The Declaration of Independence was actually issued on the 2nd of July, 1776, but by the time anyone through to commemorate the anniversary in 1777, they were one day too late, so the observance began the following day, July 4th, and has remained as such ever since.
For more information visit: History of the 4th of July
Comments(0) Who Was St. Patrick? 2
Vision of the Future
After more than six years as a prisoner, Patrick escaped. According to his writing, a voice-which he believed to be God’s-spoke to him in a dream, telling him it was time to leave Ireland.
To do so, Patrick walked nearly 200 miles from County Mayo, where it is believed he was held, to the southern Irish coast. After escaping to Britain, Patrick reported that he experienced a second revelation-an angel in a dream tells him to return to Ireland as a missionary.
Soon after, Patrick began religious training, a course of study that lasted more than fifteen years. After his ordination as a priest, he was sent to Ireland with a dual mission-to minister to Christians already living in Ireland, and to begin to convert the Irish more systematically.
This mission contradicts the widely held notion that Patrick introduced Christianity to Ireland, but it does show that though there might have been Christians who migrated there, or who converted of their own according, Christianity was by no means spread as widely as it had been in the rest of what had previously been Roman-run Europe.
A man with a mission
Although there were a small number of Christians on the island when Patrick arrived, most Irish practiced a nature-based pagan religion. The Irish culture centered around a rich tradition of oral legend and myth.
Familiar with the Irish language and culture, Patrick chose to incorporate traditional ritual into his lessons of Christianity instead of attempting to eradicate native Irish beliefs.
For instance, he used bonfires to celebrate Easter, since the Irish were used to honoring their gods with fire. He also superimposed a sun, a powerful Irish symbol, onto the Christian cross to create what is now called a Celtic cross, so that veneration of the symbol would seem more natural to the Irish.
He used many of the feast days of the Druid calendar in his own rituals, and gradually won them over. Due to the Irish love of myth and superstition, it is no wonder that Patrick himself became the stuff of legend.
But it is clear that his legacy lives on even after 1500 years, for due to his own work and that of the saint whom he trained, for example, Brendan, the Irish monastic tradition took firm root in Ireland, and from there spread to every corner of the known world.
Comments(0) St. Patrick, the patron saint of Ireland, is one of Christianity’s most widely known and celebrated saints. But for all his fame, his life remains somewhat of a mystery.
Many of the stories traditionally associated with St. Patrick, including the famous account of his banishing all the snakes from Ireland, are false, the products of hundreds of years of exaggerated storytelling. So what to we really know about St. Patrick?
Enslaved By Irish Raiders
It is known that St. Patrick was born in Britain to wealthy parents near the end of the fourth century. He is believed to have died on March 17, around 460 A.D. His name would have been Patricius, neaming Patrician or noble in Latin.
Although his father was a Christian deacon of the early Church in Britain, it has been suggested that he probably took on the role because of the tax regulations of the time, and there is no evidence that Patrick came from a particularly religious family.
At the age of sixteen, Patrick was taken prisoner by a group of Irish raiders who were attacking his family’s estate from the coast. They transported him to Ireland where he spent six years in captivity. Slave trading was common in the period, with them being seen as trophies of war.
St Patrick’s first stay in Ireland lasted six years, with various theories as to where he was taken. Although many believe he was taken to live in Mount Slemish in County Antrim, it is land-locked. So it is more likely that he was held in County Mayo near Killala, on the west coast of Ireland which the raiders would have used as their base of operations.
During his captivity, Patrick worked as a shepherd or a swineherd, outdoors and away from people. Lonely and afraid, he turned to his religion for solace, becoming a devout Christian. It is also believed that Patrick first began to dream of converting the Irish people to Christianity during his captivity.
Comments(0) St. Patrick’s Day is celebrated on March 17, his religious feast day, and the anniversary of his death in the fifth century.
The Irish have observed this day as a religious holiday for over a thousand years, crediting Patrick with bringing Christianity to Ireland, and performing many miracles.
On St. Patrick’s Day, which falls during the Christian season of Lent, Irish families would traditionally attend church in the morning and celebrate in the afternoon.
Lenten prohibitions against the consumption of meat were waived and people would dance, drink, and feast—on the traditional meal of Irish bacon and cabbage. It has now become corned beef and cabbage, and the celebration has spread throughout the world as the Irish have immigrated to every corner of the globe and brought their customs with them.
Comments(0) Once the British royal family, Queen Victoria and Prince Albert and their children, were depicted around a Christmas trees in 1846, the fashion soon caght on and grew.
By the 1890s, Christmas ornaments were arriving from Germany, and Christmas tree popularity was on the rise around the U.S.
It was noted that Europeans used small trees about four feet in height, while Americans liked their Christmas trees to reach from floor to ceiling.
The early 20th century saw Americans decorating their trees mainly with homemade ornaments, while the German-American sect continued to use apples, nuts, and marzipan cookies.
Popcorn joined in after being dyed bright colors and interlaced with berries and nuts.
Eventualy, electricity brought about Christmas lights, making it possible for Christmas trees to glow for days on end, not just for a coule of hours with candles.
Soon Christmas trees began to appear in town squares across the country, and having a Christmas tree in the home became an almost essential American tradition.
Comments(0) It is not surprising that, like many other festive Christmas customs, the tree was adopted so late in America. To the New England Puritans, Christmas was sacred.
The pilgrims’ second governor, William Bradford, wrote that he tried hard to stamp out “pagan mockery” of the observance, penalizing any frivolity during the yuletide season, which was supposed to mark the brith of Christ.
But end of year and winter festivals were commonplace pagan practices, and it was hard to divorce the traditions which stretched back for millennia with the new Christian traditions religious leaders attempted to impose.
The influential Oliver Cromwell preached against “the heathen traditions” of Christmas carolling, decorating trees, and any joyful expression that desecrated “that sacred event.”
In 1659, the General Court of Massachusetts enacted a law making any observance of December 25 other than a church service a penal offense. People were fined for hanging decorations such as holly and mistletoe, another plant most sacred to the druids.
This stern solemnity continued until the 19th century, when the influx of German and Irish immigrants undermined the Puritan legacy.
In addition, in 1846, the popular royals, Queen Victoria of England and her Germanic husband, Prince Albert, were sketched in the Illustrated London News standing with their children around a Christmas tree.
Unlike the previous royal family, Victoria was very popular with her subjects, and what was done at court immediately became fashionable—not only in Britain, but with fashion-conscious East Coast American Society.
The Christmas tree had finally arrived as an American tradition.
Comments(0) In Northern Europe, the mysterious Druids (those who possessed ‘oak-knowledge,’ or the wisdom of the trees), celebrated with evergeens and holy. The priests of the ancient Celts, also decorated their temples with evergreen boughs as a symbol of everlasting life.
The Vikings in Scandinavia thought that evergreens were the special plant of the sun god, Balder.
Germany is credited with starting the Christmas tree tradition as we now know it in the 16th century, when devout Christians brought decorated trees into their homes.
Some built Christmas pyramids of wood and decorated them with evergreens and candles if wood was scarce. It is a widely held belief that Martin Luther, the 16th-century Protestant reformer, first added lighted candles to a tree.
Walking toward his home one winter evening, composing a sermon, he was awed by the brilliance of stars twinkling amidst a forest of evergreens. To recapture the scene for his family, he erected a tree in the main room and wired its branches with lighted candles.
Most 19th-century Americans found Christmas trees an oddity. The first record of one being on display was in the 1830s by the German settlers of Pennsylvania, although trees had been a tradition in many German homes much earlier.
The Pennsylvania German settlements had community trees as early as 1747. But, as late as the 1840s, Christmas trees were seen as pagan symbols and not accepted by most Americans.
Comments(0) Christmas Trees: How The Tradition Got Started
Long before the advent of Christianity, plants and trees that remained green all year had a special meaning for pagan people in the winter.
Just as people today decorate their homes during the festive season with pine, spruce, and fir trees, ancient peoples hung evergreen boughs over their doors and windows.
In many countries it was believed that evergreens would keep away witches, ghosts, evil spirits, and illness, and was often a symbol of reincarnation, or eternal life.
In the Northern hemisphere, the shortest day and longest night of the year falls on December 21 or December 22 and is called the winter solstice. Many ancient people believed that the sun was a god and that winter came every year because the sun god had become sick and weak.
They celebrated the solstice because it meant that at last the sun god would begin to get well once more. Evergreen boughs reminded them of all the green plants that would grow again when the sun god was strong, and that summer would eventually return.
The ancient Egyptians worshipped a god called Ra, who had the head of a hawk and wore the sun as a blazing disk in his crown. At the solstice, when Ra began to recover from the illness, the Egyptians filled their homes with green palm rushes which symbolized for them the triumph of life over death.
Early Romans marked the solstice with a feast called the Saturnalia, in honor of Saturn, the god of agriculture. The Romans knew that the solstice meant that soon farms and orchards would be green and fruitful again.
To mark the occasion, they decorated their homes and temples with evergreen boughs.
Comments(0) St Nicholas and Santa Claus
St. Ncholas’ feast day, December 6, was traditionally considered a lucky day to make large purchases or to get married, and may perhaps be the reason why this day is also associated with gift-giving.
By the Renaissance, St. Nicholas was the most popular saint in Europe. Even after the Protestant Reformation, when the veneration of saints began to be discouraged, St. Nicholas maintained a positive reputation, especially in Holland.
Santa Claus, also known as Saint Nicholas, Father Christmas, Kris Kringle, or simply “Santa”, is the said to be the ghost of Saint Nicholas who, in Western cultures, is described as bringing gifts on Christmas Eve, December 24 or on his Feast Day, December 6.
The tradition seems to have come to America through the Dutch who settled New York (New Amsterdam) and brought with them Sante Klaas, as well as the Italians, for whom it was a great feast day.
Comments(0) More Thanksgiving myths
Myth: The pilgrims wore only black and white clothing with big white linen collars. They had buckles on their hats, garments, and shoes.
Fact: Sorry, but the typical pictures is nowhere near the truth. Buckles did not come into fashion until later in the seventeenth century, and were expensive. Black and white were commonly worn only on Sunday and formal occasions. Women typically dressed in earthy green, brown, blue, violet, red and gray, all colors which could be obtained from natural vegetable dyes, while the men wore clothing in white, beige, black, earthy green, and brown. Most of their clothes were homespun wool, not linen.
Myth: The pilgrims brought furniture with them on the Mayflower.
Fact: The only furniture that the pilgrims brought on the Mayflower was chests and boxes. They constructed wooden furniture once they settled in Plimoth.
Myth: The Mayflower was headed for Virginia, but due to a navigational mistake it ended up in Cape Cod, Massachusetts instead.
Fact: The Pilgrims were in fact planning to settle in Virginia, but not the modern-day state of Virginia. They were part of the “Virginia Company,” which had the rights to most of the eastern seaboard of the United States, commonly refered to as Virginia in deference to Queen Elizabeth I, known as the Virgin Queen.
The pilgrims had intended to go to the Hudson River region in New York State, which would have been considered “Northern Virginia,” but they landed in Cape Cod instead.
Treacherous seas prevented them from venturing further south in their ship, so they settled on the coast and started their colony or ‘plantation’.
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