Martyrdom and celebration: The beautiful tension of the Christmas Octave

We keep things in discreet categories in our culture. Religion too often remains within the church’s walls, kept apart from the forces that drive society. That’s a large reason why we have secularized the festivity of Christmas. We view faith as private and even divisive, so we gather at the end of December for a winter celebration defined by Santa, snowmen, and the new year. The quaint manger scene can remain because it’s harmless, largely drowned out by bright lights, reindeer, and pop music.

The Christmas Octave, part of the twelve days leading up to the Epiphany, has largely disappeared, with trees already taken down and the music that had taken over during Advent off the air. For those still attuned to the liturgy, we find a much more sobering reality, which continues to challenge our discreet categories: martyrdom. Maybe the nativity scene isn’t so harmless after all!

As we take the entire week to celebrate Christmas, we also reflect on the witness of numerous martyrs: St. Stephen on December 26^th, the Holy Innocents on the 28^th, and St. Thomas Becket on the 29^th.

Furthermore, we commemorate an attempt on St. John the Evangelist’s life on the 27^th, blessing wine to remember his deliverance from the poisoned cup he split with his blessing.

Christ came to die for us, born to take up the Cross one day. The Church’s first martyr, the deacon St. Stephen, comes immediately after Christmas Day as an important sign of the victory over death brought by the newborn Christ. The word “martyr” means witness, and nothing witnesses to God’s presence in the world more than the willingness to give all to testify to this saving truth. The death of the Holy Innocents points even more to the connection between the new life Christ brought for us and the death that opens up our share in his final victory. When we celebrate the Octave to the full, we must confront the reality of death placed centrally within our festivity.

Another martyr, St. Wenceslaus (907-935), makes an appearance on St. Stephen’s Day through a 19th-century carol with roots in medieval Bohemia.

According to legend, the duke, posthumously given the title King, sitting by his warm fire, spotted a poor peasant making his way through a snowstorm. Moved with compassion, Wenceslaus has his page follow him with meat, wine and logs for a fire so that the man and his family may celebrate the great feast. But, the page, struggling through the storm, cries out to the king for help. You may not have ever stayed with the carol until the fourth and fifth verses, but they describe how the page followed along behind “Good King Wenceslaus” one step at a time:

“Sire, the night is darker now,
and the wind blows stronger;
Fails my heart, I know not how;
I can go no longer.”
“Mark my footsteps, good my page;
Tread thou in them boldly:
Thou shalt find the winter’s rage
Freeze thy blood less coldly.”

In his master’s steps he trod,
where the snow lay dinted;
Heat was in the very sod
which the saint had printed.
Therefore, Christian men, be sure,
wealth or rank possessing,
Ye who now will bless the poor,
shall yourselves find blessing.

The carol resolves the tension between celebration and martyrdom, showing how even our feasting should witness to the newborn King. It will give testimony when it points to the presence of Christ and reaches out to others in charity by following in the footsteps of the King of Kings, the one Wenceslaus imitated.

The Octave contains another feast just before its climax: Pope St. Sylvester I (285-335) on New Year’s Eve.

During his papacy, the Church triumphed over Roman persecution through the reign of Constantine. With the Emperor, St. Sylvester oversaw the founding of the first great churches of Rome, such as the Lateran, St. Peter’s and Santa Croce, and approved the Creed and canons of the Council of Nicaea (1,700 years ago this coming year). After the celebration of martyrs earlier in the week, we also see the power of Christ’s birth to bring peace and transform the world through grace.

Martyrdom did not become obsolete after the Peace of Constantine, as St. Wenceslaus himself testifies, succumbing as he did to his pagan brother. In fact, the twentieth century saw more martyrs than all other centuries combined under the persecutions of Communist and totalitarian regimes. Like the Holy Innocents, those witnesses have entered into the life brought to us by the true Prince of Peace.

The celebration of Christmas calls us to become martyrs, witnesses to Christ, even by our celebration. The feasts of this Octave are not an excuse for worldliness but a means of proclaiming the Good News to a world that has forgotten it!

This week, continue to invite family and friends to celebrate, using wine blessed on St. John’s Day and New Year’s to use the good things of this world for their intended purpose: to glorify God and witness to his presence within it.