How may we do, for to preserve this day?

The haunting melody of the Coventry Carol always had intrigued me as a child, because it wasn't merry at all! My sister who then was studying at the Episcopal Church's Trinity College in Cathedral Heights Quezon City (now Trinity University  of Asia) was fond of playing the carol on the keyboard and on the lute. This version is close to how it was sung in Tudor England.

Only when I was a bit older that I realized the carol was about the Massacre of the Innocents, which the Syrian Church celebrates on December 27, the Latin Church on December 28 and Greek Church on December 29 as Holy Innocents' day. St Matthew 2: 13 narrates the story of Herod upon being mocked by the Magi, was livid with wrath and had all children younger than 2 years in Bethlehem and nearby villages slain. Historians debate on the historicity of the event since it was not mentioned in any other historical account save for St Matthew's Gospel.

The Church has always considered these children as martyrs even if they were not capable of choosing to follow Christ since they died in place of Him. The Church understands this to be a fulfillment of the prophecy in Jeremiah 31:15.  The medieval English Church calls this day as "Childermas" which celebrates childrens' innocence and how they easily enter God's Kingdom.

The Coventry Carol's lyrics were written by Robert Croo in 1534 and was part of the mystery play The Pageant of the Shearmen and Tailors, which was performed in Coventry, England. It is the only song from the play that has survived the Reformation. At the Reformation, mystery plays were banned since they were considered "superstitious".

Historians in Herod's time did not report the massacre likely because Herod was capable of doing worse atrocities and indeed he was. Similarly In World War II, the magnitude of the Holocaust was so great that all other atrocities of the war paled in comparison and only 60 or more years later did journalists and historians write about these other atrocities. The medieval Church, East and West estimated the number of children killed in the tens of thousands, but it is likely that at most 40 children were killed, a dozen or so in Bethlehem itself.

But that does not reduce the horror of the crimes at all. Today abortion merits no news. Filipinos are numb about tabloid news of aborted fetuses dumped in the trash or on Catholic church steps. Some Christians consider abortion a "blessing"!

For me, the most haunting stanza of the Coventry Carol is

"That woe is me, poor Child for thee
And ever mourn and say
For thy parting neither say nor sing
Bye, bye, lullay, lullay."


Medieval people if they time travel to our 21st century world would be horrified at the scale of abuse and maltreatment of children today. Herod's madness would pale in comparison.

Woe is upon us for all the poor children we never were able to save from being aborted, or if they were born from abuse and maltreatment and the worst form of violence, poverty. They are in a real way holy innocents. And we neither "say nor sing" at their passing. May God forgive us!

Festival of Lessons and Carols

Merry Christmas.

One of the treasures of Anglicanism is the Christmas season service called "A Festival of Lessons and Carols", "lessons" being the very-Anglican term for bible readings. It is a service simple in concept but powerful in execution especially when attention is given to the music and the congregation joins in fully. There are usually nine bible readings, beginning with Genesis, where we are reminded of our original sin, the reason why Christ came. It continues through the Old Testament prophecies that tell of the coming of Christ and ends with the Gospel readings we are all most familiar with. (Wikipedia article here.)

From its modest beginnings in a temporary wooden cathedral in Truro, England in the late 19th Century, it has expanded throughout the globe, first to other Anglican churches and then to other denominations. Many of the Anglican Use parishes continue the tradition. My "home" AU parish in Boston, the Congregation of Saint Athanasius, has their annual Lessons and Carols service this Sunday, December 26, at 5:00 P.M. One of the most famous such services comes from King's College in Cambridge, England, which the BBC broadcasts live and then makes available on their website for online listening here. More information about the service is available from the King's College's website including an order of service and a history. One example of a Catholic version can be found here on the website of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, though I would have chosen more traditional carols and ones that go together better. The styles seem to clash. "Ave Maria" and "Go Tell It on the Mountain" are in my mind both too dissimilar styles to go together in a single piece and not Christmas carols.

Living in the Philippines, I miss Anglican Christmas Eve services, including Lessons and Carols. They speak to my soul in a way that other services do not. I am not sure what it is exactly. It is hard to put a non-verbal experience like spirituality into words. But I do know that it has something to do with the music and the conmunal experience of singing familiar, generations-old songs together. Lessons and Carols take the Christmas music we all love, and are bombarded by for months, and creates a communal singing experience, and then intersperses the music with lessons about the meaning of Christmas, all with an Anglican sensibility and attention to detail. The carols are not just mood music to get through the boring bits but integral to the service, to the teaching involved. Without the carols, the lessons have less punch, and without the lessons, the carols are merely tunes that I heard at the mall. Together in this simple service, they remind us body and soul of the reason for the season.

To save our souls from Satan's power

The traditional English carol "God rest ye merry gentlemen" was written in 1760 and is one of the more popular English carols to Filipinos. The carol was again another attempt to recover pre-Reformation themes in an England just recovering from the Civil War (after a century) and the threats to the established Anglican Church. In Commonwealth England, the singing of carols was banned.

The author is not known but the carol was published in a hymnal in 1833 and is referenced in Dickens' "A Christmas Carol"

Just like the medieval carols, there is a strong reference to the saving power of Christ. Perhaps this is only Christmas carol to mention Satan by name. In our 21st century Christianity, we try to omit reference to Satan as much as possible so not to scare anyone. But we as Christians are really in a long term spiritual battle. The carol brings this truth home at Christmas. But the babe in the manger, powerless as he may appear to be, is already triumphant.

The YouTube video clip is a 21st century Celtic inspired interpretation by Scottish rock singer Annie Lennox from her 2010 CD "A Christmas Cornucopia". In this post-post modern interpretation, Lennox sings the carol entirely and the video surprisingly quite traditional (except maybe that Treebeard look-alike!)

The Holly And The Ivy

Filipinos put the holly and ivy as Christmas decorations in their houses and workplaces. Of course they use the plastic ones since aside from a small Chinese species of holly, neither English holly and ivy can grow in their tropical isles. Nonetheless the holly and ivy have become part of the Filipino Christmas.

But the carol the Holly and the Ivy is not as known as the other English carols like Wade's "O Come all ye Faithful" which is sung at Christmas Eve Mass.

The Holly and the Ivy like any of the medieval English carols has a reference to the Passion. It was Cecil Sharp who put the words into music after hearing a rural Englishwoman sing the carol. The carol probably dates back to the Medieval mystery plays that were standard entertainment fare in Chaucer's England and up to the reign of the Tudors. The holly has always been sacred to the British pre-Christian religion. When England was evangelized, the holly took another meaning, and that is with reference to the Passion of our Lord Jesus Christ. The song mentions the blood red berry and prickle of the holly, which points to the blood shed by Christ on the cross and the lance that pierced his side.

The Ivy on the other hand is a reference to the Holy Virgin and her love for her babe. The juxtaposition of the holly's blood red berry and the prickle to the Virgin and Child makes the carol's message like the message of the Eastern Christian icons of the Virgin Mary. To Filipinos the most popular of which is the Icon of the Mother of Perpetual Help. In this icon we see the instruments of Christ's Passion and the babe in his mother's arms.

Before the Reformation, English churches (still in communion with Rome) were decked with the holly and the ivy, since the plants represented to the English people the clear message of salvation. But the Reformation put an end to the mystery plays as they were considered "superstitious" and the message of the holly and ivy was largely lost even if the now Anglican churches were still decked with these decorations. But the carol survived in Gloucestershire until in the 19th century under the influence of the Oxford Movement, the carol was popularized and its message was recovered. In fact even the hugely popular "Adeste Fideles"  and "What Child is This?" (both 19th Century creations) were influenced by the need to recover the sacramental in Anglicanism. These two carols for most Filipinos sound medieval but really are not!

The carols of medieval England which Filipinos sing at Christmastide represent the voices of Catholic England and thus bring the Catholic message of salvation back to us. And one of the carols, the haunting Coventry Carol proves that Catholic England was very pro-life. And this I shall blog about after Christmas.

The "Holly and the Ivy" in the video clip is performed by the Westminster Cathedral Choir.

What Child Is This?

This English carol is perhaps one of the best known among Filipinos. Written in 1865 by William Dix in his poem "the Manger Throne", after experiencing a bout of depression, the carol was eventually set to the tune of the 16th century Tudor era tune "Greensleaves". This rendering is by Charlotte Church.

There are two versions of the lyrics. The most popular ones do away with the reference to the Passion. But my Anglican hymnal has the other version which has

"Nails, spears shall pierce him through, the Cross be borne for me, for you. Hail, hail the Word made Flesh, the babe the Son of Mary!"

A reference to the Passion while telling the Nativity story is well within the English medieval tradition (see the post on the Cherry Tree Carol) which a materialistic and commercialized celebration of Christmas has lost. It is said that the Passion really began when the Word became one of us. Thus God the Son became one of us in exile. The baby was the target of human rights violators, an exile, a poor boy and grew up to be an ordinary man rejected by his own hometown. He was an innocent man and executed by crucifixion. But he was, is and will be Sovereign Lord of all that is seen and unseen! He was made man for our own sake and salvation.

Christmas Day will never make sense without Good Friday and Easter! The Babe's Kingdom shall have no end!

Music for Advent 1: Come, thou long expected Jesus : St John's College Choir, Cambridge

One of my favourite Advent carols. This version is sung according to the Holy Cross Arrangement

The Cherry Tree Carol

How I loved this carol which is a song sung for the Feast of Corpus Christi, Advent and Christmas. We studied the carol in high school lit class when we tackled Chaucer that semester.

The carol is very old probably dating back to 13th-14th century England. In this video clip, folk singer Joan Baez does a worthy interpretation of this beautiful song. The most recent interpretation is by Sting in 2009 and that is cool too!  You can find that in YouTube.