Marriage Blessing

Marriage Blessing

"Length of life and sunny days, and may your souls not to
homewards till your own child falls in love!"
    ____ traditional Irish blessing (trans. CM)


   For most people entering marriage today, such thoughts are far from their heads. Indeed many disillusioned wedding guests sit and discuss - even as they toast the happy couple - how long this marriage will last. Though the statistics show that many marriage now end in divorce, there are still a number of long-term relationships that continue - especially if the partners are supported by well-wishing and encouraging friends.

  When we celebrate a marriage, we are essentially celebrating the continuance of life: factor that is now often subsumed in the mutual satisfaction of the couple, who may indeed have chosen to have no children. Yet the heart of the marriage blessing enshrines the possibility of life's continuance: the birth of children and the perpetuation of humankind. the best-laid plans to derer a family until a more convenient time are often overturned by nature, which finds a way for life to flourish. In the eyes of new parents, the marriage blessing often seems to be a rather dubious or double-edged one, cutting short personal pleasures and dampening mutual delights.

  But the privilege of parenthood, the feeling of blessedness, is also, experience as children grow, change and surprise us. The true fruit of our partnership, they will grow up to marry and have children of their own, so that when our souls to homeward, our offspring will have the happiness, love, and initiation into parenthood in their turn.

"Make your own marriage blessing for those celebrating the beginning of their partnership today. Draw upon the fortunate elements of your own relationships."
[From: "The Celtic Spirit" by Caitlin Matthews]


Celtic Christmas

  In the eighth century the traditional twelve day pagan festival was declared a sacred season by the Church, and it became the Twelve Days of Christmas, with peaks at Dercember 25th, January 1st, and January 6th.  During this time the Church prohibited all work or public business, except for the labor of cooks, bakers, or any others who contributed to the delights of the holiday.

  Twelve days of feasting, merrymaking, sporting contexts, sionging, dancing, and all sorts of joyous anarchy and 'misrule' got under way on the magical threshold between the old year and the new. Some of the fun and games probably once belonged to Samhain, the original time for the Celtic New Year but was transferred to the Christian festival in later times.

  Released from work, all sorts of little bands toured the community offeirng entertainment in exchange for food and drink. Singers known as waits sang traditional carols unaccompanied or with harps, fiddles, and pipes. Mummers and guisers came out in full force, dressed in colorful costumes, which might include animal skins, masks, and bells, and brightened the winter season by performing plays aruond the community.  Often the central theme of these plays was the death, and subsequent resurrection of one of the characters, echoing the drama of the old year as it prepared to give way to the new.

Scotland

  In Scotland the revelry was particularly lively and joyous. Under the influence of Scandinavian settlements it retained the old pagan name of 'Yule' in many parts, while the Twelve Days became kn own affectionately as the 'daft days'. But in the sixteenth century jollity was snuffed out with the candles. Feasting gave way to fasting when the newly established Reformed Scottish Kird denounced Yule as an abominable popish practice. The puritanical leaders even went so far as to prosecute citizens for such sins as 'playing, dancing and singing of filthy carols on Yule even.'                                                                          A Celtic Saint Nicholas visited the Wells County
                                                                                     Public Library.

    Only in the Catholic Highlands and Islands did the old ways continue, while in the rest of Scotland the p0sychological need for a midwinter feast was met by transferring the festivities to the New Year. By the 1800s the Kirk had relaxed its grip on Scotland and some of the old celebrations were restored, but ever since, the heart of Scotland'[s mid-winter celebrations has been the New Year feast of Hogmanay.

The polished brass of the beer spigots stand out against the lights of the Christmas decorations in the window of the Celtic Cross pub in downtown Reykjavik.







Ireland

  In Ireland the holidays lasted from Nollag Mor, Big Christmas, on December 25th, to Nollag Beag, Little Christmas, on January 6th. It was the most important festival of the year, a time to contemplate the special mystery of both human and divine love.  People were more than usually devout and generous to others. It was commonly held that the gates of heaven were open at this time and that anybody who died during the Twelve Days went straight to paradise.

    Preparations for the season began many weeks in advance, when country people flocked to the Margadh Mor, Big Market, to 'bring home the Christmas.'  They took butter, eggs, hens, geese, turkeys, and vegetables to sell and returned home laden with meat, tea, tobacco, whiskey, wine and beer, dried fruit, spice, sugar for the Christmas puddings, toys and sweets for the children, new clothes and household gear.
   Everybody gave gifts, a custome that had its roots in ancient law. Shopkeepers gave Christmas boxes of fruitcakes and drinks to their customers, sized according to the amound of business they did there during the year. Farming families gave bacon, hens, eggs, and potatoes to friends and relatives in towns while they in return received town supplies.
[From Mara Freeman's "Kindling the Celtic Spirit"]

Vintage Celtic Christmas card