There are some radio stations that started playing Christmas songs even before Thanksgiving, which is crazy. Some people have even been listening to that music since before Thanksgiving, which is even crazier (looking at you, SHVP Office Staff…)! Some Christmas music is sing-songy and completely devoid of meaning (I mean “woop-de-doop and dickery-dock”? Really???), but many of our Christmas carols have a very profound meaning. One of my favorites is “Lo, How a Rose E’er Blooming”, a soft and beautiful Marian carol, which, by the way, is chock-full of some serious theology!
The carol I want to focus on is the “Twelve Days of Christmas.” It seems a pretty fun, nonsensical song with a bunch of strange gifts that most normal children would find strange. But actually, this song has a very important purpose. Between 1558 and 1929 in England, it was illegal to be Catholic – not just publically, but privately as well! Open teaching of the Catholic faith would, at times, bring torture and execution. This carol was written as a catechism song to teach young Catholics about the most important gifts of their faith. Now in all fairness, this theory has come under fire, and some of the sources haven’t been totally verified. But really, this is a bulletin article not a scholarly journal, so I’m just going to go with it for fun.
Each of the twelve gifts represents a tenant of our Catholic faith. For example, the partridge in a pear tree given on Christmas Day is, of course, Jesus Christ. The legend goes that a partridge would act wounded in a tree, struggling and crying out to draw predators away from their young. In the same way, Christ was born ultimately to take upon himself the sins of us all to protect us and give us life. Pretty cool, right? But that’s not all! Here are the rest of the gifts:
Two Turtle Doves – the two natures of Jesus, both human and divine
Three French Hens – Faith, Hope, and Charity, the theological virtues
Four Calling Birds – the four Evangelists who wrote the Gospels
Fiiive Goooold Riiiings – the first five books of the Bible, called the Penteteuch
Six Geese A-Laying – six days of Creation
Seven Swans A-Swimming – the seven Sacraments
Eight Maids A-Milking – the eight Beatitudes
Nine Ladies Dancing – the nine choirs of angels
Ten Lords A-Leaping – the Ten Commandments
Eleven Pipers Piping – the eleven faithful Apostles
Twelve Drummers Drumming – the twelve points of doctrine in the Apostles’ Creed
So there you go. I bet you won’t think of the “Twelve Days of Christmas” as just a silly song in the future! These are just a few of the things that make us love our faith even more! Merry Christmas!