Sunday, April 12, 2020

Lex Anteinternet: Easter 2020

Lex Anteinternet: Easter 2020:

Easter 2020

For those on the Gregorian Liturgical Calendar, which is most of the world outside of the Orthodox Churches that retain the "Old Calendar", and in various places not all of them do, this is Easter Sunday for 2020.  For those on the Old Calendar, next Sunday, April 19, is Easter.



This is a sad and strange Easter for Christians.  Many will not attend services. Some will watch them on television or make other observances, but it just isn't the same in all sorts of ways.







This is because, of course, of the Coronavirus Pandemic.







Maybe this gives people time to pause and think a bit.  Quite a few people who know that Easter means something give it no more attention than going to church once a year, or maybe twice if they also observe Christmas, and otherwise get tied up in a secular celebration involving a big meal and the like.







Easter is a feast, but it's a feast because of what it is, not what it is because of a feast.  In a season, now, of isolation, perhaps that's more apparent.

Saturday, February 29, 2020

Lex Anteinternet: Today is the last day of Butter Week (Maslenitsa, ...

Lex Anteinternet: Today is the last day of Butter Week (Maslenitsa, ...:

Today is the last day of Butter Week (Maslenitsa, Мaсленица, Масниця, Масленіца) for 2020

Taking A Snow Town, 1891

Butter Week?

Yes, Butter Week, or Butter Lady, Crepe Week or Cheesefare Week, or in Russian, Ukrainian and Belorussian respectively;   Мaсленица, Масниця, Масленіца.

Maslenitsa, 1878.

Maslenitsa.

What is Maslenitsa?

Well, earlier this past week we discussed Clean Monday, the first full day of Great Lent for the Eastern Rite, including those who are Eastern Rite Catholics and Eastern Orthodox observing the "old Calendar" in liturgical terms.  For those in the Eastern Rite who are in the new calendar, which this past Monday would have been part of, this week was last week.  In other words, for those Eastern Rite on the old calendar, Clean Monday is this upcoming Monday and Great Lent starts tomorrow.

Maslenitsa is, therefore, sort of a week long Slavic Mardi Gras and indeed shares the connection with the same set of foods, fats, and stuff made with them.

And it was also a week long celebration, as the pre Lenten celebrations are to some extent in some Latin Rite countries.  Except, appropriate for its region, it featured traditionally a lot of winter games.

Of course, the Communists put a damper on all of this, given its religious nature, but it never went away.  And as Christianity has revived in the Slavic regions following the downfall of Communism, it's religious nature and the tradition is reviving.

Lex Anteinternet: Ash Wednesday

Lex Anteinternet: Ash Wednesday:

Ash Wednesday

Today is Ash Wednesday for those churches that follow the Catholic Latin Rite's liturgical calendar, which includes a fair number of Protestant churches.



Ash Wednesday is the beginning of Lent for Western Christians, Lent being the (approximately) forty day long penitential season preceding Easter.  Great Lent, the Eastern Christian seasons, precedes Ash Wednesday and commences on Clean Monday for Eastern Christians on the new calendar, but not on the old calendar which has, of course, which departs from the calendar we're otherwise familiar with.   The day is named for the Catholic practice, which is observed by at least some Anglicans and Lutherans as well, of placing ashes on the foreheads of those who come to the Ash Wednesday service, with the reminder being made that from ashes you were made, and from ashes you will return.*



For Latin Rite Catholics, Ash Wednesday is a day of fast and abstinence.  I.e, they eat only one full meal on this day and it can't include meat, which under Latin Rite Catholic rules does not include fish.  For Eastern Christians a much stricter Lenten fast and abstinence set of rules applies.  This sacrifice serves the purpose of being penitential in nature.



It also serves to really set Catholics apart, as fasting and abstinence are the rage in the west now, but for purely secular purposes, not all of which square with science or good dietary practices.



For the members of the Apostolic faiths, Lent also serves as a time in which for penitential reasons they usually "give up" something.  A lot of people have a really superficial understanding of this, assuming that Catholic "give up" desert or chocolate or something, and in fact quite a few people do something like that. Indeed, as an adult I've been surprised by how many Catholics (usually men) give up drinking alcohol, which means that frequent consumption of alcohol is pretty common society wide in a way that we probably underestimate.



Indeed, just recently, on that, I was asked by an exuberant Catholic Midwestern expat, who seemingly has no boundaries at all, on what I was "giving up" for Lent. This was the week prior to Ash Wednesday at which time I wasn't particularly focused on it myself.  The same fellow asked at least one Protestant what she was giving up, with that Protestant being a member of one of the American millennialism religions, to receive a totally baffled reply.  Indeed, I'm sure they don't celebrate Lent at all, so the question was odd.  Anyhow, he was giving up alcohol and asked if I'd like to join him, to which I absent mindedly said sure.  Later he was wondering if I thought it would be tough, which I'm sure it won't be at all and I'll have to find something else to mark Lent really.  But that sort of "giving up" line of thinking is very common.



In a lot of Catholic cultures the Lenten penitential observations have traditionally been much stronger, which helps explain Mardi Gras as we just discussed.  Even well after the Latin Rite rules were very much relaxed, in many Catholic areas, including Catholic areas of the United States, people engaged in much more extensive penitential observations with the "giving up chocolate" type thing really sort of an introduction to the practice.  In Louisiana, without going into it too deeply, there was traditionally a big spike in births nine to ten months after Easter, which reflected a very widespread serious observation among Catholic couples as to their penitential practice, for example.



Some of that is really coming back, which reflects an interesting trend towards a deeper understanding of their faiths by members of the Apostolic faiths and even a return of Lenten traditions in some Protestant ones.  During the full "Spirit of Vatican Two" era there was a lot of attention devoted to not giving anything up but rather to work on some spiritual need.  I.e, be self reflective and work on what that lead you to.  At the same time, the misuse of the word "fasting" became very common, with there being advice, even from the clergy, to fast from things other than food or drink.  You can't really fast from sinful behavior, or from narcissism, for example.  You can't even "fast" from the Internet, although "giving it up" for Lent might be a darned good idea (one that I really ought to consider, probably).



A lot of that is now passing and there's been a real return to more traditional observations of Lent, including fasting but also forms of dedicated worship and observation.



Which brings me to the next thing about "giving up".  One feature of this season is that many Apostolic Christians, as it is the season of repentance, have used the season to break bad conduct when there's support, spiritual and temporal, for doing it.  People with alcohol problems will use it to break them, smokers will quit smoking during Lent so they can quit smoking.  And sometimes people with serious attachments to sin take it head on during Lent, with some people I've known even announcing the renouncement of what are very serious sins from a Christian purpose over Lent in the hopes of breaking from the permanently. And many who do that, succeed at doing that.



Which in turn takes us to our final observation.  This season, which is lead by the Apostolic faiths but which is observed by at least some of the Protestants as well, tend to turn the self indulgent retained Puritan abstinence on its head.  I've noted this before, but North American and the Northern Europe may have strayed enormously from Calvinist influence in terms of faith, but not in terms of the concept that public suffering is really necessary.  That retained concept explains in large part the real focus in these lands, as opposed to others, in "giving up" something for no real purpose other than the sense it must be done.  People give up all sorts of things that Apostolic Christians around the world give up for forty some days, and often on a declared permanent basis (they fail at it more often than not), with it being notable that the purely secular nature of that makes it shallow from the onset.  Indeed, plenty of people who will spend Lent scoffing at Catholics for Lent will spend part of the season or all of it on some no carb, or no meat, or whatever, diet, for no real reason other than a constructed one. Suffering, in many instances, is the ultimate goal of those efforts, but suffering without something to redeem it.



For Apostolic Christians, all fasts are followed by feasts, and that's something to remember.



_________________________________________________________________________________



*I don't think this is a practice in the East and its not a requirement for Catholics, something that in fact even confuses some Catholics.  Ash Wednesday is widely observed by Catholics and the placing of the ashes isn't restricted to Catholics.  Perhaps for that reason quite a few Catholics assume it is a Holy Day of Obligation.



One thing of note here is that Ash Wednesday also serves to point out to everyone who is a Catholic, as if a person has ashes on their head, they're probably Catholic, although not necessarily.  By the same token, if you are known to be a Catholic and don't make it to Ash Wednesday you'll tend to get comments about it.

Lex Anteinternet: Fat Tuesday

Lex Anteinternet: Fat Tuesday:

Fat Tuesday

Bear guiding.  A Polish Shrove Tuesday tradition.  No, I don't understand it.

Yesterday I marked Clean Monday.

Today is Fat Tuesday, or Mardi Gras.

The day marks the day before Ash Wednesday on the liturgical calendar of the Latin Rite of the Catholic Church.  Like the other major day noted in the United States, setting aside Christmas and Easter, which derives from the Catholic liturgical calendar, St. Patrick's Day, the day is celebrated widely in the US by folks who have no idea whatsoever what it marks.

The day is called "Fat" Tuesday, or Mardi Gras, in French as it marked the day when people in Louisiana, French speaking Catholics, attempted to use up excess fats in their household that would otherwise go to waste during the Lenten season.  The Lenten Fast in the Latin Rite is much less strict than it once was, so this isn't a problem today, but the tradition of having a big pre Lenten celebration remains.  In its original form, it was a major Franco North American celebration, but wasn't the sort of weird event its devolved into, featuring topless women and beads and the like.  Indeed, quite the opposite is true.  It had a religious nature to it.

This is also true in many other predominantly Catholic countries around the globe.  In Spanish and Portuguese speaking countries the day is also widely celebrated, with the use of a term which actually very closely approximates Mardi Gras or the use of the term Carnival, which means "to put away meat", derived from Latin.  Carnival is celebrated in some Catholic European cultures under that name as well, including southern Germany.  Germans also call the day Fastnachtsdienstag, Faschingsdienstag, Karnevaldienstag and Veilschendienstag.  The day is marked by a partial day off from school as well as parades and the observance of some distinctly odd German customs.

In English speaking countries where, outside of Ireland, the Reformation took them out of the Catholic world in the 1500s, the tradition none the less remains, reflecting how strong the Catholic customs were even where Protestantism came in.  Shrove Tuesday is widely observed in Anglican circles. "Shrove" in this context derives from an Old English word for "absolve", and it reflected the day which people reflected on their lives and resolved to work on them over Lent.  Lent is still a penitential season in the Anglican Communion, but has been much less observed than in the Apostolic faiths where its a major seasons.  Having said that, at least by observation, there seem to be a revival of Lenten observation in Anglican circules.

In English speaking countries today is also Pancake Tuesday or Pancake Day for the same reason that French speaking countries call it Mardi Gras.  Pancakes are made with fat and flour and there was an effort to use up fat by making big pancake breakfasts on this day.

Nearly every country with a Christian heritage, except perhaps those in North American, have a celebration on this day with a strong regional, national and Christian aspect to them, including those nations who followed Luther into the Reformation. The Icelanders, for example, feast today with salted fish and meats.  It's interesting how widespread this custom is, and in some ways makes the American celebration of it seem a bit poor in comparison, outside of those areas of the Louisiana and Texas where the locals are celebrating it for real.

As a final note, why would people be so focused, as part of this, in using up the household fats and meat?

Well, before refrigeration, and with a stricter fast in place, those things weren't going to last until after Easter.

Lex Anteinternet: Today is Clean Monday. . .

Lex Anteinternet: Today is Clean Monday. . .:

Today is Clean Monday. . .

in those Eastern Rite Churches that are part of the Catholic Church in predominantly Latin Rite countries.  For Eastern Rite Churches that use the old calendar and for the Orthodox Clean Monday is on March 2, a week from today.







Clean Monday is the first day of  Great Lent in the East (although technically it actually starts the Sunday prior) and marks the beginning of the Lenten Fast, which is much broader in the East than the West.  Shellfish are the traditional entre, as they're an exception, and darned near the only one, to the prohibition on meat in the Eastern fast.



It's also a day of celebration and a public holiday in quite a few Orthodox nations and features the flying of kites, as its the traditional first day of spring in those cultures.



Don't get a celebration on a day commencing a long fast?  Well, its a fast with a purpose, not because of dietary fad or some public agony virtue signaling effort.  And ultimately, although it'll be forty days later, it'll be followed by a feast.

Monday, January 6, 2020

Lex Anteinternet: January 6, 1920. Peace Secured. Protestants Unite? Suffrage Advances.

Lex Anteinternet: January 6, 1920. Peace Secured. Protestants Unit...:

An historical item posted on one of our companion blogs of potential interest here.

January 6, 1920. Peace Secured. Protestants Unite? Suffrage Advances.

The headline news for this day, January 6, 1920, was that a treaty was to be signed between the victorious Allies and the Germans.  Or, more properly, a protocol to the Versailles Treaty


More properly, this was an amendment to the Versailles Treaty altering and amending some of its terms.  Germany's reluctance to enter into a protocol had lead the Allies and Germany back to the brink of war several months earlier, an event now wholly forgotten, but in the end the amendment had been worked out.

The U.S. Senate had not ratified the original text and would still not be ratifying the treaty in its entirety.

The Casper paper was also reporting that a new Wyoming corporation had been formed to build or take over the manufacturing of the Curtis Aircraft line.  I've never heard of this before and Wikipedia sheds no light on what was going on with this story.  Does anyone know the details?


Also making headlines was an effort to unite the nation's Protestant churches into a single organization. The headlines are apparently a bit misleading as they would suggest that the individual denominations were set to be united, which was not the proposal.

Also misleading, today, is the use of the term "United Church of Christ". That denomination would not come about until 1957.

On the same day, Kentucky and Rhode Island passed the 19th Amendment.

Suffrage supporters watching the Governor of Kentucky sign his state's passage of the 19th Amendment.

And Walt experienced something that I routinely do a century later.


Friday, November 29, 2019