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HANNUKA
and the Feast of Lights Joanna Bogle, a Catholic journalist and author, shares about the Jewish feast of Hannukah, and how we can learn from our Jewish brothers and sisters about family ritual and tradition which can help bring our faith alive in the home.
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One of the things that Catholic and Jewish families share is a sense that our faith is something that is - or should be - very much bound up with our daily lives: it's not something of the spirit alone, but also something of the body. It's bound up with things that we do, and eat, and make, and sing. Marking sacred time together Catholics could learn a lot from Jewish families about the importance of a shared family meal, preceded by prayer, marking a sacred time together. The Sabbath meal is something sacred - not just family togetherness but also a sense that God is being honoured by this gathering. A while ago I was invited to give a talk to a Jewish ladies' group, and we spoke about the moral values that we held in common, and the colossal challenge of trying to live these out in modern life. It was actually rather comic: I spoke in admiration of the Jewish idea of a family gathered together for traditional events, and they said wryly that it wasn't always so easy to achieve this with modern family life and the pressures of TV, the teenage sub-culture, everyone busy at different activities and so on……but that they admired Catholics who had such a strong sense of family and kept up so many traditions! And I said that this was exactly what Catholics say about Jewish families! We all ended up admitting that, whatever beautiful and faith-filled traditions we had, and cherished, the reality was too often a messy compromise in which what ought to be a special and memorable occasion ended up as a bit of a muddle. The idealised image of family and friends gathered around a candelit table, with a sense of serenity and peace as an ancient blessing is invoked, and the different generations united in a shared heritage, is sometimes achieved - and sometimes definitely not!! But it's still worth trying. Many families have a desire to find in their family rituals a glimpse of something sacred and special Many families in Britain, as Christmas approaches, will have a desire
to find in their family rituals a glimpse of something sacred and
special. Even if they are not churchgoers, they will have a feeling
that "Christmas ought to mean something" and that somewhere,
behind the wrapping paper and the tinsel and the colossal amounts
of food and drink, there ought to be some message of goodwill and
a sense of meaning and People with any sort of religious faith need to seize on opportunities to pick up on that sense of the spiritual and work with it, building something that will benefit the whole community. Christian families who are truly seeking to live out their faith will find in the annual calendar of feasts and seasons of the Church's year a rich resource - and can learn from the experiences of Jewish families who use their own home-life, traditions, and culture as a way of affirming their identity and honouring their covenant with God. Light in the darkness
Something else that we can learn from the Jewish tradition is a genuine
reverence for Scripture as the word of God, and an understanding of
the glory of the psalms. There are some wonderful antiphons that are
traditional for Advent (learn about the "O" antiphons, glorious
old prayers for this season), and there are carols, too, that echo
the Scriptural prophecies about the coming of the Messiah and the
light and joy that He will bring into the world. Some families sing
a couple of verses of "Come, O divine Messiah" or "O
come O come Emmanuel" as they come together and light the candles
on the Advent wreath. Another custom that is beginning to be popular
is that of "Jesse Tree", with its special decorations, each
of which has a special meaning. We may not get things right all the time: but as the old saying puts
it, it is better to light one candle than to sit and curse the darkness…….
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As
we are celebrating Advent, with the candles on our Advent wreath,
and then Christmas with lights on our Christmas tree, Jewish families
are marking Hannukah, the Feast of Lights. It's an eight-day festival
and involves lighting a fresh candle on each of the days. Children
get a small gift each day, and there are special traditional games
that are played at this season too.
As
Christmas approaches, the theme of light in the darkness is something
that is easy to grasp as the winter evenings lead on to the shortest
day of the year, and dusk begins virtually as we leave school or office
and head into the lamplit streets. For us, as Christians, Christ is
the true Light who will enlighten everyone - and we have to find ways
in which we can communicate the fact that He does shine in our own
lives, in spite of our individual sinfulness and shortcomings. So
things like prayers round the Advent wreath, carol-singing from house
to house (take a candle-lantern with you - available at the hardware
section of any big supermarket or DIY base), candle-lit night prayers
in front of a crib, small acts of Advent penance with funds raised
going to charity, all make the season come alive. We need to show
that, for believing Christians, this ISN'T just a season of getting
and spending. It truly has a deep spiritual base, and a message of
real meaning in our lives, and in our family culture and traditions.
