The Catholic Church has traditionally kept certain great feasts on a specific day, such as Christmas on December 25th and the Epiphany of the Lord on January 6t h. Easter is always observed on the first Sunday after the spring equinox (the first full moon of spring) and Ascension Thursday kept forty days after Easter.
In modern times, the last fifty years, and with Vatican approval, many dioceses in the Catholic world have taken a number of the “date specific” feasts of the Church, such as Epiphany and Ascension Thursday, and moved the celebrations to Sundays. The idea behind this was and is the hope of reaching more people in church by observing the feasts on a Sunday. Bishops’ Conferences are left to decide about moving the days such as Epiphany and Ascension of the Lord to a Sunday in their diocese.
Christmas is always kept on December 25th world-wide, and it is almost impossible to imagine it being kept on a Sunday every year. That only happens about every seven years. Today many less than or completely non-Christian cultures keep December 25th as a holiday. Much of the religious meaning of Christmas has been drained in modern times, so it becomes a sort of “winter festival,” with often little or no reference to the birth of Jesus Christ.
I mention all this because from what I can gather, the Church in Italy is opposed to changing the great days, such as the Epiphany of the Lord, which recounts the visit of the Magi to the new-born Savior, from its place on the twelfth day of Christmas. Italy is such a Catholic culture at its core, though not always and everywhere evident, that the Epiphany, like Christmas, is a public and national holiday and a day of no work.
Celebrating Christmas in its fullness, for twelve days, is still part of the fabric of Italian life. Americans play Christmas music, for example, many weeks before Christmas and stop at the close of Christmas day. For Italians, like Americans, preparation for Christmas begins in November, well before Advent, but the celebration of Christmas itself extends well beyond December 25th and culminates on the Solemnity of the Epiphany of the Lord on January 6th.
Monks, who seek to live in the spirit of the Liturgy of the Church, also begin the actual observance of Christmas on the night of December 24th and carry on with the joyful celebration of Christ’s birth for twelve days, up to the Epiphany of the Lord, usually kept on January 6th.
In Italy, the Epiphany is always observed on January 6th and that is their day for exchanging gifts, more than Christmas Eve or day, when Americans and others of the world, including much of Europe, tend to exchange gifts.
The traditional “giver of gifts” in America, as we know, is Santa Claus. This is not the case in Italy. Santa Claus is now getting known, but this is certainly a more recent development, only since the mid or later 20th century.
For Italians, Christmas gift-giving and receiving normally takes place on the night of January 5th, under the (theoretical) watchful eye of “Befana,” as she is called, a legendary “old woman on a broomstick,” having nothing to do with the Wicked Witch of the West in the Wizard of Oz, but looking much like her.
The Italian “Befana” derives her name from the word “Epiphany,” Greek for “manifestation” or “revelation” of the divinity of Jesus Christ. Befana’s job, on the feast of the Epiphany on January 6th, includes keeping track of who has been “naughty or nice,” like the Santa Claus counterpart, and bringing candy and presents to children who have been good and a lump of coal to children who have been bad over the past year.
Befana is normally portrayed as daubed from head to foot with soot, coming from her going up and down chimneys to reach the homes of children. The Santa Claus parallels are noticeable, but how they are connected or have influenced each other eludes me.
What seems clear is that the Befana legend originated in the city of Rome and probably goes back many centuries, maybe to an ancient Roman festival of pagan gods, when gifts were exchanged.
There are also connections made with the “old woman” Befana and the end of an “old year” and the beginning of a new. In this regard, Befana is thought to sweep the floors of some of the homes she visits on the night of January 5th. Presumably the idea is connected to “sweeping away” the problems of the old year and “making things clean” for the new year.
Befana is also closely linked to a popular winter street market held each year in Rome’s Piazza Navona, just a few blocks from our Curia Sant’Ambrogio where I live. The lively market includes a variety of foods and goods for purchase, as well as a puppet show and some carnival rides. It is always “family friendly” and not a raucous event and draws in crowds. This festival begins in early or mid December and ends around the feast of the Epiphany.
Befana is said to appear in a window in Piazza Navona each year, but only on midnight of January 6th. It is somewhat of a joke and reason to go to the Piazza at least on January 6th. I visited the Piazza Navona market one evening this year around the Epiphany, but wasn’t inclined to do so at midnight on the 6th of January. That is far past my bed time!
Mention should be made here of the Italian composer Ottorino Respighi’s 1928 “Feste Romane” (Roman Festivals). The fourth movement of this symphonic poem is called, “La Befana.” It is a lovely orchestral portrayal of the Piazza Navona market. Respighi is the same composer, whose “Pines of Rome” was described in a previous posting from “Our Monk in Rome.” Ottorino Respighi lived from 1879 to 1936, residing in Rome for many years.
In conclusion, the popular Befana, though appearing as a physically less than attractive figure, is not considered a “witch” or troublemaker, but a giver of good gifts to the deserving. There is even an Italian legend that Befana gives some amount of coal to each and every child, since “no one is perfect,” and needs to be reminded of this. A point well taken!
