One theory connects the carol to the era when Catholicism was outlawed in England, from 1558 and 1829. The carol, it is said, was a catechism song for Catholics to learn “the tenets of their faith,” as they could not openly practice in Anglican society [source: Snopes.com]. While many still hold the idea of a coded hymn to be true, there’s no substantive evidence that this was the case, nor is there any evidence that the verses contain anything uniquely Catholic.
Here are the verses of the song, along with their supposed symbolism:
A Partridge in a Pear Tree – Jesus Christ
Two Turtle Doves – The Old and New Testaments
Three French Hens – The three virtues of Faith, Hope and Charity
Four Calling/Collie Birds – Four gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John
Five Golden Rings – First five books of the Old Testament
Six Geese-a-Laying – Six days of creation before God’s rest on the seventh day
Seven Swans-a-Swimming – Seven gifts of the Holy Spirit
Eight Maids-a-Milking – Eight Beatitudes
Nine Ladies Dancing – Nine fruits of the Holy Spirit
Ten Lords-a-Leaping – Ten Commandments
Eleven Pipers Piping – Eleven faithful disciples
Twelve Drummers Drumming -Twelve points of belief in the Apostles’ Creed
While these verses are what most of us associate with the “Twelve Days of Christmas,” the phrase refers to an actual 12-day period. The 12 days of Christmas, in fact, are the days from Dec. 25, celebrated as the birth of Jesus Christ, to the Epiphany, celebrated on Jan. 6 as the day when the manifestation of Christ’s glory was realized.
While sects of Christianity celebrate the 12 days of Christmas differently, certain ones, such as the Eastern Orthodox Church, consider the Epiphany to be the most important day of the Christmas season. Some exchange gifts on each of the 12 days instead of only on Christmas day.
Once upon a time, there was a great famine (which means there wasn’t enough food to go around). The people in one small village didn’t have enough to eat, and definitely not enough to store away for the winter. People were afraid their families would go hungry, so they hid the small amounts of food they did have. They even hid their food from their friends and neighbors. One day a wandering soldier came into the village. He asked the different people he met about finding a place to eat and sleep for the night.
“There’s not a bite to eat in the whole county,” they told him. “You better keep moving on.”
“Oh, I have everything I need,” he said. “In fact, I would like to make some stone soup to share with all of you.” He pulled a big black cooking pot from his wagon. He filled it with water and built a fire under it. Then, he reached slowly into his knapsack and, while several villagers watched, he pulled a plain gray stone from a cloth bag and dropped it into the water.
By now, hearing about the magic stone, most of the villagers were surrounding the soldier and his cooking pot. As the soldier sniffed the stone soup and licked his lips, the villagers began to overcome their lack of trust.
“Ahh,” the soldier said aloud to himself, “I do like a tasty stone soup. Of course, stone soup with cabbage is even better.”
Soon a villager ran from his house into the village square, holding a cabbage. “I have this cabbage from my garden.” he said as he held it out for the soldier. “Fantastic!” cried the soldier. The soldier cut up the cabbage and added it to the pot. “You know, I once had stone soup with cabbage and a bit of beef, and it was delicious.”
The butcher said he thought he could find some beef scraps. As he ran back to his shop, other villagers offered bits of vegetables from their own gardens–potatoes, onions, carrots, celery. Soon the big black pot was bubbling and steaming. When the soup was ready, everyone in the village ate a bowl of soup, and it was delicious.
The villagers offered the soldier money and other treasures for the magic stone, but he refused to sell it. He had many offers for a cot to sleep on that night. The next day he traveled on his way.
(Adapted from the classic folktale from the Aarne-Thompson folktale system)
Ask: What is the moral of the story? (Hint: By working together, with everyone contributing what they can, a greater good is achieved.)
The dog in the photo was trained to identify life after earthquakes. His posture and the fact of staying fixed as seen in the image is the posture that tells the rescuer that there is life in that place. And look at nothing more and nothing less where and in front of who is placed: in front of Jesus as the Eucharistic bread in the tabernacle, the living God among us.
“On the evening of the last day of his October 1995 visit to the United States, John Paul II was scheduled to greet the seminarians at Saint Mary’s Seminary in Baltimore. It had been a very full day that began with a Mass at Oriole Park in Camden Yards, a parade through downtown streets, a visit to the Basilica of the Assumption, the first cathedral in the country, lunch at a local soup kitchen run by Catholic Charities; a prayer service at the Cathedral of Mary Our Queen in North Baltimore; and finally a quick stop at Saint Mary’s Seminary.
The schedule was tight so the plan was simply to greet the seminarians while they stood outside on the steps. But the Pope made his way through their ranks and into the building. His plan was to first make a visit to the Blessed Sacrament.
When his wishes were made known, security flew into action. They swept the building paying close attention to the chapel where the Pope would be praying. For this purpose highly trained dogs were used to detect any person who might be present.
The dogs are trained to locate survivors in collapsed buildings after earthquakes and other disasters. These highly intelligent and eager dogs quickly went through the halls, offices and classrooms and were then sent to the chapel. They went up and down the aisle, past the pews and finally into the side chapel where the Blessed Sacrament is reserved.
Upon reaching the tabernacle, the dogs sniffed, whined, pointed, and refused to leave, their attention riveted on the tabernacle, until called by their handlers. They were convinced that they discovered someone there.
We Catholics know they were right — they found a real, living Person in the tabernacle!”
Article taken from Fr. Arthur Byrne, Garabandal Journal
Two new options have been added to make managing expense report submission and voucher submission and the second signature capture very simple, fast, and effective. This is available for the Assembly as well.
When you need to submit expenses for reimbursement this can be done very easily by accessing Quick Options.
Our Financial Secretary, Worthy, Charlie Brown can now create a voucher on the website where the process is designed to send a pre-formatted voucher to our Worthy Grand Knight in the form of an email and a separate PDF document where our GK can either sign the email (email signature extension loaded on a browser free) or can sign the PDF using a PDF signature Tool (Adobe $) return the voucher to Treasurer with an added email address to our QuickBooks which will load the voucher into QuickBooks, automatically. Our Grand Knight is the only person authorized to do this send to QuickBooks by email.
The easiest way to do these tasks by mobile phone is to type https://kofcvt.org/cellphone/ in the URL area in your browser where you can sign in and see the buttons. Only the FS has access to the Create Voucher button.
Another way to access the quick options is by going to kofcvt.org on your mobile device and pressing the left-hand hamburger menu. You will find Quick Options. Sign in and you can have access to options quickly.
Accessing this feature from a desk-top or lap-top has been added to the drop-down menu under the option Member where you will get the same buttons but with Assembly post on the left, and Council posts on the right. You must sign in normally to see this option.
If you are afraid to use the website because you are afraid to do something that might damage our website “be not afraid” jp2. The website cannot be damaged by things you do. Feel free to try everything available. Nothing can be deleted nor users removed by anyone other than the Administrator. All options that are available to you cannot harm anything. If you see or experience something odd you can report it to the webmaster. The option to do this is at the bottom of most pages.
faithbook
A new option now appears on your menu. This is called “faithbook” which navigates you to a new social style area of the website. The vision for this faith-based social area is to be able to invite your wives, children, and friends to join in our faith experiences within the council with a full featured social activity board away from our members working area (main site). My vision is when a new person that’s not a member wants to join our site, the administrator will vet them assigning them the roll of “family, friends” which gives them a very limited access to the member site. When they sign in, they are directed to faithbook automatically. The activity on this site does not get exposed to the outside world. It’s totally internal.
I have developed a Logo for this section:
It is my recommendation that this logo be registered with Copyright.gov. $45.00 Discussions are invited.
This write up assumes you do not have a licensed product of Adobe installed as the features for form-fill and e-signature are included when dealing with their .pdf documents. Adobe’s business plan has changed and they are now charging for these services and diminishing print resolutions if you use an unlicensed free Adobe Reader. We have paid for PDFescape at 1/2 the cost which is licensed to one user so we have to be creative using it. You must be a registered member to use this feature so if you have not done this step cut and past or click this link to learn how: https://kofcvt.org/webmaster-news/.
Sign In and navigate to the Member Tab and click the ∨ and more options appear below. Find Annual Survey and select. From mobile devices, this option is on the left Menu2 option under Members. The Annual Survey Page is designed so you can print or create a .pdf file or email the blank copy to where ever. The brown colored button above labeled Auto [Fill With PDFescape] will guide you how to proceed with signing in to the product and creating your document to fill out. The following is the pop-up dialog.
Filling in the Annual Survey On-Line
If you wish to fill out the Annual Survey On-Line, click the Auto Fill with PDFescape button. After PDFescape launches, you are asked to login. Enter: User Name sbknights7525@gmail.com Password: Survey2021! check I’m not a robot and then press the Login button
PDFescape allows you to view recent documents. Click the Review option. You should see a list of Annual Surveys. Look for document “individual_survey1728a_p”.
Duplicate this by pressing the duplicate icon on the left. Then use the pencil on the right to change the name of your new document to be “Rick Gravelin 2021 Annual Survey ” or use your Member Number instead of your name. Then click on the document name to open it to edit. When you are done, look for Recent in the header options. This will send you back to the list.
After you are finished filling out the survey numbers, look to the left side options to Save your document. Also, there are options for you so you can save your document, save & download pdf, and print your document.
The below photo gallery shows you the screens.
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