself in human cultural terms*br*Deborah: !*br*Beirdd: Deb?*br*Searles: The differences between pre-and post Christion religious expression seems to be when it gets seperated from spirit by dogma that has no life to it.*br*Searles: ga*br*Deborah: Beirdd... I would consider that, up to a point. Things of the spirit that work often find their ways into the unconscious and manifest within the different religions in amazing similar ways*br*Deborah: sorry... fast enter button there <GGG>*br*Deborah: ga*br*Beirdd: yes they do, Deb...*br*Beirdd: And then, we can't be too sure about how the practice of the druids was really recieved by most of the "common" Celts*br*Beirdd: Perhaps they complained about collections, too :-)*br*Deborah: .*br*TopazOwl: <g>*br*Beirdd: I think it's a hazard of humanity that the matters of the spirit often struggle against the "temptations" of the everyday human condition.*br*Deborah: amen to that*br*Beirdd: I wonder if we would continue to climb the ladder of perfection if that tension didn't exist...*br*Beirdd: perhaps we wouldn't have to.*br*Beirdd: Now... the majority of Catholic traditions have as their origin two main sources, one traditionally taught*br*Beirdd: and one that I am coming to see more and more. The traditional source of Catholic ritual and belief is, of course, Judaism.*br*Beirdd: In terms of ritual, Judaism has provided the outline for liturgy that is even imitated by many pagan groups today:*br*Beirdd: Opening - Directing the Mind to Prayer - Sacred reading with responses - teaching - Offering - Sacrifice - Offering of Prayer Intentions - Ritual Meal - Closing*br*Beirdd: That the Jewish traditions permeate all of Catholic ritual is without question.*br*Beirdd: In my slow and limited learning about Celtic traditions, however, I have been amazed at the “coincidences” I have found,*br*Beirdd: or maybe they are better named "synchronicities" :-)*br*Beirdd: many of which are not so obvious or popularly recognizable. I see this as the Celtic heritage of Catholicsm.*br*Beirdd: Why should such a thing be?*br*Beirdd: Two reasons: 1) The *peaceful* “conversion” of the Irish -- so peaceful in fact, that it is the only example of*br*Beirdd: martyr-free conversion in Church history, that is to say that Christian missionaries and new converts*br*Beirdd: were not killed by others reluctant to join them. (This contributed strangely to the unique character of Irish Catholicism that exists to this day).*br*Beirdd: 2) The *complete* conversion of the Irish which, though it may taste bad on some modern pagans’ tongues,*br*Beirdd: created an identity between “Celtic” and “Catholic” which led to, not a co-opting of beliefs,*br*Beirdd: but a true amalgamation of traditions that even defied Romanization.*br*Beirdd: How did this happen? Or why?*br*Beirdd: Perhaps there was something about Christianity that attracted the Celts, particularly the Druids.*br*Beirdd: They were so used to fighting for their freedom...why not against the new religion?*br*Searles: !*br*Beirdd: yes Searles?*br*Searles: Maybe there was something about the Celts that attracted Christianity?*br*Searles: Celtic religion already had pretty much the same ideas as early Christianity*br*Beirdd: :-) I'm sure there was*br*Searles: with the exception of being a more open to all classes type of religion in its mysteries.*br*Searles: There was the Young Son.*br*Searles: The Sacred Mother*br*Searles: The All-Father.*br*Searles: The Sun and the Moon and the Stars or the Creator of the elements.*br*Searles: etc...*br*Searles: There was also a belief in a heaven of sorts.*br*Searles: anyway...ga*br*Beirdd: You're right on all those points...I'm glad you mentioned them because I had omitted those observations for time's sake...*br*Beirdd: Either way, there was already a common ground...*br*Beirdd: There are the Threes, from the Trinity (which was not an altogether new idea to the Celts who honored some gods in three aspects),*br*Beirdd: to the threes associated with the Crucifixion of Christ and the idea of the king’s triple death for the sake of the “land.”*br*Beirdd: Who knows for certain?*br*Beirdd: I'm sure the attraction was mutual.*br*Beirdd: In any case, the leadership of the Church in Ireland was made up of the same class of people who had sent their sons to the druids.*br*Beirdd: And where did those druids go anyway? Into hiding? The answer may lie in a hairstyle...;-)*br*Beirdd: (One of the eventual complaints from Rome about the Celtic Church was the form of the Celtic tonsure*br*Beirdd: which imitated the traditional tonsure of the druids, who preferred to avoid the baldness that the Celts associated with slaves).*br*Beirdd: With a leadership made up of former or potential druids, how could there not be an influx of the Celtic into the Catholic?*br*Beirdd: Remember, these same priests and monks eventually preserved Western culture and re-evangelized Europe. *br*Beirdd: And they were, despite being corralled by Rome, a stubborn lot!*br*Beirdd: For the remainder of this presentation, I am simply going to offer a number of points of contact between the Celtic and the Catholic.*br*Beirdd: Please feel free to stop me for questions and comments*br*Beirdd: And someone, please nudge Grey Wolf awake...*br*TopazOwl: !*br*Beirdd: Yes, Owl?*br*TopazOwl: I was just going to say that.*br*TopazOwl: :-)*br*Beirdd: :-)*br*Beirdd: First, a comparison of calendars.*br*TopazOwl: I was going to say earlier that perhaps the Druids saw the Truth of spirit in Padraig.*br*TopazOwl: And perhaps this is why they followed him. Because of the truth of his soul.*br*Searles: !*br*Beirdd: and it was virtually a one-man show up there with Patrick in the middle...he must have been quite a charismatic character.*br*Beirdd: Yes, Searles?*br*Searles: Many of the Druids became Poets...perhaps accounting for the tremendous increase in their numbers in the 6th century.*p*TopazOwl: Yes.*br*Searles: Many also entered the Church and a few just went into the woods :-)*br*Beirdd: yes, to both points*br*Beirdd: but I even wonder about the poets sometimes...because the pronunciation of "filidh" sounds virtually identical to the Latin word for "children"*br*Beirdd: which is one of the things that new converts to Christianity called themselves.*br*Searles: yes it is uncanny, isn't it?*br*Beirdd: Perhaps a play on words? *br*Beirdd: Let’s start with this time of year (although the liturgical year for Catholics begins with Advent, around the end of November, which usually places it within weeks of Samhain).*br*Beirdd: The earliest celebration of All Hallows (All Saints Day) on November 1st is traced to the year 800 by Alcuin, an Anglo-Saxon bishop.*br*Beirdd: BTW: well after the Celtic Church had been "Romanized."*br*Beirdd: Its placement was eventually universally accepted to concretize a celebration of Roman martyrs that had been held since the early 4th century.*br*Beirdd: All Souls Day (Nov. 2) is more properly Samhain-like since it commemorates all the dead. It was first celebrated by Abbot Odilo of Cluny in northern France*br*Beirdd: in the mid-11th century only for monastic groups. It took decades for it to be accepted for the whole Church,*br*Beirdd: which was reluctant to place the date so close to Samhain! The old Roman celebration of Pomona is also at this date.*br*Beirdd: Other that are obvious or not-so:*br*Beirdd: Christmas and the Winter Solstice (with the Saturnalia). The common ground here is too obvious, and goes way beyond Europe.*br*TopazOwl: Hmm. I thought it was because of that that they put it near Samhain.*br*Beirdd: Actually, Rome preferred ot to be placed elsewhere and it had been celebrated in the spring.*br*Beirdd: Here, evidently, the Gaul won out :-)*br*TopazOwl: Okay. So that's a myth too? :-)*br*Beirdd: Yes...it's actually one of the few times we see that the Church *didn't* want to place a feast near a pagan one :-)*br*Searles: !*br*TopazOwl: Well, I can see that...not wanting the ghoulies associated with saints. :-)*br*Beirdd: Of course, that may be a negative reflection -- "too pagan" to alter, perhaps?*br*Deborah: ?*br*TopazOwl: Yes, that's what I was trying to say.*br*Beirdd: Actually at that point it would have simply been a commemoration of the dead.*br*Beirdd: Yes Searles?*br*Searles: I've always wondered how the Christian year explained Christ's going away and being born on Christmas .*br*Searles: ga*br*Beirdd: Actually, the Church has always taken that dating to be one of convenience since there is absolutely no evidence for the real date.*br*LdyHarp: !*br*Beirdd: It fit the mood of the season, as well as a nice empty place on the calendar :-)*br*Deborah: Why did they place Christmas so close to the Celebration of Mithras in Rome? Jesus, as far as I can figure out had to have been born in around September somewhere, and I've always found it odd that they put his birth at the midwinter when it was so obviously associated with the pagan Mithras and also the rebirth of the Sun King.*br*Beirdd: Actually, the Church sometimes places dates for practical reasons, as we shall see in a few moments.*br*Beirdd: However, the Solstice was definitely a consideration*br*Beirdd: for the obvious reasons.*br*Deborah: Beirdd... I can give you one evidence for a Sept birth (or there abouts)*br*Beirdd: The Mithras connection was probably an appreciated coincidence. However, Mithras was also a very popular god among the Roman army, and there were evidently many Christian converts in the military as well. *br*Beirdd: yes, deb?*br*Deborah: the gospels teach about 'the shepherds abiding in the fields' and everybody heading back to their home towns for taxation*br*Beirdd: yes, definitely*br*Deborah: it's COLD in the middle east in midwinter*br*LdyHarp: !*br*Deborah: and they usually start to bring the herds in at the end of Sept to be penned rather than out in the fields*br*Beirdd: yes...however I don't believe they felt the exact dating was that important...remember...people in those days were much more into symbolism*br*Beirdd: and story than we are today.*br*Deborah: also, if memory serves me correctly, September is the end of the Jewish year (with Roshashana and Yom Kippur at that time)*br*Deborah: which would have made sense to do the taxes then when you closed out the books on the year*br*Deborah: ga*br*Beirdd: indeed...except that the taxes were being collected by Roman agents for Rome...*br*Beirdd: I don't question those points...I just think there were other considerations...in fact, Christmas for the most part wasn;t the huge deal it is today...*br*Beirdd: Easter was the real celebration.*br*Deborah: ok*br*Beirdd: However, even most Catholics would mistankenly say that it's Christmas that's number one.*br*LdyHarp: not my Ma*br*Beirdd: Frin? Sorry...:-)*br*TopazOwl: I always liked Easter better. :-)*br*TopazOwl: Do go on Beirdd.*br*Beirdd: Does Frin have a comment?*br*LdyHarp: well for the time of Christ's birth I was taught in high school they knew when the census was because the Romans wrote everthing down *br*Beirdd: yes*br*LdyHarp: so they have a record when Mary and Joseph would have had to travel to Bethlehem*br*LdyHarp: ga*br*Beirdd: yes...but so many names are lost, their's among them...*br*LdyHarp: yeah *br*LdyHarp: but the census was in the summer*br*LdyHarp: that much they do know*br*Beirdd: and that narrows down the year, but practically speaking, records would have been taken constantly as people showed up.*br*LdyHarp: and like Deb said the sheperds in the field and what not *br*Beirdd: Oh, I'm not arguing about the dating...I don't believe the Church would either...*br*LdyHarp: anyway that's all*br*TopazOwl: I don't think that was being disputed.*br*Beirdd: it would admit that Dec 25th is a convention, a compromise with other considerations*br*Deborah: that's cool*br*TopazOwl: But they always told us that in Catholic school. :-)*br*Deborah: so, what are the other synchonicities?*br*Beirdd: OK*br*TopazOwl: That Dec. 25th is a convention.*br*Deborah: this is a really interesting talk btw... thank you <G>*br*Beirdd: The Feast of St. Brigid and Imbolc on February 1st, Candlemas. February 3rd, the Feast of St. Blaise, includes a special blessing of throats using crossed unlit candles,*br*Searles: I just wanted to know when Jesus died so he could be born in the Christian year.*br*Searles: Is it that he goes away and is transfigured?*br*Beirdd: related to a story of the saint healing a jailer before his martyrdom. Isn’t Brighid a patroness of bards whose livelihoods depend on their vocal chords?*br*Beirdd: Searles...I don't understand...*br*Deborah: that is too cool! <G>*br*LdyHarp: oh wow Beirdd!!! I never thought of that!!!!*br*Searles: Christian year has death and resurrection*br*Beirdd: yes*br*LdyHarp: wow*br*LdyHarp: *muse**br*Searles: then a birth but for a birth to happen in a cycle then Jesus must be "not around" if the year is to be a wheel as most churches practice it.*br*Searles: ga\*br*Beirdd: That is the important cycle...death and resurrection...*br*TopazOwl: Searles...*br*TopazOwl: let me try to answer this one, K, Beirdd?*br*Beirdd: Christmas was apart from that but became a focus because of its popularity.*br*Beirdd: sure Owl*br*TopazOwl: If the child is born at Christmas, that is Yule, and isn't that when the sun begins it's return?*br*TopazOwl: The baby Jesus is not in full power yet, of course, when he is just born.*br*TopazOwl: But just starting, like the sun.*br*Beirdd: yes...there's some correlation...birth at Winter Solstice...Ascension at Summer Solstice*br** Deborah thinks that this sounds like a good topic for the December Synchronicity discussion <GGG>*br*Beirdd: The Ascension reveals Jesus in his full power and divinity...perhaps there's the cycle*br*Beirdd: Ever notice how St. Patrick’s Day is 4 days before the Vernal Equinox?*br*Beirdd: \*br*Deborah: well... nowthat you mention it <WEG>*br*Beirdd: Easter, though it doesn’t seem to have a coincident Celtic celebration closer than Beltaine,*br*Searles: Does that make the summer the most Pagan part of the Christian year? No Jesus around and awaiting his birth at Advent?:-)*br*Beirdd: well...except for the "I am with you always" part ;-)*br*TopazOwl: Hmm... could it be like Mac Og, where a year is a lifetime? <g>*br*TopazOwl: Or even a night is a year?*br*Searles: I was refering to the backslipping Jesus :-) but please proceed.*br*TopazOwl: To what? *br*Beirdd: Easter, though it doesn’t seem to have a coincident Celtic celebration closer than Beltaine,*br*Beirdd: was the cause of the second great complaint against the Celtic Church which preferred a biblical dating of the feast*br*Beirdd: to the astronomical dating preferred by Rome (which was being more druidic about it than the Celts). ;-)*br*Beirdd: *br*Beirdd: May is dedicated to the Virgin Mary, which was no doubt a response to Beltaine. May 1, however, is for the Church the Feast of St. Joseph the Worker, *br*Beirdd: in response to the Communists ;-)*br*Deborah: ?*br*TopazOwl: Communists?*br*Beirdd: There's an example of a date created by practicality.*br*Beirdd: May Day.*br*Beirdd: That feast was created in this century.*br*Beirdd: BTW: I have heard that the country Irish still celebrate the ordination to priesthood of a local boy by lighting bonfires in the*br*Beirdd: fields and parading with him among them. These are the same Irish who still refer to their priests as “Druids.”*br*Deborah: I thought Easter was the first Sunday after the first full moon after the Spring Equinox. ga*br*Beirdd: yes...that's the astronomical dating used today*br*TopazOwl: But wasn't that part of the Synod of Whitby?*br*TopazOwl: That Easter argument?*br*Beirdd: the other dating, counting days of the Passover, is still used by the Easern Orthodox Church.*br*Beirdd: Yes.*br*Beirdd: Rome wanted the astronomical dating...*br*Beirdd: Iona did not.*br*Deborah: that's cool Beirdd. Do they still call their priests Druids today? When did that die out if not. ga*br*Beirdd: They held out the longest.*br*Beirdd: yes, they do, Deb*br*Beirdd: and occasionally other things, I'm sure ;-)*br*Beirdd: The Feast of St. John the Baptist (June 24) and the Summer Solstice seem to coincide.*br*Beirdd: The Christian theology involved is seen in the biblical statement of John (referring to Jesus), “He must increase while I must decrease.”*br*Beirdd: It’s not much of a reach to compare that with the turning of the year represented by the Solstice*br*Beirdd: and by the literature that symbolizes the turn: Gwyn and Bel, Brennius and Belinus, the Holly King and the Oak King...even Arthur gets into the picture.*br*Deborah: oak king/holly king mythos there*br*Beirdd: yes*br*Beirdd: I tried to find a Catholic feast corresponding to Lughnassa.*br*Beirdd: The obvious possibility was the Feast of the Assumption of Mary (Aug. 15) and the Queenship of Mary (Aug 22). *br*Beirdd: Not bad bookends to contain a lengthy Lughnassad aimed at kingship and marriage ;-)*br*Beirdd: Then it occured to me that the threes may point to a better correspondence.*br*Beirdd: There are Trinitarian feasts scattered through the Catholic liturgical calendar. When comparing them to the Celtic feasts*br*LdyHarp: ?*br*Beirdd: I noticed this:*br*Beirdd: *br*Beirdd: The Transfiguration is on August 6th. This celebrates a manifestation of the Trinity to the Apostles. Lughnassad honors Lugh in his three aspects: warrior, craftsman, Sun.*br*Beirdd: It is also customary on one of the Sundays after the Transfiguration to bring up symbolic offerings of the harvest during the Mass.*br*Beirdd: Frin?*br*LdyHarp: dont they still have a big fair in Ireland around Lughassa? selling live stock and such*br*LdyHarp: ga*br*Beirdd: I wouldn't be surprised...Lughnassa seems to be the old festival that is most tolerated...*br*TopazOwl: Yes. They have local horse fairs.*br*Beirdd: And harvest festivals are in the people's blood.*br*LdyHarp: yeah*br*Beirdd: Apart from the calendar, both traditions set great importance on:*br*Beirdd: ** springs, wells and pools -- the Christian Celts “Christianized” these places not merely to eliminate a *br*Beirdd: pagan practice, but to promote a Christian one of showing reverence to symbols of baptism.*br*Beirdd: ** spiritual journeys or exiles -- the immrama became wed to the idea of the individual’s seeking to “meet God” in the wilderness and far away places*br*Beirdd: ala the Desert Fathers of Egypt. This eventually led to the unique character of Irish monasticism.*br*TopazOwl: I would think also that they recognized places of power.*br*Beirdd: The importance placed on penance (and the sense of guilt over one’s sins) is often identified with Rome.*br*Beirdd: However, the Irish have more to do with it.*br*Beirdd: It seems that there may have been an “Irish guilt” over not shedding their blood*br*Beirdd: for the new faith. This eventually led to some of the most severe penitential practices in history.*br*Beirdd: It was, indeed, the Irish monks who codified penances in the great medieval “penitentials,” books of sins and their*br*Beirdd: corresponding cures. The practice of yearly (at least) confession in Catholicism came about through the influence of the Celts!*br*Beirdd: The form of that confession is also Celtic: before Irish monasticism, one confessed his or her sins publicly at Mass,*br*Beirdd: asking forgiveness from God and the members of the Church.*br*Beirdd: The Irish monks placed so much importance on “anamchairdeas,” or spiritual direction, and the relationship*br*Beirdd: of the monk with his anamchara, that it eventually led to the practice of private confession throughout the Church.*br*Beirdd: I’ll stop the list there, though it could go on and on from common practices in ritual through common symbols.*br*Beirdd: Perhaps I will eventually get to post them somewhere, bit by bit. :-)*br*