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tomicscomics · 4 months

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01/05/2024

"If you cannot afford a lamb, one will be appointed to you."

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JOKE-OGRAPHY: 1. Joseph continues reading about Jewish law from his brochure (continued from last week's cartoon). In Jewish tradition, the sacrifice for a newborn boy was typically one yearling lamb (for the sin offering) and one turtledove (for the burnt offering). As Mary and Joseph discuss this, the Holy Spirit (a dove, but not for sacrifice) shows up to give a knowing glance at Baby Jesus. You see, Jesus is called the "Lamb of God," and His mission is to be sacrificed for our sins, so it's ironic that His parents are required to sacrifice a lamb for HIM under Jewish law. 2. A few commenters last week were concerned about Mary and Joseph sleeping too close together in their blanket fort, as it challenges the perpetual virginity of Mary (a core Catholic belief). I argue that Mary and Joseph are a poor married couple sleeping in a barn that's open to the cold and creatures of nature, so the chaste and honorable Joseph would probably stay near his Holy Family for their protection, instead of sleeping apart and leaving them vulnerable. No scandal here! 3. A few commenters last week argued about the perpetual virginity of Mary (the belief that she remained a virgin after Jesus's birth; a belief held by the early Church even before the Bible was canonized). I just wanted to say that I'm thrilled and honored that my comics appeal to people of all religions, including other Christian denominations. It moves me every time I get a comment from someone who isn't Catholic but loves my work. That said, I AM Catholic, so please understand that my comics follow the canon of Catholicism when I can help it. No hard feelings. Of course, you're all welcome to continue giving me suggestions and debating in the comments (good-naturedly, of course). I've learned so much by listening and looking into your apologetics.

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thatswhywelovegermany · 30 days

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German customs and superstitions in the Holy Week and at Easter

Apart from having days off work, eating chocolate bunnies and hunting easter eggs with the family, there are some lesser known traditions in Germany around the Holy Week, mixing Christian and pagan traditions. The first mention was in a letter from 751 by missionary Saint Boniface to Pope Zachary, asking him how to deal with this pagan tradition. Meanwhile, it has been incorporated into the liturgy of the Catholic church, when at the beginning of the Easter Night, a small fire is lit from which the presbyter lights a candle, which is brought into the church in a procession of the congregation.

First and foremost, there is the tradition of the Easter Fire. Depending on the region, there are different manifestations of this tradition. In the north, villagers or neighborhoods set up a huge bonfire from tree and shrub cuttings at a place that is visible from far away. It is lit and burned down on the evening of Holy Saturday or Easter Sunday, depending on the region.

In some places, the figure of a witch is set up on top of the bonfire. The youth keeps a watch during the nights before to make sure that no one from the surrounding villages sets it prematurely on fire. The villagers or neighbours gather with drinks to watch the fire. In some places, a betting game is held on the time when the central tree trunk will collapse, the earnings being donated to the local voluntary fire department.

In Bavaria, the fires are small and used to light candles and incense. In some places, arm-thick birch branches are set on fire and burned half-way before they are taken out of the fire, extinguished by dipping them in water, and stored in the attic in order to prevent fire in the house.

Good Friday is a silent holiday, which means that loud music, dancing and comedic events are forbidden. This leads to yearly protest by the party folks. Some religious people try not to speak the entire day. In some regions, children are sent out on the early morning of Easter Sunday to fetch Easter Water from nearby rivers or creeks, which they must bring home without talking a word. Otherwise the water turns into useless "Babble Water".

Some people don't wash any clothes during the Holy Week. There is a superstition that anyone who wears a piece of clothing washed during the Holy Week will inevitably fall ill and die. The same will happen when they will cook peas, sew clothes, chop wood, or slaughter an animal.

Another taboo is digging in the garden and breaking up the soil during the Holy Week. It is said that this will disturb the rest in death not only in the surrounding graveyards, but in particular that of Jesus Christ.

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phoenixonyx15 · 2 months

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okay so... Yesterday I went to "El Primer Viernes" (something related to Holy Week in my country or whatever, y'know... Catholics) and where I live it's like a tradition to go and buy stuff and other shit (I'm trying my best to explain this, I'm sorry)

The point is that in one plushie store they were selling FUCKING POMNI AND CAINE PLUSHIES HAHAHAHHAHAH

THAT'S NOT CAINE, THAT'S COCAINE LMAOOOOOO 💀💀💀💀

I was going feral when I saw them, too bad that there was no Jax plushie...

#the amazing digital circus #tadc #tadc caine #the amazing digital circus caine #tadc pomni #pomni #the amazing digital circus pomni #caine #pomni plush #caine plush #rambles with phoenix

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theaceace · 5 months

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Ok so when Rose gives the heart back to unity once more rendering her the vortex and then she dies in her sleep, something goes wrong (either because Desire set a sneaky trap or because it's close enough to breaking the rules of Endless not hurting family) that there's an explosive reaction, and when the chaos dies down Rose is still in the dreaming even though that definitely should have woken her up and Dream is nowhere to be found

Now Rose is stuck in the dreaming, and after a quick five minutes of panicking, comes to the conclusion with Lucienne and Unity that she'll have to track Dream down and get him to fix this. Lucienne needs to return to the palace to keep the dreaming running smoothly, Unity despite seeming chill about it has just DIED and also has never actually used any of her vortex powers the way Rose has and I'm basically just handwaving the fact that Rose is going to have to search for Dream on her own

Or not entirely on her own! Matthew is there, because every young woman embarking on a solo adventure needs a sassy talking animal sidekick, them's the rules

So Rose and Matthew set out on a trek through the dreaming, and this is the point where I could get wildly creative if I had the brainpower, and come up with fantastical dreamworlds

Because this is an AU and I say that being the descendent of an Endless should have some perks, Rose can still travel between dreams, she just can't affect them/the waking world or bring down the walls between dreams the way she could before. She's more akin to Matthew or Lucienne than a vortex, despite being human and aliveSo they spend a while chasing dead ends and leads that go nowhere until they wind up in some dream set in a pretty normal pub, and in true dreamlogic fashion there are people in clothes that come from a mishmash of the last 7 centuries, eating by rushlight while on their phones. But! Rose looks over and there's Dream! Amazing, they found him!

Matthew's like uhhhhh, I've spent a lotta time with the bossman, Rose, I'm not so sure that's - but it's too late she's already marching over

Meanwhile, Hob has been having a really nice dream in which his Stranger enjoys his company and didn't stand him up and doesn't wander off to 'inspire' any upstart playwrights and smiles at him like he did when they finally met up again a couple of weeks ago or whenever it was. He really wasn't expecting it to be interrupted by a girl rushing over to grab his Stranger's shoulder all excited about how we've found you Dream we were so worried are you ok???

And look. Hob is pretty used to rolling with the punches. After seven hundred years on planet earth, you gotta be. But this is, he hates to say, a pretty fucking weird turn for his dream to take usually it turns more toward his Stranger bending him over the table ahem

Also there's a talking bird. Why not

Rose has now realised that this Dream is not, in fact, the real Dream. BUT that means this guy must know Dream! Maybe he can help out? And Matthew is like wait, wait a second. You. YOU'RE the guy the boss went all starry-eyed (literally) over???

Hob reckons uuuuuhhhhh probably not? Took him seven hundred years to admit they're friends, and Matthew is like holy shit that hussy

Anyway I want Rose Hob and Matthew to go on a roadtrip adventure to save Dream is what I'm getting at. I was to continue the glorious tradition of Hob learning things about his friend (😍) thanks to other people and not from his friend himself (😭). I want Hob to play accidental therapist to Rose like he does to his students. I want Matthew to mock him mercilessly. I want Hob to sometimes be an asshole. I want them to BOND

And I want them to make it to the house of secrets and the house of mysteries where Hob is forcibly reminded that he was raised a Catholic medieval peasant when he sits down for tea with Cain and Abel (who think that Gadling would be an excellent name for a gargoyle if Morpheus ever makes another).

I want Abel to offhandedly mention something unspeakably horrible in the basement, but when Rose opens that door it just leads into a big fancy hallway? They go through anyway, and something feels different about this dream. Matthew is all 'I got a bad feeling about this' because Patton Oswalt loves Star wars and I think it's funny. Maybe they see a stuffed raven with a white breast in a room of taxidermied animals

So they keep looking, and eventually Hob finds a door leading to a basement, cracks a silly joke about finding something unspeakably horrible down there to cover up the fact that he's actually fucking terrified (he's come to accept that this is not a dream in the traditional sense, although it took way longer than it should have), and heads down the staircase

(It's the snow globe)

And here I start to run out of momentum a bit but like. I think Hob Rose and Matthew deserve to come together to roast the shit out of Dream while Lucienne tracks their progress from the library with Unity and Merv, who are also roasting the shit out of Dream, and all roasting comes to an abrupt and choked end when they get to the basement

Maybe Dream has been reduced to a cloud of swirling black sand in the orb, or maybe he looks almost exactly as he did in reality, maybe the Dream Team have to get him out but in order for that to happen he has to allow them to help, or maybe he needs to free himself because something something it's a metaphor idk. Maybe Dream, in whatever state he's in, panics at the sight of his bae friend, his raven, and his niece all outside the glass just like Jessamy was. Maybe he tries to throw them all out of the dream, but he's weakened himself as though he really were trapped in the circle again, and Rose is able to stand her ground against him.

And idk I don't really have an ending beyond 'Dream gets out and everyone is OK and also Rose and Hob end up being exasperated penpals over Dream's... Dream-ness.

#Sandman #rose walker #hob gadling #dream of the endless #dreamling #matthew the raven #On today's episode of 'fics I have in my head so vividly and Simply Cannot Put To Paper'#A considerably less angsty installment this time #The dreamling is more background this time also but I love Rose so

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didalexiabreakupwitholgayet · 15 days

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are any of the Barca girls particularly religious? I am american (but am from a very catholic region of the country) and probably half of the uswnt are professed christians, and there was that whole thing with Korbin Albert being an idiot recently. is that the same in Spain? I know there is a bit of a difference because a majority of the uswnt players are protestant and that tends to lead to a more outward profession of faith compared to catholicism but I've seen some Barca girls cross themselves before entering the pitch.

this is a bit of a complicated answer because in my personal experience, religion in spain is just different than what it seems like to be in the united states. spain has this very long history (over a thousand years of catholicism), which has influenced the architecture, culture, history, food, and traditions. but most of my friends and relatives would be described as "cultural" catholic but not really true believers, if that makes sense? like crossing yourself or wearing a cross isn't that big a deal. it's almost like superstition or tradition.

similarly, semana santa (holy week) is a big deal in spain and you celebrate with your family and go to parades and events, but again, it seems more cultural and family tradition, rather than being super religious per se. in fact, this study from a few years ago says that 1/3 of spanish consider themselves atheists/agnostics now, with the youth being less religious than older generations.

when i see some american players, they have things like bible verses in their IG bios or will share religious quotes here and there. also, i was watching some of the american final four women's basketball clips on twitter and the coach started talking about god and god's plan! that is weird to me. i cannot imagine alexia, aitana, or the majority of spanish players reciting bible verses regularly or jona giving speeches about god.

alexia will cross herself before a match, but you are not going to find her at mass every sunday or counting rosary beads in her spare time or anything like that. oshoala also did a religious bow everytime she scored a goal, but i don't think she is super conservative muslim either.

i really cannot imagine a similar situation like korbin albert with the spanish players. maybe the closest will be athenea who seems like one of the most nationalistic players and has a problematic right-wing boyfriend. spain definitely has a problem with right wing, hyper nationalism fanatics and the misogynistic macho types, but i don't really see them using religion like donald trump or other american politicians do.

i guess it's all relative though because some of my scandi friends think spanish are way more religious than they are, so go figure! anyway, i think religion is very personal, so these are just my personal experiences and thoughts.

#fcb femení #futfem #woso

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useless-catalanfacts · 1 month

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Holy Week procession in Reus (Camp de Tarragona, Catalonia).

In many parts of Catholic Southern Europe, during the Holy Week it’s traditional to hold processions which include recreating characters from the last days of Christ's life. One of the common costumes that can be seen is people dressed as Roman guards, and sometimes there can also be people carrying crosses.

Photos by alegresku on Instagram.

#setmana santa #tradicions #reus #catalunya #holy week #procession #europe #travel #cultures #religions #religion #christianity #christian

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heresylog · 5 months

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Hi! Anglican here (Episcopalian’s British cousins). Overall the services are very similar in basic structure- a thing that has thrown catholic friends of mine before is that we do have slight variations of some of the prayers (someplacesthe Lord’s Prayer ends in ‘for yours is the kingdom, the power and the glory’ rather than ‘deliver us from evil’ and I believe the creed is slightly different!) and in my own experience quite different hymnals. Idk if you’d want to take communion but probably a good idea to ask the vicar first- most churches are okay with it as long as you’re some kind of confirmed Christian. Usually you can take the pamphlet thing they give you up to the alter to indicate you just want a blessing! Keeping your arms down and if needs be asking also tend to work- most anglicans and Episcopalians I know tend to prefer having the host put in their hands. Most churches have near obligatory cake and coffee at the end, it’s either bad or the best thing you’ve had. Usually worth the gamble! There might be a lot of variation- our tradition focuses a lot on compromise so some low churches seem very ‘Protestant’ while others can be really high church so my apologies for the generality of the advice! I hope you have a good service and a lovely week!

Thank you for your response.

I just got done with the service today. It was extremely modern. All white walls and very minimalist decor. The art depicting the liturgical season was absolutely gorgeous.

The music was very….well, hippie Protestant. I’m glad there was a pamphlet with the order of the liturgy. The Nicene Creed is slightly different and threw me off quite a bit.

The deacon was so nice! I’m glad I got a chance to see her in her element and outside of a professional setting. The deacon is a former catholic I work with so it was nice chatting with her afterwards.

Other things I noticed:

Name tags! Each person puts their name on there. It’s a nice touch. They also asked me to put pronouns on, too. Which was different.

Coffee and tea before service. I’ve never been somewhere that served coffee before service, usually that’s for after. I also felt strange taking it with me to the pews.

No kneelers. I’ve been informed that kneelers are at some episcopal churches. They were not present at the one I attended.

Baptism free-for-all. A new member who had just shown up that day was asked if he’d like to get baptized after service. He asked if he needed to go to classes first and they said that was optional. That kinda made my brain go fritzy.

Holy Ghost vs Holy Spirit. I knew this from watching Call the Midwife but it was still strange to hear. It makes me think of Scooby Doo or Julie and the Phantoms.

Everything is The Great. There are lots of different things described as “the Great.” The Great Amen, The Great Silence, etc etc.

Overall, interesting experience.

#episcopal #anglican #christianity #anonymous #snorlasks #long post

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qsycomplainsalot · 1 year

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The Quartering of Ravaillac

Before the guillotine made French people equal, and before the abolition of capital punishment altogether made them equal and also not dead, tradition dictated that commoners be hanged and nobles beheaded. Two crimes however warranted a special kind of execution, being heresy with the condemned burnt at the stake and in this case regicide, which specifically demanded quartering for some reason. François Ravaillac was the product of the French Wars of Religion, a series of conflicts during the Protestant Reformation that tore France appart, only ending when the leader of the Calvinist Huguenots Henri III de Bourbon, king of Navarre and issued from a cadet branch of the royal dynasty of France, succeeded to Henri III de Valois, king of France. The condition to his coronation was for him to convert to Catholicism, which he did, being quoted as saying “Paris is well worth a mass”. Ravaillac was born in a staunchly catholic family, being raised by his two uncles, both canons in the local cathedral, to bear a fervent hatred of Huguenots. His instable mind led him to quit a well-off situation working as a clerk to try and join a monastic order, of which he was kicked out after only a few weeks. Now penniless and aimless, he started experiencing visions and confessed multiple times over the years of having committed “homicide through intent”, growing more and more resentful of the king whom he saw as the Antichrist ready to wage war on his people and move the Holy See from Rome to Paris. After stealing a knife from an inn, he eventually graduated to “homicide through actual homicide” after stalking the royal carriage all the way to one of the traffic jams Paris is famous for, giving him the opportunity to stab the king twice in the chest when it stopped.

Execution warrant for François Ravaillac from the Parisian parliament, headed with the name of king Louis XIII and bearing the later archival stamps of both the French Empire and French Republic. It describes the murder as a parricide, the murder of a relative, as the king was seen as a literal father figure to all his subjects.

After being held in protective custody in a private hotel, then transferred to the Conciergerie prison and tortured/tried for ten days, Ravaillac was sentenced to death on the 27th of May 1610. His regicide was ruled to be the act of a lone religious fanatic without any accomplice. The same day, he was taken to the place de Grêve in front of Paris’ town hall, where public executions had traditionally been held for at least 300 years. All according to his execution warrant, Ravaillac’s chest, arms, thighs and calves were pulled apart with tongs; his right hand which had held the knife was cut off and thrown onto burning sulfur; his wounds were covered in molten lead, boiling oil, pitch, wax and sulfur; finally his limbs were attached to four horses, pulling them from their sockets - allegedly with some help from an axe - completing the quartering proper.

Unfortunately for him and in a quite striking karmic twist, some insult was added to Ravaillac’s supplice, as his legacy was to cement Henri IV’s own as the Good King Henry. The king’s martyr at the hand of a madman garnered sympathy and dispelled his previous image of a Bourbon usurper with Catholics and of a relapse with Protestants, working wonders to unify the two under the new monarchy. Henri’s progeny would not only rule France for another 182 years without interruption, but Spain, Luxembourg and other holdings in Italy.

#history

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stjohncapistrano67 · 2 years

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A pre Vatican II council shrine to Our Lord's Crucifixion.

#traditional catholicism #traditional catholic images #traditional catholic modern art #traditional catholic shrines #traditional catholic statues #pre vatican ii council images #pre vatican ii council catholism #traditional catholic shrine to our lord's crucifixion #traditional catholic devotion #traditional catholic teachings #the catholic bible #new testament #traditional catholic holy week #the passion of our lord and savior jesus #our lord jesus

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gayleviticus · 1 month

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dont know how to really put this into words and its not a very Easter-y post per se but something ive been thinking abt, and especially since Good Friday, is almost... how slender yet hugely significant a thread the passion of Jesus is in the Christian Bible?

my NRSV is 1102 pages (897 without deuterocanon). the Gospels take up 89 of those pages. 8-10% of the Christian Bible is about the life of Jesus (although ofc the rest of the NT is about unpacking what that means). and then the passion itself is an even smaller slice.

i often pray the catholic liturgy of the hours, which is at its core a bunch of psalms and then some other miscellaneous stuff depending on the time of day, and something i oddly appreciate abt it is all this time spent with OT Psalms makes explicitly Christian stuff like the Trinity or Jesus more exciting when it pops up, because you feel their absence a bit?

Christianity is very Jesus-drenched, and obviously that's because he's literally the core and namesake of the religion. but i sorta feel like sometimes it can be too much. Jesus overload. the significance of what it means for God to become human flesh and suffer and die as the culmination of this whole century-long epic of redemption fades a little. we don't always appreciate Jesus as the climax to the story because we start with him as the beginning.

sometimes i go thru phases where I spend most of my Bible reading time in the Old Testament, and for various reasons - it's got a different feel and scope, it speaks to different things (more of an emphasis on societal social justice), it's more dramatic in certain ways, it has nice poetry, it has a very rich tradition of people getting angry with God and pouring out their souls in suffering.

but i think deliberately spending this time away from the NT makes me appreciate what a big deal the Incarnation is - and i feel a bit in awe of the way that all the threads in this massive story of God's work culminate in the life of just one guy and his humiliating, brutal, embarrassing murder. A story that's weaved its way through global floods and plagues and revolution and kingdoms and wars and exile finds its thesis statement in One Man standing before Pilate, beaten by soldiers, dragging his cross through the streets, nailed to a tree.

it's a bizarre kind of narrative understatement. the Bible rejects the temptation of many a long-running franchise to go bigger and bigger, to keep on raising the stakes, and instead sits you down with the most humiliating, degrading, hopeless moment in Jesus' life and says: this is the face of God. This is what God looks like. The Lord is not to be found in whirlwinds nor earthquakes nor fire but in the face of the oppressed, the falsely accused, the suffering.

of course, there's a cosmic dimension to it as well. in a sense as it simultaneously lowers the physical stakes to one man, one soul, the Passion is also raising the cosmic stakes tremendously. 'now is the judgment of the world, now is the ruler of this world cast out - and i, when i am lifted up, will draw all people to myself.'

but on the face of it, the idea that it should be this Holy Week that's the crux of the story - not the great flood, not the destruction of Jerusalem, not the apocalyptic terrors of Revelation - is a bit odd, and for that endless fascinating to me.

#christianity #religion #holy week #christian

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andrewuttaro · 1 month

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The Stations you don't know

Lost to us by time or place can be some of the most interesting devotional treasures. As a teenager I was made aware of the Stations of the Cross for the first time though I cannot recall praying them with any regularity until well into my twenties. Now as I approach my thirtieth birthday, I am a little embarrassed to admit that rarely do two to three weeks go by when I don’t pray the Stations of the Cross. I am talking about outside the season of Lent when they are traditionally prayed socially: I can’t get enough of them! Perhaps it’s that awkward preteen in me who liked pop punk music expressing himself anew.

To return to humility: I think this devotion of mine was greatly assisted by a small pamphlet called “Cross Wise: A Pocket Way of the Cross”. This reading material contains all the Station of the Cross with a brief reflection and three interjecting prayers along the way. This version of the traditional “Via Crucis” also provides the traditional prayer before each station:

“We adore you, O Christ, and we praise you, because by your Holy Cross you have redeemed the World.”

As well as the traditional prayer after each station:

“Father, not my Will but yours be done.”

Don’t ask me how I first found this pamphlet. As best I can ascertain it has a copyright year of 1989 and the official Catholic Church seal of approval in latin known as the “Imprimatur” administered by the Monsignor Maurice Byrne of the Archdiocese of St. Louis. I discovered a stock of these pamphlets in the Parish of my Youth during a recent visit. Perhaps this was where I first found this devotional tool?

The Stations of the Cross are the ultimate devotion of humility if you ask me. They are also uplifting in a way that I can’t quite put into words, so I won’t be attempting to here. They are a school in meditation because they require you to open your heart to what God might be telling you, and then go deeper. Without such an open heart these Stations can seem plainly morbid. We’re talking about Jesus Christ’s death here so that comes with the territory to a degree.

However, the very nature of devotion itself is also instructive with this. When we open our heart to the divine unexpected, not seeking to conquer an idea with our mind’s comprehension as we moderns so eagerly prefer to do, then these Stations become the very epicenter of Christ’s saving work. The charming tradition of adding a fifteenth station for the Resurrection really completes that arc.

But chances are if you’re reading this you already have some passing familiarity with the Stations of the Cross. You’re reading this far for the Stations you didn’t know as the clickbait title so successfully lured you! You want something different. Well this year I have uncovered two sets of other “Stations” related to Holy Week that may intrigue you or even enter into your devotional practice in some way.

Last Year was my first Holy Week back in the city of my birth: Rochester, New York. My wife and I are attending her childhood Parish, so we get a lot more Church time with my in-laws. Hold your jokes, this is truly a blessing. For two years straight we have participated in a Christmas pageant I can only describe as adorable.

Last year on Holy Thursday my father-in-law and I attempted to visit other Churches displaying the Blessed Sacrament for Adoration. It is an old tradition on that particular night to travel to Seven Churches where the Blessed Sacrament is so adored. Holy Thursday matters so much for us Catholics because its when we commemorate the Last Supper and, ergo, the institution of the Sacrament of Communion (the Blessed Sacrament) by Jesus Christ. If there is any day of the whole Church year for Adoration of the Sacrament, it’s the night of Holy Thursday.

Indeed, the Mass of Holy Thursday doesn’t end. It is merely the beginning of the shortest liturgical season on the Catholic calendar: Triduum. Technically Holy Thursday begins one long liturgy that doesn’t end until Easter Vigil the following Saturday. The Seven Churches Visitation is in some respect then the way some choose to honor this sacred moment as Good Friday beckons in the morning. I don’t know where this tradition originates from, but I faintly remember a retreat starting that night in my Youth Group back in High School. We called it “Passion Immersion”.

I said my father-in-law and I attempted to visit other Churches that night because we failed to do so. We only looked at the three Churches of our Parish and discovered there was no such Adoration taking place. This year I decided to prepare and found a dozen Churches within a short driving distance that we will venture out to come Thursday night. Along the way of this research, I discovered the Stations these Seven Visitations are supposed to represent: the Seven Movements of Jesus between the end of the Last Supper and the Crucifixion. Here they are:

Jesus prays in the Garden of Gethsemane.

Jesus arrested, bound, and taken before Annas.

Jesus taken before the High Priest, Caiaphas.

Jesus taken before Pontius Pilate the first time.

Jesus taken before Herod.

Jesus taken before Pontius Pilate the second time.

Jesus is given his Crown of Thorns and condemned to Crucifixion.

In a way, these are the Seven Stations preceding the Stations of the Cross. That’s a total of 21 stations, 22 if you count the Resurrection! Color me positively bedazzled upon learning this. You might also notice there is a lot of Jesus being paraded around in this sequence, twice getting thrown in front of Pontius Pilate who found the whole experience distressing at worse and bothersome at best.

That parading around lends itself to Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament. We Catholics believe that little consecrated host is Jesus after all so parading him out on Holy Thursday in the interim before Good Friday feels appropriate with these Stations. Adding on the physical act of traveling to Seven different Churches really makes it feel like a pilgrimage, not unlike how the 14 Stations of the Cross developed from pilgrimages to the Holy Land where it actually happened.

But before we wrap this up, I have a parting gift for you: yet more Stations I was not aware of before this trip around the Liturgical calendar! These Seven Stations, we’ll say four because you’re probably familiar with at least three of these, are what each Day of Holy Week might be focused on in one’s devotional practice:

Palm Sunday: Jesus Triumphant entry into Jerusalem.

Holy Monday: Judas scorns Mary of Bethany for anointing Jesus’ feet.

Holy Tuesday: Jesus announces the impending betrayal of one of the twelve and Peter’s denial of him later.

Holy Wednesday: Jesus confirms Judas’ betrayal.

Holy Thursday: The Last Supper when Jesus institutes Holy Communion and the Priesthood.

Good Friday: The Passion and Death of Jesus Christ.

Holy Saturday: Jesus harrows Hell and defeats death.

Easter: the Resurrection.

I will assume Palm Sunday, Holy Thursday, Good Friday, and Easter are probably not unfamiliar to you. These aren’t Stations as much as they are devotions for each day since Holy Tuesday and Holy Wednesday’s devotions occurred on Holy Thursday with the Last Supper. Nonetheless, there is spiritual depth here I discovered this year.

Judas taking issue with expensive nard being used to anoint Jesus’ feet instead of being sold to support the ministry is a bit of foreshadowing if you will. But consider how Jesus’ response, a call for Judas and the others to treasure him while he is still with them, speaks to a right reverence we so desperately need nowadays. We often miss the true holiness of an event or thing because we are assessing bare value and not the deeper blessing at work. This is not a bad way to re-evaluate our own personal relationship with Jesus.

Jesus announcing his betrayal in the middle of the meal sending his Apostles into a drama seems unhelpful. Yet Jesus is calling all his Apostles therein to a more sincere self-knowledge as they are about to lose him. That’s not to mention they would all be thinking Jesus knew who the betrayer was and included him nonetheless. Frankly, I can’t help but think of contentious family meals around the holidays at this juncture. Jesus shares a meal with his betrayer, can we not share a meal with those who betray our worldviews?

Peter, our favorite overzealous hothead, pledging his loyalty to Jesus in this panic only to be told he would in fact deny Jesus three times, is flatly poetic. Nobody is above betraying their most intimate relationships and values. We all betray Jesus and we all might be great leaders and advocates for his Gospel nonetheless!

Jesus confirming Judas’ betrayal is difficult for me to process to be honest. This likely refers to Matthew 26:25 when Jesus, once again in the midst of the panic he has just induced, answers Judas’ insistence he is not the betrayer by responding: “You have said so.” What are we to make of that cryptic, non-committal response? Here’s a clue: Jesus will later respond to Pontius Pilate with a very similar retort: “You say so” (Matthew 27:11). This is after Pilate asks Jesus if he is King of the Jews in a clear attempt to trap him in bogus charges against the Roman State.

It’s as if the Gospel is telling us that when we are insistent on our bad faith assertions, if not outright lies, we force Jesus into something that some theologians will tell you Jesus is not even capable of due to his divine nature: biting sarcasm. When we lie to Jesus we wound the relationship. We sin. Coming from Jesus I cannot imagine how sarcasm would not rend the heart asunder.

Lastly, skipping ahead to Holy Saturday we find Jesus’ harrowing Hell itself between Good Friday and Easter. Don’t think of this as some kind of battle, he’s God and the fight was already won on the Cross, think of this as Jesus leaving no sheep behind. Before his saving act there was a waiting room for the righteous. Heaven wasn’t open quite yet, but there were some folks who were worthy of entering nonetheless. This harrowing of Hell is Jesus going into the most miserable of all waiting rooms and retrieving his beloved sheep.

And with that we arrive at Easter, the greatest celebration Christianity has to offer. If I haven’t bored you to death with journaling my favorite devotions or sermonizing obscure Holy Week devotions, then I hope I have given you some spiritual food for this special week we find ourselves in. It’s amazing what we discover can spiritual feed us if we open our hearts to be filled with something anew.

Jesus awaits there for us.

#Jesus #Holy Week #Holy Monday #Palm Sunday #Holy Tuesday #Holy Wednesday #Holy Thursday #Good Friday #Holy Saturday #Easter #catholicism #catholic

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archduchessofnowhere · 9 months

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How many ladies-in-waiting did Empress Elisabeth have during her tenure as empress/queen?

Hi! I’m really glad I got this ask because lately I’ve been really interested in the people “behind the scenes” of Elisabeth’s life. But before answering this, we need to add some context and terminology, because “lady-in-waiting” is actually a very vague term.

First of all, who could access court?

The Habsburg court was extremely conservative on who could access it. While the courts of France or Prussia allowed the access of the rich bourgeoisie, to enter the Viennese court you needed to have an impecable noble background:

This small group of old nobility made up “court society”. They were the elite who passed all the tests of “ancestral lineage examination” with flying colours, who were permitted unlimited entry to court based on the pristine purity of their ancestral background. This exclusive group did not need to shine through achievement, it already possessed the requisite glamour from their heritage as princes, counts or barons. Whoever could prove eight maternal and paternal ancestors stemming from a noble line of flawless credentials and whose own ancestors had not broken this longstanding chain through marriages with partners beneath their standing could legitimately lay claim to the seal of approval generally dubbed ‘admissable at court’ (hoffähig). (Winkelhofer, 2012)

The women that were allowed to “wait” on the empress belonged to this exclusive group of nobles made up of about 400 families in the empire. “Rebel/low class woman infiltrates in court and becomes Elisabeth’s lady-in-waiting” is a trope that appeared in both RTL Sisi and Netflix Die Kaiserin, but that would’ve been simply impossible. There was a department in charge of checking everyone’s backgrounds, investigating every paper register and historical family tree. You either had the proper ancestry, or you weren’t allowed entrance.

So what was exactly the role of a “lady-in-waiting” at the Habsburg court?

There were two types of what we usually call “lady-in-waiting”: hofdamen (court ladies) and palastdamen (palaces ladies). Palastdamen were the aforementioned women who had access to court due to their noble status. Having access to court didn’t meant, however, that you just popped up at balls whenever you wanted. Even if you had an illustrious family tree you still needed to obtain official court recognition in order to be able to obtain a place at official occasions (for women, according to Winkelhofer, this was receiving the Order of the Starry Cross). Also Franz Josef was very strict on the nobility, and he demanded that nobles attended regularly at court to fulfill their duties; if someone didn’t appear in a long time they had to answer an inquiry as to why they had been absent, and the emperor could go as far as revoking their right to appear.

The compulsory duties of the nobility were, first, to pay their respects to the Emperor on 1st January at the New Year’s Day Reception, and later to attend to the two official balls that took place weeks later: the “Court Ball” and the “ball at court”. The next mandatory appearances were the holy day festivities; the most important event at court was the Corpus Christi procession:

The traditional procession the court at Corpus Christi - fondly dubbed “God’s Court Ball” by the Viennese - was the most significant festive day on the calendar to the imperial family, since this holiday celebrated and demonstrated the longstanding close ties of the dynasty to the Catholic Church. Everyone had to appear at the procession, including those who were not assigned to march in the parade itself, since the emperor viewed this as his foremost representational duty. (Winkelhofer, 2012)

Meanwhile, being a hofdame was a paid job. Unlike palastdamen, who entered court by their status alone, hofdamen had to be personally appointed to the position. Their main job was to keep company of their mistress all the time, which Elisabeth found annoying (“She says herself that it is not unpleasant to her to see us occasionally, but it is odious to her to have us in waiting” [Corti, 1936]). Being a hofdame, however, wasn’t cheap, since they always had to have new gowns for every official occasion, which their salaries usually couldn’t cover, and needed the support of their families (x). Also, a hofdame always had to be single, so when she married she lost the job.

As Empress, Elisabeth had her own household. The Oberhofmeisterin (a title that is usually translated as “Mistress of the Robes”) was in charge of controlling the household, hiring and firing staff, enforced discipline and etiquette, and replaced the empress at official events in case she couldn’t attend. She was the highest-ranking noble women at court, and unlike the aforementioned hofdamen, she could be married. During her 44 years tenure as empress Elisabeth had four Oberhofmeisterin:

Countess Sophie Esterházy (née Princess of Liechtenstein)

Countess Paula Königsegg (née Countess Bellegarde)

Countess Marie Goëss (née Countess Welsersheimb)

Countess Maria Theresia Harrach (née Princess of Thurn und Taxis)

In Elisabeth’s household there was also an special position, created exclusively for one woman: Ida Ferenczy. She is often called a “lady-in-waiting” (even myself on this blog called her that), but this isn’t correct. When Elisabeth was learning Hungarian in 1864, she asked for a lady who could help her practice the language. A list of ladies was created, which included Ida, and she was chosen. However, there was a problem: Ida wasn’t from nobility, but from the gentry, and therefore she couldn’t be made a hofdame. How did she even got on that list without having the right ancestry is a mystery to this day. But Elisabeth liked her and wanted to keep her in her household, so a position for her was created: “vorleserin”, the reader. She became one the empress’ closest confidents and remained in her service until her death.

Now, to finally answer the question: how many ladies-in-waiting Elisabeth had during her 44 years of tenure as empress?

Sadly I can’t give you an exact number. However, we can have an idea of how many and who they were. The Hof- und Staatshandbuch des österreichischen Kaiserthumes (renamed Hof- und Staatshandbuch der Österreichisch-Ungarischen Monarchie after 1873) was the official guide of the Austrian empire, published from 1806 until the fall of the monarchy in 1918. These guides contained, among other things, lists of the complete staff of the imperial family’s households, as well as list of who had access to court. The Austrian National Library has available for free most, although sadly not all, of these guides. And yes, who were Elisabeth’s hofdamen each year is mentioned.

The years missing sadly correspond to Elisabeth’s first years as empress, as well as almost all of 1860s. Since I’m mainly following the official guide, there may be some mistakes; some ladies weren’t in the guide but I found the info about them in biographies (this was the case of Mathilde Windisch-Graetz). Anyway, these were some of Elisabeth’s hofdamen!

Countess Pauline “Paula” Bellegarde (served from 1854 until her marriage in 1857, Oberhofmeisterin from 1862 until 1868)

Countess Caroline Lamberg (served from 1854 until her marriage in 1860)

Countess Josepha Wallis (served since at least 1856 until 1858)

Countess Sophie Coudenhove (served since at least 1856 until ?)

Baroness Ludovica Sturmfeder (served since at least 1856 until 1866/7)

Princess Helene of Thurn und Taxis (served from 1858 until her marriage in 1871)

Countess Louise Bombelles (served from 1860 until ?)

Countess Caroline “Lily” Hunyady (served from 1861 until her marriage in 1871)

Princess Mathilde Windisch-Graetz (served from 1861 until ?)

Countess Mária “Marie” Festetics (served from 1872 until Elisabeth’s death)

Countess Ludovica Hedwig Schaaffgotsche (served since at least 1872 until 1877)

Miss Mary Throckmorton (Valerie’s governess, served from early 1870s until 1874)

Landgravine Therese of Fürstenberg (served from 1877 until 1889)

Countess Sarolta Máilath (served from 1883 until her marriage in 1890)

Countess Janka Mikes (served from 1892 until her marriage in 1896)

Countess Irma Sztáray (served from 1894 until Elisabeth’s death)

Some things about these ladies:

Lily was the niece of Countess Esterházy, the empress’ first Oberhofmeisterin.

Mathilde was a widow; as far as I could find, she was the only widow to ever serve Elisabeth as a hofdame.

Helene was the daughter of Elisabeth’s Oberhofmeister from 1854 until 1857, Prince Friedrich Hannibal of Thurn und Taxis.

Paula and her husband Count Alfred Königsegg were appointed at the same time as Elisabeth’s Oberhofmeisterin and Oberhofmeister respectively. Paula resented the growing Hungarian faction around the empress and openly complained about them, which made her fell from favor. She and her husband were finally dismissed in 1868.

Marie Festetics was first a hofdame of Archduchess Clotilde.

I had literally never heard of Ludovica Hedwig until I went through the guide, and I could find nothing about her outside of it.

Mary Throckmorton was recommended to Elisabeth by her sister Queen Marie of the Two Sicilies; I’m not really sure if she was actually a hofdame since her job was being Valerie’s governess, but she appears as a hofdame in the guide. Go figure.

Therese was first a hofdame of Archduchess Sophie. After she left service (seemly for health issues), all of Elisabeth’s hofdamen were Hungarian.

Sarolta was chosen as a hofdame because she was in a good physical shape that allowed her keep up with Elisabeth’s walking speed.

Irma entered service in 1894 but only appears as a hofdame since 1896. Go figure again.

Sources:

Corti, Egon Conte (1936). Elizabeth, empress of Austria

Das spanische Hofzeremoniell - Hofetikete, on Mythos Kaiserin Elisabeth

Hof- und Staatshandbuch des österreichischen Kaiserthumes (1856-1860, 1866, 1868)

Hof- und Staatshandbuch der Österreichisch-Ungarischen Monarchie (1874, 1876-1898)

Winkelhofer, Martina (2012). The Everyday Life of the Emperor: Francis Joseph and His Imperial Court

#tl; dr: everyone at court was a nepo baby #also this is suuuuper simplified - within the nobility there were different ranks and positions and jobs and so on #and some people with non-noble background could sometimes access court - like high-ranking militars #also i didn't mention elisabeth's chambermaids since this was about ladies only #but there was more people on her household!#empress elisabeth of austria #asks

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thepastisalreadywritten · 9 months

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Feast of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary

Today, August 15, Catholics and many other Christians celebrate the feast of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary.

This significant feast day recalls the spiritual and physical departure of the mother of Jesus Christ from the earth, when both her soul and her body were taken into the presence of God.

Venerable Pope Pius XII confirmed this belief about the Virgin Mary as the perennial teaching of the Church when he defined it formally as a dogma of Catholic faith in 1950, invoking papal infallibility to proclaim “that the Immaculate Mother of God, the ever-Virgin Mary, having completed the course of her earthly life, was assumed body and soul into heavenly glory.”

His Apostolic Constitution “Munificentissimus Deus” (Most Bountiful God), which defined the dogma, contained the Pontiff's accounts of many longstanding traditions by which the Church has celebrated the Assumption throughout its history.

The constitution also cited testimonies from the early Church fathers on the subject and described the history of theological reflection on many Biblical passages, which are seen as indicating that Mary was assumed into heaven following her death.

Although the bodily assumption of Mary is not explicitly recorded in Scripture, Catholic tradition identifies her with the “woman clothed with the sun” who is described in the 12th chapter of the Book of Revelation.

The passage calls that woman's appearance “a great sign that appeared in heaven, indicating that she is the mother of the Jewish Messiah, has the moon under her feet, and on her head, a crown of twelve stars.”

Accordingly, Catholic iconography of the Western tradition often depicts the Virgin Mary's assumption into heaven in this manner.

Eastern Christians have also traditionally held Mary's assumption into heaven as an essential component of their faith.

Pius XII cited several early Byzantine liturgical texts, as well as the eighth-century Arab Christian theologian St. John of Damascus, in his own authoritative definition of her assumption.

“It was fitting,” St. John of Damascus wrote in a sermon on the assumption, “that she, who had kept her virginity intact in childbirth, should keep her own body free from all corruption even after death and that she, who had carried the creator as a child at her breast, should dwell in the divine tabernacles.”

In Eastern Christian tradition, the same feast is celebrated on the same calendar date, although typically known as the Dormition ("falling asleep") of Mary.

Eastern Catholic celebration of the Dormition is preceded by a two-week period of fasting, which is similar to Lent.

Pius XII, in “Munificentissimus Deus,” mentioned this same fasting period as belonging to the traditional patrimony of Western Christians as well.

The feast of the Assumption is always a Holy Day of Obligation for both Roman and Eastern-rite Catholics on which they are obliged to attend Mass or Divine Liturgy.

#Feast of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary #Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary #Virgin Mary #Dormition of Mary #Dormition

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