12 days of Christmas

[New Mama]

I checked this out and it appears to be true....I never knew this....

What do leaping lords, French hens, Swimming swans, and especially the partridge who won't come out of the pear tree have to do with Christmas?

From 1558 until 1829, Roman Catholics in England were
not permitted to practice their faith openly. Someone
during that era wrote this carol as a catechism song for young Catholics.

It has two levels of meaning: the surface meaning
plus a hidden meaning known only to members of their church. Each element in the carol has a code word for a religious reality
which the children could remember.

-The partridge in a pear tree was Jesus Christ.
-Two turtle doves were the Old and New Testaments.
-Three French hens stood for faith, hope and love.
-The four calling birds were the four gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke & John.
-The five golden rings recalled the Torah or Law, the first five books of the Old Testament.
-The six geese a-laying stood for the six days of creation.
-Seven swans a-swimming represented the sevenfold gifts of the Holy Spirit--Prophesy, Serving, Teaching, Exhortation, Contribution, Leadership, and Mercy.
-The eight maids a-milking were the eight beatitudes.

Nine ladies dancing were the nine fruits of the Holy
Spirit--Love,Joy,Peace,Patience,Kindness,Goodness,
Faithfulness,Gentleness and self control
-The ten lords a-leaping were the ten commandments.
-The eleven pipers piping stood for the eleven faithful disciples.
-The twelve drummers drumming symbolized the twelve points of belief in the Apostles' Creed.

suewidemark.netfirms.com/12days.htm

[♥ COVID-19♥]

Snopes claims it's false

www.snopes.com/holidays/christmas/music/12days.asp

[Ardbeg... innit]

Been a long time since I was out Snopes'ed

[New Mama]

Dec 20, 2010 12:12:50 GMT -6 ♥ COVID-19♥ said:

Snopes claims it's false

www.snopes.com/holidays/christmas/music/12days.asp

I saw that too but the site I included had this to say about Snopes. Hard to say who is right with absolute certainty.

3. The snopes article states that the attempts to assign deeper meanings to nursery rhymes lacks historical basis and attributes this story about the "12 days of Christmas" as an attempt to do something similar. This is not a good argument. Many of the nursery rhymes have nonsensical words unless you look at the political meaning. We can see much of the same sort of thing in the Louis Carroll books "Through the Looking Glass" "Alice in Wonderland" and Carroll admitted himself, PUTTING the codified political stuff in the book. We can see this type of writing in the book of Revelations as well, which has been DOCUMENTED by scholars to be a codified catechism written so that if found by the Romans, it would be taken as nonsensical.

4. Snopes uses the logic that Catholics were "not really that persecuted" in the 16th century. This is not a correct assumption. Truth is after the Anglican split, the British despoiled just about EVERY Catholic church AND monastery AND convent that they could find. That is why there ARE NO really old Catholic shrines in the UK except if they were converted over to Anglican usage. Because there was often bitter feelings between churches which split off and the "mother church", Catholic history written by non Catholics is notoriously inaccurate. ch-ch-changing history is something we are still doing in the 21st century and something which was done as early as 5000 years BC when Horemheb "lost" the 18th dynasty by leveling the city, Amarna and all the traces of it. He did such a good job that it wasn't until the late 19th century, that suspicions began to arise due to the appearance of artifacts from the 18th dynasty. And by 1920, archeologists confirmed the 18th dynasty and we learned about Amonhoptep, Nefertiti and King Tut.

I feel the logic in the article on the Snopes site is faulty and does not reflect a knowledge of Catholic history. Snopes.com offers no documentation that the "12 days of Christmas" was NOT a song used in Catechesis and we do have the Jesuit tradition on this from Fr Roide who is a Jesuit scholar, as well as Fr Hal's research. Both suggest that this WAS a song of catechesis.

Whatever the case, modern Christians can still be inspired by the song. See if, when you sing it next time, you don't think more of Jesus!

Research data:

Fr Russell Roide, SJ

Fr Hal Stockert

Terry Mattingly's "on Religion " column available on the net as :

www.tmatt.net/column/1999/12/22/

[Chicago Jake]

Is it true that "The Ten Days of Festivus" was really a hidden message about the metric system?

[Ardbeg... innit]

The "Feats of Strength" are meant to be making a mockery of the English system.. its actually the "Feets of Strength"

[♥ COVID-19♥]

"8 Crazy Nights" was an Adam Sandler animated movie, for those of you keeping score at home.