Greetings Archive

Christmastide

Posted December 27, 2017 By John C Wright

Some say that ever ‘gainst that season comes
Wherein our Saviour’s birth is celebrated,
The bird of dawning singeth all night long:
And then, they say, no spirit dare stir abroad;
The nights are wholesome; then no planets strike,
No fairy takes, no witch has power to charm,
So hallow’d and gracious is the time. –Hamlet

In keeping with the tradition here at John C. Wright’s Journal, I reprint, as I do each year, this list the feasts of the Twelve Days of Christmas, and to urge my fellow traditionalists to continue the Christly and Christian work of Keeping the Feast and Partyin’ On! Let us pause for unsolemn reflection on these solemnities.

We all know the Twelve Days of Christmas from a famous nonsense song about a lady whose true love gives her 184 birds of various types, not to mention 12 fruit trees, 40 golden rings, 106 persons of the various professions either musical or milkmaidenly, and 32 members of the aristocracy variously cavorting.

No doubt you have ever wondered how the lady in the song feeds all the leaping lords and dancing ladies, pipers, drummers, and milkmaids now living in her parlor, the answer is that she feeds them the 22 turtledoves, 30 French hens, 36 colly birds, and 42 swans, not to mention the nice supply of eggs from the geese, milk from the cows and pears from the pear trees.

You may have heard that the lyrics contain a secret meaning, referring to Catholic doctrines or rites forbidden by Oliver Cromwell. This is true. The secret meaning is that the Walrus is St. Paul, and if you listen to a record of the carol backward, it says “Cromwell under his wig is bald.” All this is well known.

What is not as well known is that traditionally, these are twelve days of feasts which start on Christmas Day and run through to Epiphany on January 6th, which is the festival variously of the Adoration of the Magi and the Presentation in the Temple. (Really hard core Christmasteers extend Christmastide 40 days, ending on Candlemas February 2).

Before Christmas, during the season of Advent, while everyone else is shopping and partying, we who keep the traditions fast, pray, do penance, and make ourselves miserable. It makes the holiday much brighter by contrast.

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Happy Shadoween!

Posted October 30, 2017 By John C Wright

Raz0rfist releases a new shadow radio show recreation, and it’s in honor of a fallen friend.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=en7C3lvnFmk
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Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Posted December 28, 2016 By John C Wright

A Christmas message from the beautiful and talented Mrs. Wright

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to all!

You readers here are the best possible fans. You have no idea what a blessing you have been to this family. May God reward you in the most miraculous ways!

For my part, I will do the one thing I can do to serve you all, I will continue to encourage John to write!

May the new year bring us all many enchanting stories!

To which I say amen. Her encouragement is basically the fuel my soul runs on. So I have nothing to add, except a catwoman picture:

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Christmas Sci Fi

Posted December 24, 2016 By John C Wright

I have been asked whether there any Christmas science fiction stories? Stories like IT’S A WONDERFUL LIFE or A CHRISTMAS CAROL perhaps count as fantasy, and, of course DIE HARD is a heartwarming story celebrating the true meaning of Christ’s birth, but how many science fiction tales are there?

Let us not count parodies or humor stories merely set in a science fiction background, but stories with some real science fiction elements in them. Like SANTA CLAUS CONQUERS THE MARTIANS.

Christmas has something to do with not enjoying store-bought presents. I think.

I think this above is a picture of a Martian. Note the antennae. Or a member of the rock group, The Who.

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He is Risen!

Posted March 25, 2016 By John C Wright

Happy Easter to one and all.

When you meet someone who says Easter eggs are a pagan holdover of a pagan symbol, you can remind him that during Lent the tradition was to give up eating meat and eggs, so that eating delicious, delicious eggs again after 40 became a matter for ceremony. Our grandfathers lived in a more ceremonial hence more fun society, one more suited to human psychology, and so having the kids eat eggs again became kind of a game, a hide-and-seek, and the eggs were decorated, because in those days people loved kids, and were not told having children was a disease that overburdened the earth, and did not abort them in the womb.

Of course, if he was raised in a modern school among modern thinkers, he will not know what Lent is, or know any history at all, and will despise his grandfathers.

Abortion, not ceremonies and games surrounding the celebration of the Resurrection, is the true pagan holdover.

On this day of life, let us remind ourselves that souls dead in sin can rise again, nations dead in corruption can be revived, and even the science fiction genre, dead in political correctness, can rise again.

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Man shoots an anvil through a smokering

Posted July 4, 2014 By John C Wright

Gaze upon the AWESOME!
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He is Risen

Posted April 20, 2014 By John C Wright

Rejoice! He is Risen indeed. Why seek ye the living among the dead?

 

Joyous Easter to all. Let the victory celebrations shake the world!

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Blood Moon in Holy Week

Posted April 14, 2014 By John C Wright

NASA reports that a total lunar eclipse will be visible from the East Coast of North America, lasting from 2.00 in the morning to 3.00.

http://eclipse.gsfc.nasa.gov/OH/OH2014.html

Meanwhile, the Good Book reports that

“And I will show wonders in the heavens, and in the earth, blood and fire and pillars of smoke.  The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before the coming of the great and awesome day of Jehovah.”  Joel 2:30 -31

“The sun shall be turned into darkness and the moon into blood, before that great and glorious Day of the Lord.” Acts 2:20

I have heard (but cannot find a confirming report) that there was such an eclipse during the Passion of Our Lord.

Holy Week is a fine time to repent, go to confession, and get clean. Fasting is good to tame lust and gluttony, almsgiving to tame greed and avarice, and prayer to tame pride.

If anyone tells you that Easter Eggs is a pagan survival to worship the great goddess ‘Oestre’ — this is a lie. The habit in the older times was to give up eggs for Lent, and the children would celebrate the end of the strictness of 40 days of Lenten fasting by eating eggs. ‘Oestre’ just means ‘Spring’ in the some Northern European languages. I am sure you can find a goddess named ‘Spring’ somewhere in some pagan mythology — even though I have never heard of her, outside arguments like this, despite my years of study in mythology and folklore — in the same way you can find gods named ‘Sky’ such as Uranus and goddesses named ‘Earth’ such as Erda. In any case, if Easter were a survival of Oestre-worship, why is the word for Easter in all the romance languages named for the Paschal Feast? (Italian=Pasqua; Spanish=Pascua; Pascques)

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Grand Master Gene Wolfe!

Posted May 21, 2013 By John C Wright

I heard that Gene Wolfe was voted Grandmaster in this years Nebula. Congratulations! Long overdue!

This is from Locus Online News:

The Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers of America named Gene Wolfe the recipient of the 2012 Damon Knight Memorial Grand Master Award. Wolfe has written many novels and short stories, and has previously won two Nebulas, five World Fantasy Awards, and six Locus Awards, among others. Wolfe also won the World Fantasy Lifetime Achievement Award in 1996, and was inducted into the Science Fiction Hall of Fame in 2007.

The award, given for “lifetime achievement in science fiction and/or fantasy,” will be presented at the 48th Annual Nebula Awards Weekend in San Jose, CA, May 16-19, 2013. Previous recipients of the award include such luminaries as Ursula K. Le Guin, Isaac Asimov, Ray Bradbury, Connie Willis, Anne McCaffrey, and Joe Haldeman.

 

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Close Encounter of the Unseen Kind

Posted May 19, 2012 By John C Wright

This is the single most odd thing that has ever happened to me. I got this letter in my inbox just now:


Thought you might find this amusing. I had the good fortune of attending a talk by Marc Barnes, the Bad Catholic, held at a local restaurant. My friends and I got there early to get good seats (which we did), and I had brought a copy of Orphans of Chaos with me to kill time before the talk began. It was still sitting on my table when Marc began talking, and in the middle of his introduction he spotted it, leaned over to look at it more closely, and broke off on a tangent: “John C. Wright is a great author! You all should look him up, he recently converted to Catholicism and blogs apologetics. My teacher brought him in to talk at my scifi writing class and he was like this huuuuuge tall dude and he brought a sword with him! It was a cane sword and he swung it around and my teacher was looking like ‘Ohmygosh I’m gonna get fired for this o.O’. Can I see that book, no, wait, after the talk
…”

For those of you who do not recognize the name, Marc Barnes (not to be confused with Marc C. DuQuesne) is the bad Catholic of BAD CATHOLIC, one of the wittiest and most well spoken young men who takes up the pen in defense of the faith. This precocious prodigy is but a tender eighteen summers of age, but he writes with the wisdom of Nestor.

He was in the same room with me, and I did not even know he lived on the same continent with me! I am flabbergasted that he did not walk up and offer to sign an autograph for me. He should know I am a fan.

I had a brush with fame and never knew it. I might have actually spoken to him and not known it!

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He is Risen

Posted April 24, 2011 By John C Wright

A joyous Easter to one and all. The Paschal sacrifice was made for all and offered to all, both those that believe and will receive of the feast, and those who do not. It is promised that the Angel of Destruction will pass by those who receive, and leave them untouched. Without this, there is no hope at all.

Here is a video I found by chance, with images from THE PASSION OF THE CHRIST set to music from SAINT JOHN’S PASSION. This is for those who might think the holiday is about chocolate and brightly colored eggs.
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