Christmas Eve, according the the Catholic church, is a fast day. Catholics interpret this in many ways. Usually it means eating meagerly and avoiding meat. Southern Italians, always up for a grand food celebration, view this fast day as an opportunity to cook as many types of seafood as they can, often thirteen, symbolizing Jesus and his apostles. If you’re Italian-American, or have eaten Christmas Eve dinner with an Italian-American family, you know what kind of abondanza these feasts can be, with not a speck of meat in sight.
I have favorite Christmas Eve dishes I always make, such as baccala with potatoes and white wine, and spaghetti with clam sauce, but I always include at least one new one each year. Another constant is a variation on the classic Sicilian orange salad. It’s the best palate cleanser after so much fish. If you can find blood oranges, use them, but the salad is just as delicious with regular oranges. This year I’m adding mint, which is customary, but basil also goes really well with oranges, if you prefer.
Merry Christmas to you all.
(Serves 4 or 5)
4 oranges, peeled and cut into thin rounds (include 2 blood oranges if you can find them), 2 small fennel bulbs, trimmed and thinly sliced, ½ a red onion, cut into thin slices, a handful of black olives (I like the wrinkled Moroccan type for this salad), sea salt and freshly ground black pepper, your best extra-virgin olive oil, and a handful of fresh mint leaves
Arrange the orange and fennel slices on a large, pretty serving platter. Scatter on the red onion and the black olives. You can cover and chill this until you’re ready to serve it.
Right before serving, season with sea salt and black pepper. Drizzle with a generous amount of olive oil, and garnish with the mint leaves. Serve right away.
(Erica De Mane is a chef and food writer specializing in the Mediterranean diet. She has a popular blog at http://www.ericademane.com).
Image: A Neapolitan angel from a Christmas creche.
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Feast Day: December 13
Patron of: the blind
Keywords: light, clarity, the blind, eye disease, dysentery, epidemics, cutlers, electricians, glaziers, gondoliers, oculists, peasants, writers, vision
Quote: “Those whose hearts are pure are the temples of the Holy Spirit.”
Symbols: holding her eyes on a dish, martyrs palms, sword, oxen
Willing to give up the comforts of her privileged life in order to obtain a state of enlightenment, Saint Lucy is one of the early virgin martyrs who challenged the authority of the Roman state. Her very name means ‘light’ and as light is direct and clear, shining in the most filthy of environments, we invoke her for clarity of vision in the spiritual as well as the physical realm.
Born in Syracuse, Sicily to a wealthy family of Greek descent, Lucy’s father died when she was very young. Following the traditions of their society, Lucy had a large dowry and was affianced in an arranged marriage to a pagan nobleman. Lucy was a Christian and believed that she could best be a conduit of the Holy Spirit by remaining a virgin unfettered by husband and children. At this time Christianity was a great threat to the Roman Empire and the emperor Diocletian vowed to stamp it out wherever it arose. Lucy kept her vow a secret as Christians were considered revolutionaries against the state. Since her mother suffered from constant bleeding from a uterine hemorrhage, Lucy took her to the tomb of Saint Agatha in Catania, a place where many miracles were reported, for a healing. While spending the night there, Lucy dreamt of Saint Agatha who told her, “You have no need to invoke me, for your faith has already cured your mother. One day you will be known as the patron of your own city.” Upon awakening and finding her mother completely healed, Lucy confessed to her desire to remain a virgin and distribute her dowry among the poor. Impressed by her faith, her mother acquiesced to her daughter’s wishes.
When her fiancé heard of the broken engagement he went to the governor to denounce Lucy as a Christian. In an attempt to change her mind, she was brought before the authorities. When she asked why was it so important that this man need to marry her, she was told because she had the loveliest eyes. Whereupon Lucy ripped out her eyeballs and told the governor to send them to her former fiancé. The next day her eyesight was miraculously restored and Lucy was once again brought before the authorities. An attempt was made to have her taken to a brothel to be repeatedly raped, but a phalanx of soldiers could not move her. A team of oxen was brought in to no avail. Burning pitch was poured on her head, but she stood fast, predicting the downfall of the emperor. This last declaration proved to be too much and Lucy was fatally stabbed in the throat. True to her prophecy Diocletian the emperor abdicated his throne within the year.
It is said that “the longest of nights and shortest of days belong to Saint Lucy.” Because her feast day, December 13 used to be the winter solstice before the change to the Gregorian calendar, Lucy enjoys great patronage in Scandanavia as the saint who brings the coming of the light. Her relics were moved to Venice where she is celebrated in song by gondoliers. In Sicily she is credited with ending an epidemic of children’s deaths in the 14th century, today she is synonymous with Santa Claus, where children receive gifts on her feast day. When there was a famine in her native land during the 16th century, ships laden with raw wheat turned up on her feast day. The starving inhabitants cooked the wheat whole, and today it is customary to cook with raw wheat on her feast day.
Explanation of symbols:
Eyes on a dish: Lucy ripped out her own eyes and offered them to her fiancée when she was told he loved her for her beautiful eyes. She was not in need of her mortal eyes as she was filled with light.
Palms: Symbol of martyrdom.
Saint Lucy, your beautiful name signifies light. By the light of faith which God bestowed upon you, increase and preserve this light in my soul so that I may avoid evil, be zealous in the performance of good works, and abhor nothing as much as the blindness and darkness of evil and sin. By your intercession with God, obtain for me perfect vision for my bodily eyes and the grace to use them for God’s great honor and glory and the salvation of all men. Saint Lucy, virgin and martyr, hear my prayers and obtain my petitions. (Mention your request here.)
Amen
(Excerpted from the app: “Novena:Praying with the Saints” by Barbara Calamari and Sandra DiPasqua).
Feast Day: December 12
Patron of: Motherly Comfort
Quote: “Am I not your mother?”
Keywords: the Americas, compassion, love, forgiveness, mercy, motherly comfort, protection
Symbols: mandorla (body halo), roses, stars, crescent moon, angel
This image of Mary is the preeminent cultural icon of Mexico and the American Southwest, cherished by Catholics and non-Catholics alike. Unlike other apparitions of Mary, where she sometimes issues warnings to mankind, in her visitation to the Aztec people, she promised hope, love and comfort at a time when their own way of life had been destroyed. We invoke Our Lady of Guadalupe anytime we need the wisdom and comfort of a motherly force.
In December of 1531, the world of the once great Aztec civilization lay in ruins. The native inhabitants of what would become Mexico City were suffering brutally under the domination of Spanish Colonialists who had first invaded in 1519. Within two short years the forces of Hernan Cortes, with the help of native enemies of the Aztecs had completely overrun and destroyed a dual culture of light and dark, one of gracious cities and blood filled temples. Believing that their superiority and way of life depended on feeding their gods human sacrifices, the Aztecs routinely invaded neighboring tribes, sacrificing tens of thousands of captives a week. Gradually, the images of their own gods, particularly the female ones, took on more monstrous and grotesque features. The Spanish responded to these sacred sites by wreaking havoc and destruction upon them. Within ten years the remaining Aztec residents were heart-sick, depressed and dying off.
On December 9, 1531, and Aztec convert to Catholicism called Juan Diego, was on his way to mass. Distracted by the singing of birds on a hillside, he stopped. He then heard the kindly calling of his name in his native Nahuatl language. He approached the noble Aztec woman n the hill and was stunned at the heightened glow of her surroundings. She introduced herself as the perfect maiden Saint Mary, honorable mother of the true God. She asked him to go to the bishop and request a temple be built to her on the hill. She added, “I am the compassionate mother of you and your people, here in this land and of all the people who love me, search for me and confide in me…” After a long wait, the bishop told Juan Diego that he needed a sign proving that this was a true appearance of Mary. In subsequent days, when Juan Diego again saw the woman on the hill, he begged her to get someone who the bishop would respect more to deliver her request. She kindly replied that he was the perfect one for her message. The next day Juan Diego walked another way into town in order to avoid the woman as his uncle was sick and he did not want to waste any time doing her errands. Nonplussed, she came down from the other side of the hill to meet him. Flustered, he told her he had to tend to his uncle and had no time to wait for the bishop who did not believe him anyway. The woman assured him that his uncle was already well and then told him to gather roses among the rocks. This being winter he was amazed at how many roses were in full bloom. The woman arranged the roses in his cloak and again sent him off to the bishop. When he was finally granted this audience, it was the bishop’s turn to gasp in amazement. As Juan Diego unwrapped his cloak of roses, there imprinted on his cloak was the exact image of the lady on the hill. The bishop fell to his knees and begged Juan’s forgiveness. Today, tens of millions of pilgrims flock to Mexico City to see this original cloth which is in the cathedral named after this apparition of Mary, Our Lady of Guadalupe.
The Virgin Mary appears to each visionary as a member of their own culture. This image of a kindly, loving mother figure so impressed the native people of Mexico, that thousands of them came to be baptized within the first few months of the cloth being put on display.
Explanation of images:
Mandorla: a body halo which signifies that Mary is wrapped in the grace of God.
Robe of stars: By wwearing the stars she is showing that her God is more powerful than the stars. Blue is the color of royalty and virginity.
Crescent Moon: to Christians, Mary’s virginity. To Indian’s Mary is stronger than the moon god, the god of darkness.
angel: Carried there by heaven.
Novena to Our Lady of Guadalupe
Our Lady of Guadalupe, according to your message in Mexico I venerate you as “the Virgin Mother Of the true God for whom we live, the Creator of all the world, maker of heaven and earth.” In spirit I kneel before your most holy image which you miraculously imprinted upon the cloak of the Indian Juan Diego. And with the faith of the countless numbers of pilgrims who visit your shrine, I beg you for this favor: (mention your request).
Remember, O Immaculate Virgin, the words you spoke to your devout client, “I am a merciful Mother to you and to all your people who love me and trust in me and invoke my help. I listen to their lamentations and solace all their sorrows and their sufferings.” I beg you to be a merciful Mother to me, because I sincerely love you and trust in you and invoke your help. I entreat you, Our Lady of Guadalupe, to grant my request, if this should be the will of God, in order that I may bear witness to your love, your compassion, your help and protection. Do not forsake me in my needs. Amen.
(Excerpted from the app: “Novena: Praying with the Saints” by Barbara Calamari and Sandra Di Pasqua).
Our Lady of Guadalupe, pray for us.
novena.com 