Sing a Song of Christmas

My favorite Christmas song is a particular rendition of "The Twelve Days of Christmas". The album is A Celtic Celebration. The players are Steve Schuch and The Night Heron Consort. It's an instrumental album of Celtic sounds: "Good King Wenceslas" and "Greensleeves" and "In the Bleak Midwinter." But "The Twelve Days of Christmas" is truly special; somehow they brought actual animals into the recording studio. The turtle doves coo and the cows moo and the partridge twitters.

But as fun as this song always is, it's not the full story.

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When are the twelve days of Christmas, anyway? Some people say the twelve days leading up to the holiday, and some say they begin on December 25 and go though Epiphany on January 6. The origin of the song, though, tells a different story.

Ace Collins has compiled short explanations of the history of songs in Stories Behind the Best-Loved Songs of Christmas. He calls it a novelty song, just a fun bit of nonsense, but explains, "...even though this song seems to make little sense now, there was a time in England when [the song] was once one of the most important teaching tools of the Catholic church."

From the time of Christ's crucifixion until Martin Luther's famous list of conversation starters, the Catholic church was the only church. Little-c catholic means universal. The Catholic church was Christ's universal gathering of believers. Beginning with Martin Luther, however, the church began to split into what we now call denominations. Luther was based in Germany, and John Calvin was based in Switzerland. They wanted to reform what they saw as incorrect doctrine.

In England, however, the King was the impetus of change; King Henry VIII wanted to divorce Catherine of Aragon to marry Anne Boleyn. The Pope wouldn't allow it, so Henry broke from the Catholic church and began the Anglican church. Monasteries were dissolved, churches were destroyed, and priests went into hiding. Henry eventually died and his oldest daughter, Catherine's daughter Mary, became queen, and she tried to reverse it all. The bloodshed continued throughout her reign and again when Anne Boleyn's daughter Elizabeth became queen and reversed it again.

For decades under Henry and Elizabeth, the Catholic church survived underground. Anyone caught practicing this religion, man, woman, or child, was killed. History has dubbed Mary "Bloody Mary," for killing Protestants, but her father and sister were not less so. How do you teach your children your faith when doing so can get them killed?

You teach them a song.

The secret code is not whether the twelve days are before Christmas Day or after. It has nothing to do with the days at all. The secret lies in the gifts the singer received from her "true love". The partridge reflects courage and devotion; the mother partridge will sacrifice herself to save her young from a predator, just as Christ did for us. The pear tree represents Christ's cross.

Verse by verse, the song reminds the devout Catholics the truth they believe. I'm not going to walk you through every verse. You can find Ace Collin's book or a web site that will explain them to you.

But I want to encourage you today to pray for the persecuted church. England is much more tolerant today than it was five hundred years ago, and Americans can worship as they please. There are many Christians around the world, though, whose beliefs can get them killed. According to Open Doors USA, more than 300 people lose their lives every month because of their faith in Jesus Christ. Double that number are attacked in other ways. Christians in more than 60 countries live under these conditions.

We in America are blessed with safety and freedom. Rejoice! Many around the world are not in that way blessed. Remember!