The Catholic times. [volume] (Columbus, Ohio) 1951-current, 1960-12-23
Feast That Would Not Die


Continued from Page 81
Bradford identified the occasion, in the non-committal Pill
grim manner, as "ye day called ChristmaSday."
TEN YEARS AFTER the arrival of the Pilgrims at Ply
mouth, the Puritans arrived to settle Massachusetts Bay,
a little to the north. theoretically not as extreme as the
Pilgrims, these Englishmen in practice r~epudiated hturgical
tradition more completely and efficiently.
There was no wishy-washy bending to Christmas nom
sense with them. Anybody who is found observing, by
abstinence from labor, feasting, or any other way, any such
days as Christmas day" the General Court of Massachusetts
Bay Colony decreed in 1859, shall pay for every such Of
Tense five shilings."
AS Puritan domination extended to Connecticut, Maine
and New Hampshire, SO did the Blue Laws extend which
THE PURITAN SUPPRESSION of Christmas relaxed a
little during the 1680s, when the English government and
the Church Of England stepped in firmly-but briefly.
But the spirit continued.
Judge Sewell (who was a few years later to be among
those who condemned to death at the Salem witch trials
such poor and simple people as the Irishwoman, Ann Clover
noted with satisfaction in his diary on Christmas, 1885 that
"carts came into Boston shops were open as usual :.
the body OF people profane the day"
In the first half of the 18th century, while the Great
Awakening retired Congregationalists, Presbyterians and
Baptlsts throughout New England and, to a lesser extent.
the South with a zeal an~tipathetc to the Christmas mes
sage of Divine love in tender human terms. others were
keeping the feast alive.
ALTHOUGH GENERALLY opposed to the use of orna-
ment and flowers, the Angicans, particularly in Virginia
and the South, decked their churches with e%vergreens and
candles on Christmas Eve.
New York, where the Dutch had arrived in a ship
figure-headed with st. Nicholas and celebrated the feast
for a month-from the feast of ST. Nicholas to Epiphany
W. q h01oDl iSAu6C IOL uotIh
In pennsylvania, where the Quakers did not celebrate
but tolerated celebration, the large number of German
settlers remembered Christ's birthday.
ALTHOUGH RECORDS VARY, about one thousand Of
these Pennsylvania Germans appear to have been Catholics.
There were also about 400 Irish Catholics celebrating Christ
mas in Pennsylvania in the middle of the 18th century.
There were several thousand Catholics in Maryland, a couple
of hundred in New Jersey, about a thousand in New York.
There were few Catholics in any other colonies, particu-
larly in the Puritan heartland Of New England, whose
hostility to Christmas exceeded by its hostility to the particu-
lar Observation-Disclosures known as Roman Catholics.
WHAT FEW CATHOLICS there were in Massachusetts
had to go without Mass and the Sacramento. A 1647 law
had excluded priests from the Colony, and Catholic refugees
from Nova Scotia Acada), given refuge there in 1755,
found that things hadn't changed since 1647.
Another Catholic who settled in Massachusetts, in 1755
has passed on to us a picture of Christmas there at that
time. Martin Hughes, living on a piece Of land he had
bought, was threatened by Indians.
HE IGNORED THE threats until, on the day before
Christmas, he saw a neighbours house going up in flames.
He quickly put his wife and children on two horses and fled,
riding all day without even stopping to feed his family and
himself.
1t was showing heavily when they reached a small town
on the edge of the settlement. They stopped ait an inn for
the night. Hughes told the landlord he wished to purchase
a turkey. The landlord asked him why. Hughes said that it
was Christmas. Are you a Christmas MANI" asked the
landlord.
WHEN HUGHES REPLIED that he was, the landlord
told him to get out. The word must have spread, because
when Hughes, ~knee-deep Ill snow, trudged from house to
house seeking shelter, the door of each was closed to him
and OnlOOkerS ieered. "There goes the Christmas mani"