Day of resurrection, day to recharge the batteries and touch base, day to commune with nature and our familiesWe've now come full circle in this series on the days of the week and Harper's Weekly, on September 17th, 1887, offered this poem:
Monday's child is fair of face.
Tuesday's child is full of grace.
Wednesday's child is loving and giving.
Thursday's child works hard for a living,
Friday's child is full of woe.
Saturday's child has far to go.
But the child that is born on Sabbath-day
Is bonny and happy and wise and gay.
Everyone knows that the poem was rearranged and in latter days the word "gay" was dropped due to its hijacking by the mafia of the same name.
In Russian, the day is known as Voskryesyenye [Воскресенье] which Lingvo dictionary translates as "Sunday" and leaves it at that. Wikipedia goes as far as saying "Lord's Day". No one wants to come out and say what it really means, not even me.
However, what I shall do is give you another, different word in Russian - воскресение. This means "resurrection" or "revival". Any similarities? How mean-spirited and how dishonest of historians, translators and writers of a humanistic bent to quietly gloss over this derivation.
The day clearly means Day of Resurrection and that's what it is all about - you believe in Him and you're saved. There - now I've said it! Why is it so difficult for anyone to say? Why do the words stick in the throat?
While we're about it, the Russians also say:
Во многих христианских конфессиях в этот день христианам нельзя работать.
Christians don't work on this day. I flatly refuse to do any but the absolute necessities and you can imagine how much fierce pressure is exerted to get me to take clients on this day. No way known. It's a day for Maker and family [or at least what passes for family].
How far are you into the tradition now? Will you work or visit the shops today? Will you drop into Church for Communion? Will you take your family for a drive? Personally, I'll remember my namesake father's birthday and light a candle to him.
October 14th. Happy Birthday, Dad.
Have a pleasant and joyful day today, readers. May the spirit of fun, bonhomie and gayness take you all, in the nicest possible way.
My father's old stomping ground, all those years ago.
I was born on a Sunday (Mother's Day that year) :)
ReplyDeleteYou see, I have based my whole life on the fact that, as I was born on a Wednesday, I should be full of woe. I feel as if a weight has been lifted from my shoulders.
ReplyDeleteNow why did I think Saturday's child works hard for a living?
ReplyDeleteBut Saturday is the Sabbath Day!
ReplyDeletelol
Lord Nazh - I'm getting deja vu. I'm sure I replied earlier.
ReplyDeleteLiz - well, one must go by the original.
Ellee - she does too.
Jeremy, much of Christianity doesn't deny that Saturday is the Sabbath, Shabat and that Sunday is the Lord's Day.
I spoke too soon, comes of reading your posts from the bottom up in case they disappear off the page.
ReplyDeleteWell, as a Tuesday's child, can I just debunk that whole 'full of grace' nonsense right now - I was clearly elsewhere when the grace was being handed out!
ReplyDeleteAnd as a non-religious man, I try to use my Sundays as a good day to tie up all the loose ends, to gently go back over the week and get everything as orderly as possible - a positive, constructive way to end things.
Monday is, for me, the closest thing I have to a day of faith - the start of a new week, with all sorts of possibilities ahead... a belief that I'll have lots of successes to celebrate and I'll be able to learn something and move on from the failures.
I went to church at 8am (yesterday now) - it's the best way to avoid having to meet or converse with too many Christians! Generally it's a family day, and of course always has been a work day for those of us preparing all the meals and doing the clearing up. My husband is a cleric so our Sunday tends to fit round his busy schedule in which it doesn't feature as a day of rest. I'll go to the shops if I have forgotten something - but generally try to avoid doing anything too visible and unnecessary.
ReplyDeleteI'm a Saturday's child - there's a gizmo here at which the day you were born can be calculated for anyone with a rusty memory:
http://www.fi.edu/time/Journey/
OnceUponATime/dayofweekbirth.htm
JMB, Will and Julie - thanks for those insights and I'll check out the gizmo.
ReplyDeleteOK, so the gays are a "mafia" and I see you've still got it in for the humanists but at least the feminists got off in this one!
ReplyDeleteHope you weren't too sad and remembered good things about your father.
Here people believe that as long as you go to Mass the rest of the day is your own and I rather like that. We don't have the Sunday opening that there is in Britain, except around Xmas, but some shops are open. It doesn't bother me either way.
I didn't know where and when the poem first appeared, btw.