Posted 61 days ago
Freeing the Saints From Their Hallmark Holidays
by Christine Sine, MSA team
Robyn was angry and confused. She had just discovered that her much-beloved roly-poly red-robed Santa Claus was a marketing ploy invented in the early 20th century by Coca Cola to encourage consumerism. She was angry, because she had been duped by the commercialization of what should be the most meaningful season of the year. She was confused, because she didn’t know how to break the news to her kids that Santa Claus wasn’t real without destroying their faith in her honesty. “I hate Christmas,” she told me. “I eat too much, drink too much and rush from one store to another, afraid that I forgot to buy a gift for someone important. The fact that we are celebrating the birth of Christ hardly even registers on my screen.”
When Christmas is over, how many of us look back with the same sense of betrayal that Robyn experienced? There is no greater contrast between the world’s focus at this season and its Christian meaning. What should be an opportunity to model and teach simplicity and the tenets of our Christian faith to our children and to the world around us has become one of the greatest displays of materialism and consumerist values.
Soon after, Robyn learned the story of St. Nicholas, the Turkish bishop who became a symbol of anonymous gift-giving by providing dowries to three destitute sisters. (You can read the story in Samantha Baker-Evens article, “The Real Santa Claus”.) When Robyn shared the story of St Nicholas with her children, she was able to encourage them to focus their gift-giving on those who were really in need at Christmas and remember the One who gave us the greatest gift of al—Christ our Saviour. The whole family volunteered to serve Christmas dinner at a local homeless shelter, and they bought a goat for a poor family in Ethiopia. “It was our most satisfying Christmas ever,” she said.
Christmas is not the only season that has been commercialized by the consumer culture, nor is St Nicholas the only saint subverted by Hallmark and the marketers of meaningless religion. Saint Valentine, for instance, was the name given to several martyred saints in ancient Rome. Of the one whose feast is celebrated on February 14, nothing is known except his name and that he was buried at the Via Flaminia, north of Rome, on February 14.1 I am not sure how the martyrdom of St Valentine was given a makeover by Hallmark to become the celebration of erotic love, but it is now so entrenched in Western culture that I suspect we will have trouble changing it. And I can’t imagine that a festival celebrating martyrdom would have nearly the same appeal.
St Patrick is another victim of the consumer culture, and for most people the celebration of St Patrick’s Day on March 17th is little more than an opportunity to eat corned beef and cabbage and drink copious quantities of beer. What would this formidable saint think? He endured years of slavery in Ireland as a teenager and yet still returned as a missionary even though foreigners were unprotected. He could have been beaten, robbed and enslaved again. Patrick baptized thousands of people, ordained priests to lead the new Christian communities and converted wealthy women and men to Christianity. His wonderful prayers, most notably the one called Patrick’s Breastplate, which radiates a faith that endured many trials and tribulations, continue to inspire many today. Perhaps, on St. Patrick’s Day, we should celebrate the lives of all those who kept the faith and spread the gospel despite hardship and persecution.
The saint who has probably suffered most from Hallmark’s makeover is St Francis of Assisi, patron saint of animals and the environment, whose feast day is October 4th. Not only has he become the subject for cards, calendars and wall plaques, but even bird feeders and garden statuary are made in his image. I think it’s great to use this feast day as an opportunity to bless animals, but I believe that the true celebration of Francis’ life is his conversion from a youth who lavished money on partying to one who gave up all wealth and privilege to live the Gospel in his daily life. His imprint on history is remarkable, and his legacy lives on in the thousands who still follow his example and dedicate themselves to lives of simplicity and service, seeking to inspire the ideals of peace and justice.
Rather than ranting and raving against consumerism, however, I think that we need to explore ways to transform these corrupted symbols of the consumer culture into real celebrations of our faith. Ryan Marsh and Church of the Beloved, a small emerging church in Edmonds, Washington, took the initiative this year to transform another much-corrupted secular festivity—Halloween—back into the celebration it was meant to be.
Church members handed out candy at Edmonds’ Main Street Halloween Party with the rest of Edmonds’ businesses. But in addition, they offered something unique: a bowl of sand with tall skinny candles. “Tomorrow is All Saints’ Day,” Ryan told one puzzled woman. “That’s why tonight is called ‘All Hallow’s Eve’ or ‘Halloween’. So, if you want, you can light a candle here to pray ‘thanks’ for someone important to you.” The woman quickly lit a candle, placed it in the sand and stood looking at it for a minute. Then she teared up. “Thank you”, she said. “I needed to do that.”
For some, this was their first time praying, and they asked, “What do I say?” Kids liked it the most. Little pyromaniac boys were more excited about the prayer station than the candy. Running up to their parents they would yell, “Mom! Can I light a prayer candle?” At one point, they had about fourteen kids all gathered around the sand bowl praying prayers with their parents and guardians behind them.
“God showed us a different way to love our neighbors,” said Ryan. “We weren’t offering ‘a harvest alternative to Halloween’. We weren’t asking people to come into our church domain. We were joining with the established expression of our neighborhood in the public marketplace, alongside businesses and community services, and there, on common ground, we offered our unique way of serving Edmonds. There was nothing confrontational about it. It was what our neighborhood desired and it was what we had to offer—a moment of prayer and gratitude that flowed in and out of the party.” By the end of the night, over 200 candles had been lit, and members of Church of the Beloved were convinced that God is alive and at work in Edmonds and certainly on Halloween.
I think it is really time for us to free the Christian saints from their Hallmark holidays and transform the plastic symbols of consumerism into meaningful celebrations of our faith. Each of these feast days provides wonderful creative opportunities to celebrate our rich heritage and to show God’s love for our communities and neighbourhoods. Freeing Christmas from the consumer extravaganza our culture has made it is a great place to start. Sit down with your family and friends and talk about what is really meaningful for you during the Christmas season. Enter into the real joy of Christ’s birth and discover afresh the wonder of being part of a race in which God himself became incarnate and came to dwell in our midst.
NOTES
1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Valentine
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