A few words up front: This is in no way an attempt to hijack a religious holiday from our spiritual elder brothers and sisters; far from it.
But the simple fact is: It’s in the Bible. More to the point, it’s in the part of the Bible that Catholics accept as canonical (i.e.: infallibly part of scripture), which our protestant brethren and – ironically – most of our Jewish older brothers don’t accept as scripture.
However, for years I have had an affinity for the holiday of Hanukkah. In the last 5 years or so, I’ve seen a number of others in the Catholic world weigh in on this, so I figured I’d toss my two cents in.
First off, There’s a lot to like: The celebration recalls the story of a people persecuted, rising up – in some ways analogous to the modern affronts against faith – against a totalitarian state’s move to wipe out a group of people ideologically (the Jews) by forcing them to do things which were against their laws, and which violated their moral rights (and also physically, through violence. Hence you get scenes like the rather gruesome martyrdom of a mother and her 7 sons, or scenes like this:
[T]wo women who were arrested for having circumcised their children were publicly paraded about the city with their babies hanging at their breasts and then thrown down from the top of the city wall. Others, who had assembled in nearby caves to observe the seventh day in secret, were betrayed to Philip and all burned to death. In their respect for the holiness of that day, they refrained from defending themselves. (2 Macc 6:10-11)
If you stop to imagine this scene, it should make you nauseous. And yet, immediately after that scene, the author breaks the fourth wall like this:
Now I urge those who read this book not to be disheartened by these misfortunes, but to consider that these punishments were meant not for the ruin but for the correction of our nation. It is, in fact, a sign of great kindness to punish the impious promptly instead of letting them go for long. Thus, in dealing with other nations, the Sovereign Lord patiently waits until they reach the full measure of their sins before punishing them; but with us he has decided to deal differently, in order that he may not have to punish us later, when our sins have reached their fullness. Therefore he never withdraws his mercy from us. Although he disciplines us with misfortunes, he does not abandon his own people. Let these words suffice for recalling this truth. Without further ado we must go on with our story.
What faith! Oh, that we could view our trials and tribulations with such faith!
“Oh sure,” chimes in a voice from my head, ironically with a Yiddish accent, “hind sight is 20/20 my friend, but in the moment, such faith is not so easy, I suspect.”
And I agree with this voice. For just as courage isn’t not being afraid, it’s being afraid and yet persevering, so too faith isn’t simply believing something unproven (in fact, that’s not faith at all, but naivete) – it is, rather, believing the believable when everything around you is trying to dissuade you of what you know to be the case.
Other Tidbits from Maccabees
I’m not a scripture scholar, but I enjoy reading these books (1st and 2nd Maccabees). Apparently, so did the early church, who – being martyred herself – found great solace in these accounts:
“But that we may believe on the authority of holy Scripture that such is the case, hear how in the book of Maccabees, where the mother of seven martyrs exhorts her son to endure torture, this truth is confirmed; for she says, ‘ ask of thee, my son, to look at the heaven and the earth, and at all things which are in them, and beholding these, to know that God made all these things when they did not exist'[2 Maccabees 7:28].” Origen, Fundamental Principles, 2:2 (A.D. 230).
And:
“The Lord is now making trial of your love for Him. Now there is an opportunity for you, through your patience, to take the martyr’s lot. The mother of the Maccabees [2 Maccabees 7] saw the death of seven sons without a sigh, without even shedding one unworthy tear.” Basil, To the Wife of Nectarius, Epistle 6:2 (A.D. 358).
However, I also like them because there are interesting bits of proto-Christian theology nestled in them. On the one hand, the Jews were uncertain of the resurrection up until the time of Jesus. Many, like the Sadducees, denied it as a silly fallacy, who even tried to catch Jesus up by quoting to him the story of Tobit (about a woman who was married 7 times to 7 brothers) to show how silly was both the concept of the resurrection, and also these books that they didn’t accept (they only accepted the Torah, the first 5 books of the Old Testament, also known as the Books of Moses.) (Cf Luke 20:27-40)
And yet we have Judas Maccabeus (“Whose name literally means “the Hammer of the Jews”) who firmly believes in the resurrection, and prays for and makes sacrifice for some of his men who fall in battle, who were found to have the medals of idols on them (he views their being slain as the natural punishment for this transgression, and has hope yet for their eternal soul!)
On the following day, since the task had now become urgent, Judas and his companions went to gather up the bodies of the fallen and bury them with their kindred in their ancestral tombs. But under the tunic of each of the dead they found amulets sacred to the idols of Jamnia, which the law forbids the Jews to wear. So it was clear to all that this was why these men had fallen. They all therefore praised the ways of the Lord, the just judge who brings to light the things that are hidden. Turning to supplication, they prayed that the sinful deed might be fully blotted out. The noble Judas exhorted the people to keep themselves free from sin, for they had seen with their own eyes what had happened because of the sin of those who had fallen. He then took up a collection among all his soldiers, amounting to two thousand silver drachmas, which he sent to Jerusalem to provide for an expiatory sacrifice. In doing this he acted in a very excellent and noble way, inasmuch as he had the resurrection in mind; for if he were not expecting the fallen to rise again, it would have been superfluous and foolish to pray for the dead. But if he did this with a view to the splendid reward that awaits those who had gone to rest in godliness, it was a holy and pious thought. Thus he made atonement for the dead that they might be absolved from their sin. (2 Macc. 12)
I’m told Martin Luther particularly hated this passage, what with the prayer for the dead and all being not only found in Scripture but lauded!
We also find a very nuanced understanding of the Sabbath – both of the righteous desire to keep God’s law, but also the practicalities (the Sabbath being made for man, and not man for the Sabbath). So we get contrasting passages like this:
Then the enemy attacked them at once. But they did not retaliate; they neither threw stones, nor blocked up their secret refuges. They said, “Let us all die in innocence; heaven and earth are our witnesses that you destroy us unjustly.” So the officers and soldiers attacked them on the Sabbath, and they died with their wives, their children and their animals, to the number of a thousand persons. (1 Mac 1:35-38)
And this, right after:
When Mattathias and his friends heard of it, they mourned deeply for them. They said to one another, “If we all do as our kindred have done, and do not fight against the Gentiles for our lives and our laws, they will soon destroy us from the earth.” So on that day they came to this decision: “Let us fight against anyone who attacks us on the Sabbath, so that we may not all die as our kindred died in their secret refuges.” (v. 39-41)
So, Make Those Latkas!
The point of all of this is – this is YOUR history. These are YOUR ancestors. They faced severe hardships, and we can (and should) look to them for inspiration.
After purifying the temple, they made another altar. Then, with fire struck from flint, they offered sacrifice for the first time in two years, burned incense, and lighted lamps. They also set out the showbread. . . On the anniversary of the day on which the temple had been profaned by the foreigners, that is, the twenty-fifth of the same month Kislev, the purification of the temple took place. The Jews celebrated joyfully for eight days as on the feast of Booths, remembering how, a little while before, they had spent the feast of Booths living like wild animals in the mountains and in caves. (2 Macc 10:3-6)
This is your history. Live it with your elder brothers!
Image courtesy of: Thomas Hawk