Tag Archives: catholic

The Feast of the Seven Fishes

Performance Date: April 2007

This special feast was a tradition that my father’s father observed with his family before he married.  According to my informant, this was the traditional meal of Christmas Eve.  After going to church to attend the midnight Mass before Christmas Day, my grandfather’s family would come home and eat Seven Fishes Dinner, quite a generous meal, during the wee hours of Christmas morning.  As my mother has always aimed to have dinner on the table around six or seven o’clock, I found this quite shocking, but my informant added that they did not arrive home until around one in the morning to enjoy the feast.  This feast obviously included several varieties of seafood, not limited to just fish.  My informant recalled salt cod, shrimp, and calamari/squid, as examples of items my great grandfather ate on Christmas morning.

Annotation/additional comments:
The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, in an article on Dec. 22, 2005 (http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/05356/625983.stm), recognizes the Seven Fishes of Christmas Eve as an Italian tradition and describes a restaurant owning family’s variation of the feast.  Their meal includes “scrod florentine, breaded filets in a bed of spinach; anchovies olio, pasta cooked with oil, garlic and the salty fish; linguine with white clam sauce; fried calamari rings,” and “deep-fried smelts, decapitated and marinated in lemon.”  This is the meal they serve at home, not at the restaurant.  The family also serves the feast as a special at their restaurant.
In the article, the main chef adds that there are “many theories” regarding the meaning behind the Seven Fishes of Christmas Eve.  He claims, “It has always meant the Seven Sacraments,” adding that some families celebrate with twelve or even thirteen varieties of seafood, to represent the twelve disciples and Jesus.  He suggests that the arms of the squid may have symbolic significance (“how God reaches out to us”), and that “the eel was supposed to be the speed in which Jesus’ word travels through the world.”
Many changes in the feast have been made over the years in this family, including the removal of eel from the menu and of the heads from the fish, and obviously many changes have occurred in various communities since whenever this tradition began.  According to the newspaper article, this family also celebrates their feast after seven o’clock rather than midnight like my grandfather.  Regardless of the variations in religious symbolism and details of the menu, this traditional feast illustrates the role of food in uniting and defining a culture, in this case Italians or Italian Catholics.

Proverb – Sandusky, Ohio

Nationality: American
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: Sandusky, OH
Performance Date: April 20, 2008
Primary Language: English

Original version:

“Take one step towards God and he’ll take ten towards you.”

Anna told me she learned this proverb from one of her teachers at an all-girls Catholic school in Sandusky, Ohio. The saying was common throughout the school and she said it was hard to tell where it had originated from because it had been passed around the school for years. The teachers would consistently say it to students that they felt were struggling in their walks of faith. After hearing the proverb in her freshman year of high school, she felt it was very inspirational and has been using it ever since.

Anna thinks this quote has to do with God’s desire to become close to her. If she just put a little effort into understanding and becoming closer with God, God would put a lot of effort into understanding Anna. She said this quote did help her in her faith during times where she doubted God.

I think this quote has more than just religious implications. It is hard to quantify what one step towards God is or what it feels like when he takes ten steps towards you, but this proverb can be applied to many things. It is generally known that the first step or initial task is often the hardest. Once the job is started, the rest doesn’t seem so hard.

In an additional note, I grew up in a religious family with a fairly religious background myself and I find it interesting that I have never heard this quote or anything similar. It seems to be a quote that would be popular among Sunday school teachers and the such.

Wedding Ritual/Religious Folklore – Mexico

Nationality: Mexican
Age: 38
Occupation: Secretary
Residence: Las Vegas, NV
Performance Date: March 27, 2008
Primary Language: Spanish
Language: English

Esposo: (nombre de la esposa)recibe estas arras como prenda del cuidado que tendre de que no falte lo necesario en nuestro hogar.

Groom: (Name of the Bride) Take these coins as a guarantee of the care I will have to make sure that everything necessary will be not be missing from our home.

Esposa: Yo las recibo en senal del cuidado que tendre de que todo se aproveche en nuestro hogar.

Bride: I receive these coins as a sign of the care I will have to make sure that everything is taken advantage of in our home.

The thirteen coins which are called arras are exchanged between the bride and groom during the recitation of the promises shown above. The first twelve coins represent each month of the year and the last or thirteenth coin represents the poor. This exchange of coins is only performed during marriage ceremonies in Catholic Churches specifically those in Mexico and has recently appeared in the U.S. due to the large amount of immigrants arriving from south of the border.

Veronica told me that she believes the exchange of the coins signify the financial responsibilities both share. She also believes the tradition is carried on because it helps make the couple conscious of the economic hardships they might face. She herself performed this exchange during her wedding in the late 1980s in Mexico.

I knew about this tradition, but I was never aware of what the act represented. I had an idea that it was related to money, but did not know much else. I do agree with Veronica’s interpretation of what the coins represent and the purpose they serve. I feel as though this tradition is slowly disappearing in the U.S. especially because it is only performed when requested by the bride or groom, and because religious wedding have become less popular.

Reference:

Williams, Norma. The Mexican American Family: Tradition and Change. New York: General Hall, 1990. p.31

Religious Object

Nationality: Mexican, Salvadorian
Age: 22
Occupation: Sub-Contractor
Performance Date: April 30, 2008
Primary Language: English
Language: Spanish

Saint Spray

“Sometimes I buy St. Anthony spray. It’s a spray that contains holy water, like you see in church, but it’s in a spray can. There’s a prayer on it and I read it in English and Spanish. Then I say my own prayer. Then I spray it around wherever I want to get rid of the bad vibes. I sprayed it in my car last week to get rid of the bad memories that I have had in it. I believe it works, you just gotta believe.”

Frank is Catholic, but the origins of this “Saint Spray” come from Santeria. I know this because I am learning about it in my “Religions of Latin America” class. Santeria and Catholicism are closely related and share the same roots. Afro-Latinos that are descendents of a mix of Spanish, Indigenous, and Africans that mixed after the conquests. They created their own religion called Santeria that is derived from Catholicism. The same saints are prayed to in both religions, but they have different names sometimes.

The spray cans actually come in a variety of saints, which represent different aspects of life. Saints are chosen based on what one wants to pray for or what they are having trouble with. For example, St. Anthony is a patron of many things, including but not limited to animals, the elderly, seekers of lost articles, travelers, and harvests.

The spray can be defined as a superstition or as a religious object. That is to say, not all Catholics use or believe in the Saint Spray. Some discount it as Santeria, to which is notoriously more related to vodun.  Yet, as some sprays represent Catholic saints and contain prayers, the Catholic and Santeria faiths can overlap in certain practices, as some people firmly have faith in the holy saints.