May Day

Today is May Day, although a chilly 44 degrees in the city at the start of the day.

May Day is a curious combination of, on the one hand, an ancient spring festival, midway between the spring equinox and the summer solstice, traditionally marked by rituals to ensure fertility for crops and livestock, and, on the other, a modern International Workers' Day, originating in the late 19th-century U.S. labor movement and adopted as an international socialist holiday. Those of us old enough to remember the Cold War will recall how May Day was one of the days when big parades would be held in Moscow and other communist capitals (the other one, of course, being November 7, the anniversary of the October Revolution).

May Day was highlighted in the 1960s musical Camelot. ("Those dreary vows that everyone makes, everyone breaks, in the merry month of May"). Apart from such theatrical evocations, however, in our de-natured, disenchanted, post-industrial, technological world, the change of seasons obviously matters much less than it did for all of previous human history. Such seasonal celebrations as May Day survive only marginally as folkloric occasions, the stuff of romantic nostalgia. Maybe some group erects a maypole somewhere, but its original meaning no longer has any operational significance in the lives of those play-acting dancing around a maypole. 

Likewise, with the fall of communism, the political salience of May Day has receded. International Workers' Day still resonates in labor and left-wing political circles, of course, but labor unions, social democratic political parties, and workers' and "left" causes in general have fared poorly in our present politics of neo-liberalism and populism. On the other hand, we now have an acknowledged social democrat as mayor of New York, whose election may infuse some new vitality into that troubled movement. The more fundamental problem, however, is that much of what passes for the progressive left represents society's winners, those whom the system has favored and who have benefited so much from it, not those left behind, who tend to look elsewhere for political allegiance.

As Pope Benedict XVI famously wrote back in 2006: "Democratic socialism managed to fit within the two existing models as a welcome counterweight to the radical liberal positions, which it developed and corrected. It also managed to appeal to various denominations. In England it became the political party of the Catholics, who had never felt at home among either the Protestant conservatives or the liberals. In Wilhelmine Germany, too, Catholic groups felt closer to democratic socialism than to the rigidly Prussian and Protestant conservative forces. In many respects, democratic socialism was and is close to Catholic social doctrine and has in any case made a remarkable contribution to the formation of a social consciousness." ("Europe and Its Discontents," First Things, January 2006).

That said, the Church's mid-20th-century attempt to co-op May Day hasn't fared much better than the day's secular iterations. In 1955, Pope Pius XII established a religious analogue to International Workers' Day, the feast of Saint Joseph the Worker, which acknowledged the dignity of labor and celebrated Saint Joseph (himself referred to in scripture as a carpenter) as a patron of workers. Saint Joseph the Worker replaced the feast of the patronage of Saint Joseph (formerly celebrated on the third Wednesday after Easter). Liturgists, however, seem not to have taken to the new feast, for in the problematic post-conciliar 1969 calendar, Saint Joseph the Worker was reduced from the highest ranking liturgical day to the lowest ranking ("optional memorial"). It is perhaps pointless to try to make sense of the post-conciliar calendar reform. Personally, however, given the abiding religious resonance of at least some aspects of democratic socialism, I find the feast of Saint Joseph the Worker worth keeping.

The Gospel reading for today (Matthew 13:54-58) recalls the famous incident in the Nazareth Synagogue where the peopel took offense at Jesus. Where did this man get such wisdom and mighty deeds? Is he not the carpenter's son? That's as good an account as any of the lack of respect accorded to work, of our failure to appreciate the contribution of those whose labor is in fact essential to society's successful functioning.

Photo: Saint Joseph Altar, Saint Paul the Apostle Church, NY.

Special Relationship

 

When the United States celebrated the Bicentennial of Independence in 1976, Queen Elizabeth II, the fourth generation great-granddaughter through the senior royal line of America's last King, George III, was invited for a state visit as an appropriate culmination to our national festivities. That state visit included a memorably televised State Dinner in an air-conditioned White House tent in July 1976. (I remember watching the event - including President Ford dancing with the Queen - with several grad school classmates.) Given that history, it was virtually inevitable that our 250th birthday would also be highlighted by a visit by King George III's next heir, King Charles III. Accordingly, the King and Queen Camilla arrived in Washington, DC, on Monday where they were effusively welcomed by President and Mrs. Trump.

The term "special relationship" goes back to the World War II partnership between FDR and Winston Churchill. But, of course, the relationship goes back much longer - starting with the English and Scottish colonists who settled in 13 North American British coastal colonies in the 17th and 18th centuries, whose descendants eventually declared their independence 250 years ago. Once our independence had been recognized by Britain after a long and costly war, one of the new country's important tasks was to manage its relationship with the mother country, which was then the most important power in the world.  Since then, the relationship has been somewhat reversed, and it is now the U.S. that is the world's superpower and the U.K. which has to manage its relationship with the U.S. as best it can, 

The theory of our "special relationship" can be traced all the way back back to John Adams' famous address to King George III on June 1, 1785. Adams said to the King: "I Shall esteem myself the happiest of Men, if I can be instrumental in recommending my Country, more and more to your Majestys Royal Benevolence and of restoring an entire esteem, Confidence and Affection, or in better Words, “the old good Nature and the old good Humour” between People who, tho Seperated by an Ocean and under different Governments have the Same Language, a Similar Religion and kindred Blood.— I beg your Majestys Permission to add, that although I have Sometimes before, been entrusted by my Country it was never in my whole Life in a manner So agreable to myself."

Fast forward to 2026, the 250th anniversary of American independence, in celebration of which King George III's successor, King Charles III, addressed a joint succession of Congress (photo). The King praised the American Founders, who "united thirteen disparate colonies to forge a Nation on the revolutionary idea of ‘life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness’. They carried with them, and carried forward, the great inheritance of the British Enlightenment – as well as the ideals which had an even deeper history in English Common Law and Magna Carta." 

The King referenced his own Christian faith and his long-standing commitment to interfaith dialogue, expressing his belief "that the essence of our two Nations is a generosity of spirit and a duty to foster compassion, to promote peace, to deepen mutual understanding and to value all people, of all faiths, and of none."

He spoke at length about "The Alliance that our two Nations have built over the centuries – and for which we are profoundly grateful to the American people" He referenced the two World Wars, the Cold War, 9/11, and then pointedly turned to the present: "Today, Mr. Speaker, that same, unyielding resolve is needed for the defence of Ukraine and her most courageous people – in order to secure a truly just and lasting peace."

Nor was that his only reference to a potentially contentious issue in our present relationship. "Yet even as we celebrate the beauty that surrounds us, our generation must decide how to address the collapse of critical natural systems, which threatens far more than the harmony and essential diversity of Nature. We ignore at our peril the fact that these natural systems – in other words, Nature’s own economy – provide the foundation for our prosperity and our national security."

From what the King called "the bitter divisions of 250 years ago," he recalled how our two countries have since "forged a friendship that has grown into one of the most consequential Alliances in human history." And he expressed his hope - obviously the underlying point of the royal visit "that our Alliance will continue to defend our shared values, with our partners in Europe and the Commonwealth, and across the world, and that we ignore the clarion calls to become ever more inward-looking."

Photo: Chip Somodevilla / Getty Images

The Mysterious Island

One of the benefits of being part of a parish book club is that it makes me read books I would otherwise probably never read - like, for example, this month's selection by Jules Verne (1828-1905), The Mysterious Island (1875), tr. Jordan Stump (Random House, 2001).

It is easy to appreciate why a technology-loving 19th-century audience might have been taken with this novel. That was when the industrial age was most celebrated, and Jules Verne was certainly one to express that celebratory spirit. Of course, even in the 19th century, the Romantic movement revealed reservations about progress, but the overall direction of the 19th-century saw modernity, science, and technology as benefits to be celebrated. For many of us in the 21st century, however, when even space exploration has lost a lot of its luster, the triumph of the industrial age has long worn off. We are as apt to be bored by Verne's castaways' creative inventiveness as his earlier readers were excited by that aspect of the story. I know I was! As a result, I found much of what was probably meant to be an exciting adventure somewhat tedious. (It doesn't help, of course, that we are dealing with a 19th-century, originally serialized novel.) The tedious passages describing the seemingly endless succession of lucky chances and technological accomplishments call for patience on the reader's part. That patience will be rewarded as the final chapters of the story become more adventurous - and more surprisingly mysterious.

Characterized in Caleb Carr's Introduction as "arguably Verne's most important and self-revelatory book," The Mysterious Island tells the increasingly implausible story of five Americans marooned on a deserted Pacific island somewhere in the southern hemisphere, who utilize their scientific knowledge and ingenuity to exploit the opportunity provided by a richly abundant island not only to survive but to prosper, to make their island into a miniature modern industrial society. This would especially appeal perhaps as in some sense almost an allegory about America itself - an almost miraculously abundant wilderness turned into the world's most prosperous society (albeit taking much more time to accomplish this task than Verne's lucky castaways). The reader may assume that Verne (and many of his readers) would have shared a Tocquevillian attitude about America as the modern world's emblematic future.

Less emphasized but immediately obvious to this senior-citizen reader is the evident physical fitness of all the protagonists, who regularly walk endless miles and perform multiple feats of physical labor. None of this is superhuman, of course, but it is a reminder that their multiple accomplishments might well be beyond the capacity of any random collection of five less talented and less sturdy individuals in the real world!

The author summarizes the protagonists' sense of their accomplishments on the first anniversary of their arrival at the island: "They had begun as mere castaways, fighting the elements for their wretched lives, and unsure of their prospects for success! And. now, thanks to their leader's knowledge, they were true colonists, equipped with weapons, tools, and instruments, and they had taken the island's various plants, animals, and minerals - elements from each of nature's three kingdoms - and turned them to their own advantage!"

This plot is complicated, however, by the fact that all is not as it initially seems. The island is, in fact, mysterious. the mystery component contributes a whole other dimension to the story, making it more than just a celebration of science and ingenuity. The author obviously agrees with the colonists' de facto leader that progress is "a good and necessary thing" and that is "a mistake" to believe one could bring back the past." But, in an ending which 21st-century readers might even better appreciate than the original audience, nature wins out; and all the technological ingenuity in the world is ultimately no match for it.

And, for all the castaways' seeming self-sufficiency, that progressive trope is, of course, completely undermined by the presence of the mysterious benefactor, whose own story highlights the abiding relevance of human power politics, science and technology notwithstanding.

Meanwhile, the story takes a novel turn with the discovery of someone else who has been marooned nearby. The experience of finding a man abandoned on a neighboring island for some 12 years and reduced by his isolation to a seemingly sub-human savage state, and then, as it were, coaxing him back to something resembling normalcy, that sub-plot prompts interesting reflection on exactly what it means to be human, on what it means to say that. human beings are social animals - this in the 19th-century heyday of liberal individualism!

Yet that experience itself - namely how the colonists ever even came to be aware of the existence of their new comrade - only further seems to highlight the story's growing sense of mystery. We now know for certain that there must be someone, somewhere, who is also an active character in this story. 

In the end, the mysterious someone does the colonists one final life-saving favor, just in time, as nature triumphs over civilization; and the colonists get to do that characteristic 19th-century thing, they immigrate to America and build themselves a successful and prosperous life together there.

Re-Embracing Robigalia

 

The modest, easy-to-have-missed occurrence earlier this week of Earth Day 2026 reminded me of when Earth Day was still new and exciting - and concerns it highlights were likewise new and exciting. I can still remember as a college student attending the first Earth Day celebration in Central Park in 1970, when nearly one million people participated in Earth Day events around the city. Hardly anyone then spoke much about climate change (although my Geology teacher at City College did). For most the focus was on pollution and the progress that was beginning to be made in that area.

But, long before the invention of Earth Day, we had, for centuries, had Rogation Days!

From the reign of Pope Saint Gregory the Great until that of Pope Saint Paul VI, April 25 (which, for some reason, was widely also thought to have been the date on which Saint Peter had first arrived in Rome) was observed in the Roman calendar as one of the four annual Rogation Days. The April 25 celebration was known as the Litanaie majores (the "Greater Litanies"). The other three Rogation Days (the Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday before the Ascension) were known as the Litaniae minores (the "Lesser Litanies") and were of ancient Gallican, non-Roman origin. I have previously written here [Cuckoo Day April 25, 2012] about the pre-Christian roots of the "Greater Litanies" in the ancient Roman Robigalia festival, one of ancient Rome's significant spring agricultural commemorations. As I noted then:

 

“Ancient peoples appreciated their dependence on the natural seasons and the harvest. The change in religion redirected the focus of people's prayers to the true Creator God. But that didn't change their dependence on nature or their need for a successful harvest or the value of ritualizing that on traditional days.”

 

I also suggested that, in the light of contemporary environmental degradation and the dangers to human civilization posed by climate change's devastating effects: 

 

“Perhaps a rationalized late 20th-century Roman Liturgy's abandonment of such reminders of our connection - and dependence - on nature wasn't such a smart idea, after all.”

Neither the pre-conciliar liturgical movement nor the Second Vatican Council itself ever explicitly anticipated, let alone contemplated, the abolition of the Rogation Days, prior to their disappearance in Paul VI's 1969 liturgical calendar. There was, admittedly, in certain quarters a view (which one might charitably label "liturgical puritanism") that the Rogation Days were not "in harmony with the spirit of Easter," and there were in fact proposals to eliminate some and transfer others (cf. the 19th meeting of the Pontifical Committee for the Reform of the Sacred Liturgy, April 29, 1952). More modestly, the 1960 rubrical reform of Pope Saint John XXIII, while making no change regarding April 25, made the "Lesser Litanies" optional in private recitation of the Office and gave Local Ordinaries the faulty of transferring them to three other successive days which might seem more suitable locally (General Rubrics, 87, 90). I guess that proved to be the proverbial camel's nose under the proverbial tent!

On the other hand, expressing a deeper spirit and sense of the 20th-century liturgical movement, the esteemed Pius Parsch wrote: "The four Rogation Days have preserved the main elements of this venerable rite [the ancient Roman stational observance], an observance that we should respect and foster. for we should pray both perseveringly and in common, since special efficacy and power is attached to such prayer." 

No less than the calamities of Pope Gregory the Great's time, climate change and its associated environmental and other woes seriously threaten the planet itself, and particularly some of the planet's most vulnerable populations. Furthermore, since I first wrote about this on this site over a decade ago, the U.S. has definitively retreated from even recognizing, let alone responding effectively to, the challenges of climate change and environmental degradation. The case for recovering the sensibility underlying the Rogation Days, for recovering what the Roman liturgy lightly discarded some 57 years ago,  for re-embracing a Christianized Robigalia, is, if anything, even more obvious than it was then!

Reading the Bible as a Nation under God's Judgment

As part of seven straight days of continuous public bible readings from Genesis to Revelation, called "America Reads the Bible," this evening at 6:00 p.m. ET, President Trump will publicly read 2 Chronicles 7:11-22, a passage specifically assigned to him apparently because of its decades-long role as a call to prayer in America. Bunni Pounds, founder and president of Christians Engaged, said that this passage, particularly verse 14, has been central to American prayer life for decades, often invoked during times of national reflection. (Hopefully, President Trump will remember - or be prompted - to say "Second Chronicles," not "Two Chronicles"!)

That particular text reads: If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land. I was not particularly aware that this passage "has been central to American prayer life for decades, often invoked during times of national reflection." It is, however, an obviously appropriate choice.

The ghost of the religion-hating Thomas Jefferson notwithstanding, public prayer has long been a fixture of our civic life in this traditionally religious country. As Jefferson's wiser rival expressed it to the Massachusetts Militia on October 11, 1798: "Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other." This was precisely because of the limited power permitted to government under our constitution. "Because We have no Government armed with Power capable of contending with human Passions unbridled by morality and Religion. Avarice, Ambition, Revenge or Gallantry, would break the strongest Cords of our Constitution as a Whale goes through a Net." Likewise, the mot famous and perceptive 19th-century observer of American politics, the French aristocrat Alexis deTocqueville Tocqueville noted that, while democracy dangerously fosters individualism, American religion balanced this by providing a community of  widely shared moral values and beliefs, which strengthened rather than threatened American democracy.

In its original Old Testament context, 2 Chronicles 7:14 obviously applied to God's covenant with the People of Israel. God promised to hear Israel's prayers, forgive their sins, and heal their land. Simultaneously, however, God articulated certain expectations that his people, on their part, were to fulfill. God challenged them (1) to humble themselves, (2) to pray, (3) to seek God's face, and (4) to turn from their wicked ways.

Originally tied to God's covenant with Israel, both God's promise and his expectations of his people continue for Christians of every time in every place. At his now very famous Prayer Vigil in Saint Peter's Basilica on the very day that peace negotiations began between the U.s. and Iran, Pope Leo warned against the "delusion of omnipotence." The obvious corrective to that delusion is for leaders and their nations to practice what God enjoined for Israel in 2 Chronicles 7:14 - humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways.

it is a fine thing that these words will be publicly read by the President himself. More important, however, is that those who read and those who hear these words internalize them and reflect them in our national life and collective behavior at home and abroad.