The World Turned Upside Down, or, Cicero at the Gym

 Listen to me and you shall hear, news hath not been this thousand year:

Since Herod, Caesar, and many more, you never heard the like before.

Holy-dayes are despis'd, new fashions are devis'd.

Old Christmas is kickt out of Town.

Yet let's be content, and the times lament, 

you see the world turn'd upside down.

-From "The World Turned Upside-Down" Thomason Tracts (669. f. 10 (47)), dated 8 April 1646.

"The World Turned Upside-Down" is a ballad written during the English Civil War in the 1640s as a protest against laws passed by England’s Puritan-dominated Parliament banning traditional celebrations of Christmas .  The Puritans (as was their way) believed the Nativity of the Lord should be a solemn, serious occasion.  Making merry, decking the halls, hoisting steaming bowls of wassail, and so forth, simply smacked too much of paganism for the austere Roundheads.

“The Puritan Governor interrupting the Christmas Sports,”
by Howard Pyle c. 1883

     "The War on Christmas," it seems, is nothing new. The writer of "The World Turned Upside-Down," however, might be surprised at just how upside-down the order of battle has become in the modern version of the conflict.  The Puritans wanted to take all the joyful and celebratory elements out of the observance of Christmas on the grounds that they obscured the holiday's religious significance.  21st century censors, on the other hand, want to take all the religion out of our celebrations of the Nativity (as is their way), leaving only things frivolous and indulgent. They are seeking, in short, to transform one of the holiest days of the Christian liturgical year into a sort of purposeless seasonal bacchanal.  Talk about the world turned upside-down . . .   

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From Spes in Domino: Don't Be So Judgmental!

 

My, how times have changed.  We used to have the Seven Deadly Sins and the Sins That Cry Out to Heaven For Vengeance. Most of these don't seem of much concern to most people any more, even in many institutions that claim to be Catholic; some are even treated almost as virtues. In their place is a larger and ever enlarging Index of Forbiddden -isms: transphobism, climate denialism, islamophobism, etc., with the Granddaddy of All, the Wickedest Capital Sin, being Judgmentalism  (unless you're judging someone you're accusing of judgmentalism . . . or one of the other isms . . . in which case it is positively a virtue) . . .

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Steyn, Spong, Kempton, and the Passion of the Christ 2021

 Where were you on February 25th, 2004?  Well, we might not remember the exact date, but most of us (except the youngsters) will remember the event.  On this date seventeen years ago Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ was released. That year Ash Wednesday fell on the 25th of February, and Gibson intentionally timed the release of his film, a cinematic depiction of the last 24 hours of the human life of Jesus, to coincide with the beginning of Lent.

     It's hard to overstate the impact the film made at the time.  It remained the largest grossing non - English Language film of all time (all the dialogue was in Aramaic and Latin) until 2017, when it was overtaken by something called Wolf Warrior 2 (your guess is as good as mine).  It sparked quite a bit of controversy, as well as some substantial discussion . . . [click HERE to continue reading this post on Spes in Domino]