Patrick Comerford
Today is Saint Stephen’s Day (26 December 2023). Many people here also all it ‘Boxing Day’. But this is not the ‘Day after Christmas.’ Christmas is a season, and my reflections each morning during the ‘12 Days of Christmas’ are following this pattern:
1, A reflection on a verse from the popular Christmas song ‘The Twelve Days of Christmas’;
2, the Gospel reading of the day;
3, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary.
The 12 Days of Christmas: 2, Turtle Doves:
Today is 26 December, Saint Stephen’s Day and the Second Day of Christmas. In many places, this day is also known as Boxing Day, for on this day Christmas boxes were given to service workers, such as postal workers and trades people. It is a holiday in several countries, and whatever the explanation for the name ‘Boxing Day,’ it is a reminder that this is a day to be generous to those who are less fortunate than we are. The day after Christmas Day is a particularly good day to put the spirit of giving into practice.
Giving is so appropriate, for this day celebrates the first person to give his life for Christ, Saint Stephen, who was also one of the first deacons ordained to serve the poor.
Another saint closely associated with this day is Saint Wenceslas of Bohemia whose charity to the poor on Saint Stephen’s Day is remembered in John Mason Neale’s well-loved carol.
The second verse of the traditional song, The Twelve Days of Christmas, says:
On the second day of Christmas, my true love gave to me …
two turtle doves,
and a partridge in a pear tree.
The Christian interpretation of this song often sees the two turtle doves as figurative representations of the Old Testament and the New Testament. But two turtle doves also appear in the Christmas story as the poor offering in the Temple after the birth of Christ:
When the time came for their purification according to the law of Moses, they brought him up to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord (as it is written in the law of the Lord, ‘Every firstborn male shall be designated as holy to the Lord’), and they offered a sacrifice according to what is stated in the law of the Lord, ‘a pair of turtle-doves or two young pigeons.’ (Luke 2: 22-24, NRSVA)
The law provided for two turtle doves as a substitute for the offering of a lamb in the case of poor families (see Leviticus 12: 8). In other words, Luke sees the two turtle doves representing or prefiguring the lamb, or even the Lamb of God.
People who were even poorer, and who could not afford two turtle doves, could offer a portion of fine flour, but without the usual fragrant accompaniments of oil and frankincense, as it represented a sin offering (see Leviticus 12: 6-8; 5: 7-11). In other words, the intermediate offering of’ ‘a pair of turtle doves or two young pigeons’ indicates Joseph and the Virgin were in poor circumstances, but not living in abject poverty.
However, in these three verses, Luke fuses two discrete ritual observances. In Luke 2: 24, Luke describes the doves or pigeons as a gift on the occasion of the presentation, when according to Leviticus 12: 6 they were the gift prescribed for the purification.
After childbirth, the mother (not both parents) took part in a rite of purification that includes the offering of a lamb and either a pigeon or turtledove – or, if the woman’s poverty requires less, two pigeons or turtledoves – after seven days of ritual impurity and the boy’s circumcision on the eighth day (see Leviticus 12: 2-8).
The narrator connects this sacrificial offering to the presentation of Jesus as the firstborn son (see Exodus 13: 2, 11-16), rather than to the mother’s purification. The two rituals are fused in an arrangement that places the presentation of Jesus – as the firstborn son, ‘holy to the Lord’ (Luke 2: 23) – at the centre of the unit and the sacrificial offering of two birds at the end (Luke 2: 24).
Luke’s notice of the offering of two turtle doves is also a curtain-raiser to the priority his Gospel gives to the poor – an emphasis that ought to inform all our giving and all our priorities at Christmas-time.
Matthew 10: 17-22 (NRSVA):
[Jesus said:] 17 ‘Beware of them, for they will hand you over to councils and flog you in their synagogues; 18 and you will be dragged before governors and kings because of me, as a testimony to them and the Gentiles. 19 When they hand you over, do not worry about how you are to speak or what you are to say; for what you are to say will be given to you at that time; 20 for it is not you who speak, but the Spirit of your Father speaking through you. 21 Brother will betray brother to death, and a father his child, and children will rise against parents and have them put to death; 22 and you will be hated by all because of my name. But the one who endures to the end will be saved.’
Today’s Prayers (Tuesday 26 December 2023, Saint Stephen’s Day):
The theme this week in ‘Pray With the World Church,’ the Prayer Diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel), is ‘Love at Advent and Christmas.’ This theme was introduced on Sunday.
The USPG Prayer Diary today (26 December 2023, Saint Stephen, First Martyr) invites us to pray in these words:
Gracious Father, who gave the first martyr Stephen grace to pray for those who took up stones against him: grant that in all our sufferings for the truth we may learn to love even our enemies and to seek forgiveness for those who desire our hurt. Amen (adapted, Church of England Collect).
The Collect:
Gracious Father,
who gave the first martyr Stephen
grace to pray for those who took up stones against him:
grant that in all our sufferings for the truth
we may learn to love even our enemies
and to seek forgiveness for those who desire our hurt,
looking up to heaven to him who was crucified for us,
Jesus Christ, our mediator and advocate,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.
The Post-Communion Prayer:
Merciful Lord,
we thank you for the signs of your mercy
revealed in birth and death:
save us by the coming of your Son,
and give us joy in honouring Stephen,
first martyr of the new Israel;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Yesterday’s Reflection
Continued Tomorrow
Scripture quotations are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicised Edition copyright © 1989, 1995, National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide. http://nrsvbibles.org
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