Merry Christmas (and Feast of St. Anastasia)!

Merry Christmas (and St. Anastasia?)

Merry Christmas on this Feast of the Nativity of Our Lord! Scripture tells us:

And an angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were filled with fear.  And the angel said to them, “Be not afraid; for behold, I bring you good news of a great joy which will come to all the people; for to you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord.  And this will be a sign for you: you will find a babe wrapped in swaddling cloths and lying in a manger.”  And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying, “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among men with whom he is pleased!” (Luke 2:9-14)

 Merry Christmas on this joyful, blessed, Feast of the Nativity of Our Lord!  What a wonderful time, amidst the fears and anxieties of this world, to remember the words of the Angels to the shepherds of Bethlehem.

Today is also a good day to remember St. Anastasia, and say a little prayer, at least, asking for her intercession.

Saint Who?

     You may wonder, why St. Anastasia? (you may, in fact, wonder who is St. Anastasia)? Why should we remember her in particular in the midst of one of the greatest and most joyful feasts in the liturgical year, the celebration of the birth of Christ himself?

     The short answer is that the Church itself has done the same throughout most of its history. From the earliest centuries of the Roman Church up until the present day (with a brief hiatus following the reform of the liturgy fifty years ago), the second mass on Christmas Day has been a commemoration, not of the Nativity, but of this ancient martyr whose memorial is December 25th.

     There’s more to it than that, of course. But first, let me take a step or two back. One of the things I set out to do with this blog is to highlight saints who may not be familiar to us. St. Monegundis is just one example. There are also those whose memorial is overshadowed by a more prominent celebration. That’s the case with St. Equitius, who shares his memorial with the formidable St. Clare of Assisi.

St. Anastasia

Last year it occurred to me that if it’s possible to all but disappear in the shadow of another saint, or by mere proximity to a greater celebration as is the case with St. Servulus (December 23rd, two days before Christmas), what happens to those holy men and women whose feasts fall on December 25th, on the very same day as the great Feast of the Nativity itself? I decided to investigate the saints who share Christmas Day with the Christ Child. That’s how I found St. Anastasia.

     I soon discovered that St. Anastasia is not at all an obscure saint . . . at least she wasn’t.  She was, in fact, a very well-known saint at one time. She is still venerated in not just the Latin Church, but in the Eastern Orthodox, Eastern Catholic, and Coptic Churches.  She appears in every mass that contains the Roman Canon, where she is the last named in the list of saints invoked after the consecration). Christians have dedicated numerous churches to her. These include a prominent church in Constantinople, the Cathedral in Zadar, Croatia (which also holds her relics), and a very ancient church in Rome with a very intriguing history.

A Bigger Topic

     As it happens, I was opening up a much bigger topic than I had anticipated. In fact, we cannot adequately discuss this seemingly obscure saint without also touching upon the history of parish churches in Rome at the dawn of the Christian era, hagiography and the reliability of the oral tradition, the relationship between the Greek churches and the Latin churches, changes in the liturgy of the Mass after the second Vatican Council, and more.  Oh yes, and perhaps most of all, the relationship between the Incarnation, Passion, and Resurrection of Jesus Christ.

That’s rather a lot for one blog post, and besides, we have celebrating to see to. I’ll just limit myself to just one further observation on that last point above.  That is to say, We remember St. Anastasia as a martyr. She gave up her life in the city of Sirmium, in present day Serbia. We don’t know a specific year, but it was probably in the first decade of the 4th century.  

A Saint For All Seasons

That’s all we know with certainty (although there are various accounts of her life and death dating from later centuries).  Her martyrdom connects her with the Passion and Death of Christ. As St. Paul would put it (Colossians 1:24), she completed in her own body what was lacking in Christ’s sufferings.  She shares in the Incarnation by sharing her feast day with the commemoration of Christ’s Nativity on the Solemnity of Christmas.  And what, you may wonder, does this saint have to do with the crowning Miracle we celebrate at Easter? Her name, Anastasia, comes from the Greek word ἀνάστασις (anastasis), which means Resurrection.

So, a Merry Christmas to all! May you enjoy all the blessings of this wonderful grace filled season! . . . But don’t forget to pause for a moment to prayerfully remember the martyr who shares our Lord’s birthday.

Saint Anastasia, pray for us!

Featured image top of page: The Nativity, by Tintoretto, c. 1550-1580

Music for Christmas

Here is a charming medley of two of the most beautiful Christmas songs, “O Holy Night” and “Silent Night.” The singers are twin brothers Milo and Julian Sposato, 11 years old at the time. They are now grown up, by the way, and still singing together.