GOOSE

Christmas is coming, the goose is getting fat.
Won’t you please put a penny in the old man’s hat.

Actually, it’s the people selling the goose that are getting fat. It’s costing a pretty penny for a goose this year, 499 pennies a pound to be exact. My slightly over 8 pound goose cost $41.43. The lady behind me at the grocery store let out a “wow,” when the clerk rang up the total. It makes me feel a little guilty when you can buy turkey at 69 cents a pound, but nowadays you can have turkey year round. Besides, I don’t like turkey all that much. I use it ground to make meat load and stuff, but as for just roasting it, I’m not all that enthused. I don’t like white meat. It’s too dry. Geese have no white meat. It’s all dark and very fatty. That’s why I always make side dishes like cranberry orange relish and red cabbage. It cuts through the grease. So does the Korbel Brut Rose.

It still seems a lot to pay for much for one bird. People who know me can vouch that I do not part with my money easily. I expect change when I spend a nickel. I save up during the year so I’ll have enough money for my Christmas Dinner. It is one of my few extravagances.

I first ate goose at the Berghoff Restaurant in Chicago on a New Years Eve. The Berghoff always had a huge menu with several “special dishes” prepared each day. At the holidays goose was one of the special dishes. Since I had never tried goose, but was fond of duck, I decided to order the goose. It was wonderful. And for dessert I tried my first slice of mince pie. Delicious! Since then goose and mince pie have been on my Christmas menu every year. I won’t go anywhere for Christmas dinner because I don’t want to miss the goose. Only one year have I done with out. It was when on Christmas day I cut the plastic bag the goose was packaged in to be met by the stench of a spoiled goose. Yuck! I had to cook some pieces of frozen chicken for dinner.

My first encounter with a goose, however, was in a literary sense. Who can forget the  goose the Cratchit family had on Christmas Day in A Christmas Carol? Eeked out by applesauce and potatoes it fed Bob’s entire family. The second literary mention of a goose in my experience was in the Sherlock Holmes Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle. The whole solution to the stolen gem has to do with geese.

Interestingly, the price of the goose Holmes pursued is given as 12 shillings.  Now, 12 shillings in1890 is worth about $73.56 in 2010 dollars. For how big a goose? Let’s say a really big goose, about 15 pounds. At 15 pounds that works out to $4.90 a pound, almost exactly what I paid for my goose. Turns out I’m not being so extravagant at all, just traditional.

The most important tradition is what has been handed on to us in the Scriptures. 

In the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent by God to a town in Galilee called Nazareth, to a virgin engaged to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David. The virgin's name was Mary. And he came to her and said, "Greetings, favored one! The Lord is with you." But she was much perplexed by his words and pondered what sort of greeting this might be. The angel said to her, "Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. And now, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you will name him Jesus. He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give to him the throne of his ancestor David. He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end." Mary said to the angel, "How can this be, since I am a virgin?" The angel said to her, "The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be holy; he will be called Son of God. And now, your relative Elizabeth in her old age has also conceived a son; and this is the sixth month for her who was said to be barren. For nothing will be impossible with God." Then Mary said, "Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word." Then the angel departed from her.   (Luke 1:26-38)

May the Lord, begotten of the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary, bless you on your journey and greet you on your arrival.

Wayne



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SNOW HAD FALLEN, SNOW ON SNOW

It has been the coldest December in Florida that I can remember. We are looking at a low of 18 for Monday. For those in northern climes, this is nothing. It seems quite normal, just like all the Christmas hymns with the word “snow” in it. Jesus probably wasn’t born on a Snowy December 25, but that’s when we celebrate his birth, and for northern Europeans and Americans, that means snow.

I have a penchant for Christmas Carols with snow in them. I am also very fond of impressionistic paintings of snowy scenes. Here’s a blog combining both.

Sisley, Snow at Louveciennes, 1874

The first snow carol I learned was “The Snow Lay on the Ground.” It’s a tradition macaronic carol. (That means it’s in two languages, in this case English and Latin.) I learned it in a Leo Sowerby arrangement in the church choir. The words are traditional.

The snow lay on the ground, the star shone bright,
When Christ our Lord was born, On Christmas night.
Venite adoremus Dominum;
Venite adoremus Dominum;

    Venite adoremus Dominum;
    Venite adoremus Dominum.

'Twas Mary, Virgin pure, Of holy Anne,
That brought into this world the God made man.
She laid Him in a stall At Bethlehem,
The ass and oxen share the roof with them.

    Venite adoremus Dominum;
    Venite adoremus Dominum.

Saint Joseph, too, was by To tend the child;
To guard Him and protect His Mother mild;
The angels hovered round And sang this song:
Venite adoremus Dominum;

    Venite adoremus Dominum;
    Venite adoremus Dominum.

And, thus, that manger poor became a throne;
For He whom Mary bore was God the Son.
O come then, let us join the heavenly host,
To praise the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.

    Venite adoremus Dominum;
    Venite adoremus Dominum.

This is how I first learned the tradition of St. Anne being the mother of Mary. 

John Henry Wachtman, House in Snow, 1890-94

The next one I learned was “In the Bleak Midwinter” with a text by Christina Rossetti with music by Gustav Holst.

In the bleak midwinter, frosty wind made moan,
Earth stood hard as iron, water like a stone;
Snow had fallen, snow on snow, snow on snow,
In the bleak midwinter, long ago.

Our God, Heaven cannot hold Him, nor earth sustain;
Heaven and earth shall flee away when He comes to reign.
In the bleak midwinter a stable place sufficed
The Lord God Almighty, Jesus Christ.

Enough for Him, whom cherubim, worship night and day,
Breastful of milk, and a mangerful of hay;
Enough for Him, whom angels fall before,
The ox and ass and camel which adore.

Angels and archangels may have gathered there,
Cherubim and seraphim thronged the air;
But His mother only, in her maiden bliss,
Worshipped the beloved with a kiss.

What can I give Him, poor as I am?
If I were a shepherd, I would bring a lamb;
If I were a Wise Man, I would do my part;
Yet what I can I give Him: give my heart.

This was in our old Service Book and Hymnal.

Gustave Caillebotte Rooftops with Snow

The last one I found in our even older Common Service Book, but I heard it sung by the King’s College Choir. The text is by Edward Caswall, tune by John Goss. The most breath-taking arrangement of this is by Sir David Wilcocks.

See amid the winter's snow,
Born for us on earth below,
See the tender Lamb appears,
Promised from eternal years.

        Chorus
        Hail, thou ever-blessed morn!
        Hail, redemption's happy dawn!
        Sing through all Jerusalem,
        Christ is born in Bethlehem.

Lo, within a manger lies
He who built the starry skies;
He, who throned in height sublime
Sits amid the cherubim. Chorus

Say, ye holy shepherds, say
What your joyful news today;
Wherefore have ye left your sheep
On the lonely mountain steep? Chorus

"As we watched at dead of night,
Lo, we saw a wondrous light;
Angels singing peace on earth
Told us of the Saviour's birth". Chorus

Sacred infant, all divine,
What a tender love was Thine,
Thus to come from highest bliss
Down to such a world as this. Chorus

Teach, O teach us , Holy Child,
By Thy Face so meek and mild,
Teach us to resemble Thee,
In Thy Sweet humility! Chorus

“Lo, within a manger lies He who built the starry skies.” There’s an image to meditate on.

May the Lord bless you on your journey and greet you on your arrival. 

Wayne

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ADVENT I

 

Creator of the stars of night,
Thy people’s everlasting light,
Jesu, Redeemer, save us all,
And hear Thy servants when they call.

Thou, grieving that the ancient curse
Should doom to death a universe,
Hast found the medicine, full of grace,
To save and heal a ruined race.

Thou came, the Bridegroom of the bride,
As drew the world to evening-tide;
Proceeding from a virgin shrine,
The spotless Victim all divine.

At Whose dread Name, majestic now,
All knees must bend, all hearts must bow;
And things celestial Thee shall own,
And things terrestrial, Lord alone.

O Thou Whose coming is with dread
To judge and doom the quick and dead,
Preserve us, while we dwell below,
From every insult of the foe.

To God the Father, God the Son,
And God the Spirit, Three in One,
Laud, honor, might, and glory be
From age to age eternally.


Latin Hymn, 7th century
Conditor alme siderum
Translated by John Mason Neale

This is the vespers (evening) hymn sung every night during Advent, the season that precedes Christmas. I look forward to singing it in my private devotions every year.

The problem for me with Advent is that I practically miss it. Yes, I know when it begins (the Sunday closest to St. Andrew’s Day, November 30. What I mean is that I miss the spirit of Advent. Everything is in a mad, headlong dash to Christmas. It’s like that 1950s novelty song: “I Yust Go Nuts at Christmas.” Advent needs to be a time of reflection on the great mystery we are about to celebrate, the Word made flesh.

One of the things I like about this hymn is the opening emphasis on Jesus as the “creator of the stars of night.” There is a tendency for people to think of only the Father as the creator, but this is not true. We read in the Gospel of John (1:3): “All things came into being through him [the Word], and without him not one thing came into being.” And we confess in the Nicene Creed that we believe in “one Lord, Jesus Christ, the only Son of God . . . through him all things were made.”  And so it is when we see the baby Jesus, as Dr. O.P Kretzmann wrote, “The mystery of the small hands which once had set the stars in firmament.”

This Advent is a time to meditate on this mystery. Make some time for that meditation. Make some silence to hear the Holy Word. Make some room for the One who didn’t even have a decent room in which to be born.

Jesu, Redeemer, save us all,
And hear Thy servants when they call.

May the Lord bless you on your journey and greet you on your arrival

Wayne


Apologies to those who have already read this in The Good Life.


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