The Second Day of Christmas: the Feast of Stephen

The rest of the world thinks Christmas is over, with the possible exception of those who celebrate Boxing Day today or those fond of partridges in pear trees.

Oh, how wrong they are!

For like Easter, Christmas isn’t just one day, but a whole season! The Twelve Days of Christmas continue right up through the Epiphany (January 6). In some places, this season is called Christmastide or Yuletide.

But of course, it’s more complicated than that! You can’t have 2,000 years of people mucking around with the calendar and expect to have everything so nice and neat.

In addition to being a day and a season, Christmas also has an Octave. This is the ancient tradition of the Church to add an entire week to the day that is Christmas, making it actually eight days long.

So “Christmas” is a day, an Octave and a Season, making it one, eight, or twelve days long depending on which one you are talking about. Got that?

But wait! There’s more!

The Christmas Season is chock-full of other holy days, so you’re always celebrating something in addition to Christ’s birth. In a way, these holy days provide you a pretty good snapshot of the Church’s history.

Today is the Feast of Saint Stephen, the first martyr of the Church. His story is told in the Acts of the Apostles, chapters 6 and 7. Saint Stephen was one of the first seven Deacons of the Church, and his witness pretty well sums up the servant ministry of the diaconate, in imitation of the Suffering Servant Himself.

Tomorrow is the Feast of Saint John, apostle and evangelist, which I personally celebrate as my name day since I took him as my patron saint at my Confirmation.

The 28th is the Feast of The Holy Innocents, the children of Bethlehem killed by King Herod.

The 29th is the Memorial of Saint Thomas Becket. I’ve written elsewhere of Saint Thomas, whom I have always admired. I rather impishly celebrate this as my name day as well, since my first name is Thomas.

The 30th (really, the Sunday in the Octave of Christmas) is the Feast of the Holy Family of Jesus, Mary, and Joseph.

The 31st is the Memorial of Saint Sylvester I, who was Pope from 314 to 335. Sylvester is credited with helping develop the Roman liturgy, establishing the Roman school of singing, and commissioning the first martyrology – the list of Roman martyrs.

The 1st of January is the great Solemnity of Mary, Mother of God.

The 2nd is the Memorial of Saints Basil the Great and Gregory Nazianzen, bishops and doctors of the Church. These are two of the great Eastern theologians of the early Church. In the older calendar, this is instead the Memorial of The Most Holy Name of Jesus.

The 3rd is the Memorial of The Most Holy Name of Jesus on the newer calendar.

And on and on until the Epiphany of the Lord on the 6th… although more about that later.

That’s a whole lot of feasts! No wonder people gain so much weight at Christmas.

For today, however, I’ll just leave you with a song appropriate to today’s feast of Saint Stephen.