Ad Imaginem Dei: Feasts and Remembrances in the Octave of Christmas

Friday, December 27, 2024

Feasts and Remembrances in the Octave of Christmas

Follower of Simon Bening, The Angels Announce
the Birth of Jesus to the Shepherds
From a Book of Hours
Flemish, c. 1500-1525
The Hague, Meermano Museum
MS RMMW 10 E 3, fol. 85v

Some of the major Church feasts bring with them a week of other celebrations. This is known as an octave, from the Latin word for the number eight. In times past many more feasts had octaves attached to them. Most no longer do, while for most that remain the days of the octave are simply labeled "x day in the Octave of y" (for example, third day in the Octave of Easter).

Christmas is, however, different. It retains a daily differentiation for its octave, with each day of the octave having its own, very distinctive character.

Thus, we see:

December 26 - Feast of Saint Stephen, the first martyr.

December 27 - Feast of Saint John the Evangelist. For detailed information on the iconography of Saint John the Evangelist see:

  - When Knowledge of Iconography Is Lost (click here)
- Images of John as Evangelist (click here)
  - The Figure With The Chalice (click here)
  - Martyrdom, Miracles and Death of John the Evangelist (click here)
- Witnesses to the Crucifixion (click here)
- The Last Supper (click here)

December 28 - Feast of the Holy Innocents (click here)

December 29 - Feast of Saint Thomas Becket (Currently an optional memorial) (click here) In 2024 this feast is not celebrated because it falls on a Sunday and, therefore, is superseded by the Sunday, which this year is the feast of the Holy Family.

December 29 - Feast of the Holy Family, celebrated on the Sunday between Christmas and the Feast of Mary, Mother of God. (click here)

December 31 - Feast of Saint Sylvester, Pope (Currently an optional memorial)

January 1 -- Feast of Mary, Mother of God (click here)

While I have not yet produced an essay on the iconography of Saints Stephen or Sylvester, I have produced essays on the other days. You can access these essays by clicking the links above as indicated.

Have a Merry and Blessed Christmas Octave!

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Uniquely among the monotheistic religions Christianity permits the use of images of God. Why? The answer lies in the Christian belief in the reality of the Incarnation. Since God has assumed human nature and form the Biblical prohibition against making images of God ceases to apply. As the second Council of Nicea declared in 787 "Following the divinely inspired teaching of our holy Fathers and the tradition of the Catholic Church (for we know that this tradition comes from the Holy Spirit who dwells in her) we rightly define with full certainty and correctness that, like the figure of the precious and life-giving cross, venerable and holy images of our Lord and God and Savior, Jesus Christ, our inviolate Lady, the holy Mother of God, and the venerated angels, all the saints and the just, whether painted or made of mosaic or another suitable material, are to be exhibited in the holy churches of God, on sacred vessels and vestments, walls and panels, in houses and on streets."
(Council of Nicaea II: DS 600)

This decree of Nicea II was promulgated for the entire church, both Greek and Latin speaking, and was a response to the strongly held beliefs of the iconoclasts, who wished to suppress the use of images, which had convulsed the Byzantine Empire and the eastern churches for almost 100 years. In addition, St. John Damascene, last of the Greek Fathers and a staunch defender of images, had written in De imagine ("In Defense of Images") "Of old, God the incorporeal and uncircumscribed was never depicted. Now, however, when God is seen clothed in flesh, and conversing with men, (Bar. 3.38) I make an image of the God whom I see. I do not worship matter, I worship the God of matter, who became matter for my sake, and deigned to inhabit matter, who worked out my salvation through matter." (St. John Damascene, De Imagine, Part I, 15-16, from Internet Medieival Sourcebook.)

The ways in which this imaging of the divine has been accomplished in the course of time is the subject of Christian iconography. To quote from the Merriam-Webster dictionary, iconography is "1: pictorial material relating to or illustrating a subject; 2: the traditional or conventional images or symbols associated with a subject and especially a religious or legendary subject; 3: the imagery or symbolism of a work of art, an artist, or a body of art".

The iconography of any subject develops and changes over time. Christian iconography develops and changes too, as reflection on the Gospels and Tradition develops over time and as the act of making art develops and changes as well. This is the background for this blog.

Ad Imaginem Dei

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Friday, December 27, 2024

Feasts and Remembrances in the Octave of Christmas

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Central Park Sunset

Oscar Wild 1997(?)-2014