Las Posadas and the Christmas Novena

Tonight is the start of Las Posadas, a nine-day Mexican celebration that begins on December 16 each year. Posadas is Spanish for "lodging", and the nine days represent the nine months of Mary's pregnancy.

Tonight is also the start of the Christmas Novena in Italy. A Novena is a Catholic ritual, a prayer repeated daily for nine days. It can take place at any time of the year, but one of the most observed is the Christmas Novena, recited or sung during the nine days leading up to Christmas day. Las Posadas comes from that same tradition.

Agenda:

1. Listen to novenas

2. Light a candle for Equality

3. Set out our crèche

4. Have a Posadas procession

5. Pinata party!

1. Listen to novenas:
The most well-known Christmas Novena was written by Father Charles Vachetta, pastor of the Church of the Immaculate in Turin, Italy, in 1721. He wrote it as a gift to his parishioners, to help them to understand the intertwining of the Old and New Testaments- a prayer going deep into the spirit of Advent, to leave them inspired with joy. Listen to the traditional Christmas Novena, Day 1, sung by the Daughters of St. Paul Choir.

One year I was searching through traditional and alternate novenas and found this Creation Novena at the Indian Catholic Matters site, my favorite of all:

Day 1: A Prayer for All Creation

Creator God, as we prepare for the coming of Your Son, we give thanks for the gift of creation. We give thanks for its beauty and the joy the beauty brings us. We give thanks for light that shines in the darkness, for the stars and the sun, for the air we breathe and the plants and animals that you have created, for earth and water, and for the daily sustenance we draw from them. Inspire us to see You, Creator, through all that You have created—all that you look upon as very good. Help us to care for creation as You instructed us. Help us be stewards of its abundant life. We ask this through Christ, our Lord. Amen.

2. Light a candle for Equality:

For the first part of Soyal I am meditating and writing about each of my core values, and making plans for the coming year based on guidance from the Spirits. Today I am giving attention to Equality: Treating every person and creature with respect and love, knowing that there is that of God in all, and working to correct shortfalls in my community.

I feel that my main focus for equality is to remind people that all of Creation is equally deserving of life and a habitat to survive in.

Today I light a red candle for equality, and ask the Spirits to bring the rain of loving care down upon the whole world.

3. Set out our crèche:

Today I set out just these figures, but leave the manger empty until Christmas morning.

Traditionally, it was St. Francis of Assisi who made the first crèche, in honor of animals who shared the stable with the baby Jesus. 

We made Mary and Joseph with fabric and glue when my kids were very young. The donkey and bird (on the roof) are polymer clay, and the manger is balsa wood. This year we added a plastic toy pig, cow, goose and duck. (And my grandson carefully took all the people out of the stable, put all the animals in, and covered them with the straw.)

4. Have a Posadas Procession:
In Mexico, people gather tonight and carry candles and clay figures of Mary and Joseph from house to house, reenacting Mary and Joseph’s search for a room at an inn. They are turned away again and again with a rude “No!” Finally, one house allows them to enter, and everyone celebrates with food and a piñata. The procession is repeated each night through Christmas Eve, ending with a party at a different house.

No room at the inn.

One year we had a procession at our Friends Meeting Christmas party! It was fun. I asked for volunteers to be Mary and Joseph and other pilgrims, and for several innkeepers. We walked around the building outside, in the ice, and knocked at all 8 of the doors- and were rejected and sent away (very politely). Finally someone said we could come in and sleep in the barn. Then we broke a piñata.

5. Piñata party:

Last year my grandson and I made a small piñata, which he rolled around the house for a week, then we broke it in the back yard. I was worried he wouldn't want to break his "ball," but he LOVED it!

The ancient Aztecs had something like a piñata: When they celebrated the birth of their god Huitzilopochtli (weetz-ill-oh-PACHT-lee), near winter solstice, they covered a clay pot with feathers, dangled it over a statue of the god, then hit and broke it. This ceremony probably symbolized the rebirth of the sun and the defeat of winter.

We kept it very simple: We decorated the ball with tempera paint sticks; I made the hole and added the string harness when he wasn't looking, and filled it with lollipops. 

His mom came at lunch time and we tied our piñata to the pop-up canopy in our backyard, and gave him a stick. 

We made another piñata this year, but it isn't ready yet, so we will break it next week, with both our grandsons.