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Arnaud Join-Lambert, The Meaning of Christian Festivals in the Emerging Post-Christendom : A Reflection Prompted by the “Resurrection” of Pentecost Monday in France, in : Studia liturgica 39 (2009) 158-170.

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The Meaning of Christian Festivals in the Emerging Post-Christendom: A Reflection Prompted by the “Resurrection” of Pentecost Monday in France by Arnaud Join-Lambert* The Christian festivals set the rhythm of life in Europe more and more for 1600 years. The Christian calendar enjoyed a monopoly in the organization of social time. In this context, the great festivals played a primary role. All that is well known and amply documented.1 It is of no use to insist on this past history. Yet the question has contemporary importance by reason of the progressive, yet radical, change of the European context in the matter of the Christian religion2. We are no longer in the midst of a modernity characterized among other things by the adoption of a critical distance from religions; rather, we are in a postmodernity. Certain French sociologists like to speak of ultramodernity. Whatever the term used, the important thing is the end of the era of Christendom. The number of active or passive Catholics continues to decline in all the European countries. If Catholics are not yet a minority in the mathematical sense of the term in countries of Catholic tradition, yet they now constitute one religious group among others—the most importantlargest, to be sure—in the face of a growing number of individuals who have no clearly determined religious identity. What then is the meaning of Christian festivals in this context? French society offers here a very interesting case. In the matter of these festivals, we see four parties at play: the Universal Catholic Church with its Code of Canon Law (and its feasts designated “de praecepto” in Canon 1246/1); the local Catholic church with its particular customs (the so-called feasts of obligation); the State and its public holidays; and citizens with their personal convictions and interests. I should first like to take notice of features particular to France and then I will examine in detail a concrete example that may presage the difficult questions to come; the conflict in 2004–2008 around “Pentecost Monday” (what formerly was called “Whit Monday” in Britain). That will allow me to venture some hypotheses towards a future for Christian festivals in the ultramodern society that is process of becoming. I. The Feasts of Obligation in France Until very recently, every Catholic in France knew that he or she had to participate four times a year in the mass in addition to Sundays: Christmas (December 25), Ascension Day (40 days after Easter), the Assumption (August 15), and All Saints’ (November 1). These feasts were

* Dr. Arnaud Join-Lambert is Professor of Practical Theology and Liturgy at the Catholic University of Louvain (UCL), Belgium. He may be contacted at [email protected]. This essay was presented as part of an interdisciplinary colloquium in Münster on November 27, 2008 around the topic of Christian feasts and European cultural identity (“Christliches Fest und kulturelle Identität Europas”). 1 See for France Jean Chelini, Le calendrier chrétien: cadre de notre identité culturelle (Paris: Picard, 2007). More generally; Anscar J. Chupungco (ed.), Handbook for liturgical studies 5. Liturgical Time and Space. Collegeville, MN. 2000, 135-330 ; Philippe Rouillard, Les fêtes chrétiennes en Occident, Histoire (Paris: Éditions du Cerf, 2003); Philipp Harnoncourt and Hansjörg Auf der Maur, Feiern im Rhythmus der Zeit, vol. 2.1, Gottesdienst der Kirche (Regensburg: F. Pustet, 1994); and Dictionnaire encyclopédique de la liturgie (1992), s.v.“fête/fêtes.” 2 Very important is this book: Paul Post [e. a.] (ed.), Christian Feast and Festival. The dynamic of Western Liturgy and Cultur, Liturgia Condenda 12 (Leuven: Peeters, 2001).

Arnaud Join-Lambert, The Meaning of Christian Festivals in the Emerging Post-Christendom : A Reflection Prompted by the “Resurrection” of Pentecost Monday in France, in : Studia liturgica 39 (2009) 158-170.

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considered to be “of obligation.” The great majority of people never imagined that it was different elsewhere, nor that this use was, in fact, quite recent, namely only 200 years old. 1. Some Historical Glimpses The religious peace sought by almost all the actors in French society after the Revolution was officially proclaimed in 1801. The situation of the church in France was hardly brilliant after thirteen years of chaos punctuated by great and violent crises. The church had no alternative but to accept the conditions proposed by Napoleon’s government. The pope’s power was at a very low ebb, and the French episcopate was divided; the religious peace needed for the reconstruction of the country was put in place in the form of a concordat, promulgated on April 8, 1802. The business was not so simple, for the entourage of the future emperor was made up, above all, by an anticlerical faction, indeed former revolutionaries whose hands were stained by the blood of priests.3 Thus the option of a concordat was, above all, pragmatic: “The government of the French republic recognizes that the Catholic, apostolic, and Roman religion is the religion of the great majority of the French.” To organize social time, the revolutionaries had tried to create, on the one hand, a new calendar composed of decades, and on the other hand, certain non-religious festivals. The explicit aim of supplanting Christian festivals had clearly failed. In the concordat, four Christian festivals were declared to be days of festival and abstinence from work: Christmas, Ascension Day, the Assumption, and All Saints’.4 The nineteenth century is an intermediate phase during which the French State takes care of the upkeep of churches and clergy. The Catholic renewal and the rediscovered power of the institutional church were increasingly contested, notably by Masonic circles. It all came to an end in the law separating church and state in 1905. The concordat of 1802 was unilaterally broken by the state, which now declares itself “laïc,” or ideologically “religion-free.” We note that the non-religious character of the state is understood differently today, namely, the state only views itself as strictly neutral in locating religion in the public space.5 Let us go back to 1905. The law guarantees freedom of conscience and freedom of worship, but the state no longer makes any financial contribution to the upkeep of the Catholic Church, the properties of which were indeed confiscated. It would then have been logical on the part of the secular government to suppress the Christian feasts that were to be kept as holidays or at least to give them a different status. Nothing of the sort happened. That was the beginning of a most strange situation which lasts until this very day. The Christian festivals that had been kept in the concordat have thus remained festivals and holidays from work.6 One exception must be added to this, where the separation between church and state did not occur, namely, in the three departments of the Upper and the Lower Rhine and the Moselle (dioceses of Strasbourg and Metz), which (as Alsace-Lorraine) were under German government in 1905. 2. The Present Situation: Feasts of Obligation and Public Holidays

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For the context, see Arnaud Join-Lambert, “Mutations in France’s ‘Liturgies of State’: From the Coronation of Napoleon to the Funeral(s) of Mitterrand,” Studia Liturgica 38 (2008) 95-113. 4 Decree of the 29th of the month Germinal in year X. 5 Only recently has appeared the controversial notion of “positive religious neutrality” (“laïcité positive”). This expression was put forward by President Sarkozy in September 2008 in order to characterize an attitude of the civil authorities that would recognize the values and contributions of the religions for the benefit of the whole social collectivity. 6 Article 42 of the law of December 9, 1905.

Arnaud Join-Lambert, The Meaning of Christian Festivals in the Emerging Post-Christendom : A Reflection Prompted by the “Resurrection” of Pentecost Monday in France, in : Studia liturgica 39 (2009) 158-170.

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With the exceptions of the departments in the east of France just mentioned, we may summarize in a table the present situation.7 The Christian festivals differ in status according to the various systems that are in force in France. Feasts of obligation according to the local church Sundays including Easter and Pentecost

Work-free holidays (nonreligious holidays in italics) Sundays including Easter and Pentecost

Christmas (December 25)

Christmas (December 25) New Year’s Day (January1)

Ascension

Easter Monday Ascension Pentecost Monday May Day (May 1) Victory Day 1945 (May 8)

Feasts “de praecepto” according to the Code of Canon Law Sundays including Easter and Pentecost Immaculate Conception of Mary (December 8) Christmas (December 25) Mary Mother of God (January 1) Epiphany (January 6) Saint Joseph (March 19)

Ascension

Corpus Christi Saints Peter and Paul (June 29)

Assumption (August 15) All Saints’ (November 1)

Nation Day/Bastille Day (July 14) Assumption (August 15) All Saints’ (November 1) Victory Day 1918 (November 11)

Assumption (August 15) All Saints’ (November 1)

What does one immediately notice in the second column? Two festivals with religious connotations are kept as public holidays (following a law of March 8, 1886): Easter Monday and Pentecost Monday. To those one might add January 1, which is the solemnity of Mary, Mother of God, in the Universal Church. But its holiday character is, of course, linked with the secular feast of the New Year (according to a decision of the Council of State of March 23, 1810). In any case, very few Catholics know that that day is a religious feast of the first order. It happens more or less by chance. And it is easy to imagine how difficult it would be to “christianize” New Year’s Day in an ultramodern context! Finally, let us notice that neither the Monday of Easter nor the Monday of Pentecost is mentioned by the 1983 Code of Canon Law. Paragraph 2 of Canon 1246 is important for our question: “With the prior approval of the Apostolic See, however, the conference of bishops can suppress some of the holy days of obligation or transfer them to a Sunday.” Here the church is taking into account the role of civil legislation in the life of society. A day that is legally a holiday offers every possibility to celebrate it in a manner that is truly accessible. In France, the civil and Catholic legislations are in agreement, and thus allow a happy pastoral solution: the feasts of obligation are public holidays. Yet this picture easily allows one to see the threat of new tensions and misunderstandings emerging in a post-Christendom society. It is thus that Monday . . . Similar questions arise elsewhere in Europe, yet without having provoked, so far, a broad and systematic reflection.8 In Belgium, a decree of 1986 brings the situation into harmony.9 On 7

The literature on this subject is rare. To see a general article with specifics for Belgium and the Netherlands, see Constant Van de Wiel, “Les temps sacrés. Les jours de fêtes et de pénitence dans le droit canonique (canons 12441253),” Questions liturgiques 78 (1999) 243-67.

Arnaud Join-Lambert, The Meaning of Christian Festivals in the Emerging Post-Christendom : A Reflection Prompted by the “Resurrection” of Pentecost Monday in France, in : Studia liturgica 39 (2009) 158-170.

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the other hand, the Netherlands adopted a recent decision which is, to say the least, surprising. Christmas and Ascension Day were the only two feasts of obligation until 1991. Then were added the Assumption and All Saints’ without their becoming, however, work-free days. The faithful are then supposed to participate in the eucharist even if they work on those days. In that country where there is, in any case, a crisis in the pastoral and liturgical situation, new solutions are supposed to be found. II. The Conflict around Pentecost Monday (2004–2008) Pentecost Monday was at the heart of a surprising, even comic, conflict between 2004 and 2008. This story seems to me typical of the unsuspected complexity of what is at stake in the matter of religious holidays. Pentecost Monday was, in France, a public holiday with a religious dimension as it was also in at least a dozen other European countries. On the other hand, it was a work day in such “Catholic” countries as Italy, Spain, and Portugal. So the situation differs by country, and it is, moreover, subject to change. Thus Sweden suppressed Pentecost Monday as a public holiday in 2005, and replaced it by a fixed national holiday (June 6). As a day which explicitly bears a Christian identity, the question of Pentecost Monday is therefore not without meaning in contemporary European society. 1. History of a Conflict In the summer of 2003, about 15,000 people died in France directly or indirectly as the result of a heatwave. The shock that this occasioned in public opinion led the government of Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin to react rapidly. If that reaction appeared demagogical, it was nevertheless necessary given certain clearly established malfunctions. Someone then voiced the idea of a “Day of Solidarity,” a solidarity that would favor the greater independence of handicapped and aged persons. This Day of Solidarity was set up by a law of the June 30, 2004. The theory was simple: Pentecost Monday would henceforth be a working holiday. Working people were to go to work that day, and their earnings for that day would be paid by the employer into a solidarity fund created for the purpose. Certainly the theory was simple, but this idea unleashed a real conflict. Nobody could, without a bad conscience, call into question the principle of this solidarity with aged or handicapped people. The debates, therefore, had to do with the concrete modalities for doing this. The first to be questioned was the imposition of an unpaid work day. Was that a good solution? The other question concerned the choice of that particular holiday as the day on which one had to work. Last of all, it was questioned whether one could work during a public holiday, and that was answered affirmatively in a decision of the Council of State on May 3, 2005. Pentecost Monday became a strange day that was a public holiday, but during which one had to work to support the aged and handicapped. Certainly the law of 2004 allowed for the possibility of observing this Day of Solidarity on a different public holiday—except for May 1 (“May Day”!). Businesses could even divide this working day into seven separate hours spread over several days. Yet the debates centered almost exclusively and symbolically on Pentecost Monday. In the end, the trades unions made very little protest. Only a few groups, with various motivations, remained active against that

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For Germany, see Ulrich Ruh, “Krampf. Auch dieses Jahr gab es Streit um den Pfingstmontag,” HerderKorrespondenz 59 (2005) 275. 9 The decree of October 28, 1986 limits to four in number the feasts of obligation. Epiphany and Corpus Christi are transferred to the Sunday following. The feasts of St. Joseph, Sts. Peter and Paul, and the Immaculate Conception of Mary are no longer feasts of obligation. Cf. Documentation catholique 84 (1987) 277-78.

Arnaud Join-Lambert, The Meaning of Christian Festivals in the Emerging Post-Christendom : A Reflection Prompted by the “Resurrection” of Pentecost Monday in France, in : Studia liturgica 39 (2009) 158-170.

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decision.10 Amongst this opposition, we must mention traditionalist and integrist Catholics, who were acting with the explicit desire to “save Christendom.” What was the upshot? Hundreds of thousands of people, in fact, worked on Pentecost Monday between 2004 and 2008. The financial results are debated, but it is said that this Day of Solidarity brought in 1.95 billion euro in 2005, 2.09 billion euro in 2006, and 2.2 billion euro in 2007. Since doubt remained about the efficacy of this measure, the Minister of Labor Xavier Bertrand modified the initial project in January 2008 by allowing to businesses the freedom to choose “their” day of solidarity. The government did not wish to suppress this day, but only to cease its linkage to Pentecost Monday. The French National Assembly voted that way on March 26, 2008, 11 and the law was published on April 16, 2008 under the title “Law relating to the Day of Solidarity.” The only day generally excluded from serving was May 1. As the distant consequence of the Napoleonic concordat, the other excluded days are Good Friday, Christmas, and the Feast of St. Stephen in Alsace and Moselle. With that, the claims of the trades unions and professional associations ceased.12 2. And the Catholic Church? The phrase “Pentecost Monday” contains the word “Pentecost,” and so the debate necessarily has something to do with the Christian religion. And yet, the Catholic Church found itself embarrassed by the situation. When in 2003 the idea was voiced of suppressing a Christian holiday, the leaders of the Catholic Church in France at first expressed a desire to be consulted.13 The president of the Bishops’ Conference Jean-Pierre Ricard indicated also that Pentecost Monday was important for the life of the church. It is clear that the “long weekend” at this season of fair weather favors the organization of pilgrimages, gatherings, and other retreats. At the same time Monsignor Bishop Ricard pleaded for the maintenance of “solidarity” and again expressed concern for the aged and handicapped. The problem arises from the feast as such. Pentecost Monday is, in fact, no longer a liturgical feast in the strict sense of the term. The octave of Pentecost was suppressed at the last liturgical reform. Pentecost Monday as a holiday was thus only the symbolic remains of that octave that was invented in a period when it matched the octave of Easter, a kind of scarcely justifiable appendix to the paschal season since the Great Fifty Days was thus lengthened. Thus Pentecost Monday no longer has any particular connotation except as the beginning of what is called Ordinary Time, apart, perhaps, from local traditions that are still popular in places, for example in Germany where a votive mass of the Holy Spirit is celebrated.14 The current Roman Missal kept the trace of this use besides, in a comment making possible this celebration Monday and Tuesday.

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For example, a group called Les amis du lundi (“Friends of Monday) with the slogan: “Let us keep Pentecost Monday” (“Maintenons le lundi de Pentecôte”). 11 Socialist and communist deputies voted against it. 12 We must note, however, that strikes took place in a few places in the summer of 2008, when the national holiday of July 14 was chosen as the day of solidarity. 13 Thus Cardinal Jean-Marie Lustiger on RTL radio on August 28, 2003, and also the General Secretary of the Bishops’ Conference Stanislas Lalanne in Le Parisien libéré of the same date. 14 In Germany, Pentecost Monday has since 2002 been a “day of church unity.” The German bishops made this suggestion, and it was accepted by the Synod of the Evangelische Kirche Deutschlands (which includes the Lutheran, Reformed, and United Churches). But this proposal has subsequently encountered problems. Cf. Alexander Foitzik, “Lustlos. Wird der Pfingstmontag zum Fest der Ökumene?”, Herder-Korrespondenz 58 (2004) 168.

Arnaud Join-Lambert, The Meaning of Christian Festivals in the Emerging Post-Christendom : A Reflection Prompted by the “Resurrection” of Pentecost Monday in France, in : Studia liturgica 39 (2009) 158-170.

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In sum, Pentecost Monday is a relic from a past time which has no theological meaning today, though it still has a real pastoral importance. It must be added that this day, by reason of its history and its name, still carries a religious dimension for the majority of the French. Its suppression could constitute a strong and symbolic display of the decline of Catholicism in France. This explains, and to some degree justifies, the sentiment that underlies the positions expressed in conservative or integrist circles. The Catholic Church needed, therefore, to do something for this Pentecost Monday that was under threat, and yet it could not mount a vigorous argument. Allowing for choice as to the day of solidarity would not, in fact, be a better move if that then starts to threaten religious holidays that have a real theological and liturgical importance. The attempt to square the pastoral circle—typical of a disappearing Christendom— finds here a very significant illustration. The attempt to keep everything in the case of institutions that have lost their meaning runs the risk of losing what is essential. Our question remains: What is the meaning of these festivals in contemporary culture? III. Christian Festivals in the Context of Ultramodernity It is difficult to see exactly the link that individuals maintain with these Christian festivals. One immediate criterion is participation in the liturgical services, which is convenient but too restricted. In this case, the primacy accorded to Christmas is striking, both in the churches and in the streets, the shop windows, and private houses. The characteristics of the contemporary believer, which are a classic subject in religious sociology, would be one track to follow in investigating our question:15 a religious bricolage, the famous “believing without belonging,” a break of the line of faith (a crisis of transmission), the new type of believers (seekers or converts). From the work of sociologists, one can conclude that the Christian festivals remain important for individuals, both as points of reference and as a sign of religion or social linkage. But it is not always the same the festivals and not always with the same intensity. With these data to sketch our context, four reflections can be put forward on the future of the Christian festivals and their meaning in a France which is undergoing religious recomposition. 1. The Anthropological Dimension Human beings cannot live without ritual. There is no need to insist on that point here. Now in this ritual dimension of humanity, the feasts—particularly religious feasts—structure the individual and collective life. They offer language that suffices to express the unsayable and they help the human being to find meaning in his or her daily life.16 In this perspective, the Christian festivals will be maintained as long as no satisfactory alternative has supplanted them. In other words: to celebrate family and childhood, nothing has yet been found better than Christmas. That is certainly one of the reasons why the few attempts to secularize Christmas have, for the moment, found no real echo in the French population. Santa Claus still is active, but only in the areas of the North and the East of France The case is the same with All Saints’ and the memory of the dead. Even if the “exact” liturgical feast for that is November 2, that is of little importance for the way people make their personal observance. The only feasts “in danger” are those which have no pertinence or anthropological correspondence in secular life. That is particularly the case for Ascension and Assumption. 15

See the work of Danièle Hervieu-Léger: Le pèlerin et le converti. La religion en mouvement (Paris: Flammarion, 1999); and Catholicisme, la fin d’un monde (Paris: Bayard, 2003). 16 See the now classic works of François-André Isambert, Le sens du sacré. Fêtes et religion populaire (Paris: Les Éditions de Minuit, 1982); La Fin de l’année. Étude sur les fêtes de Noël et du Nouvel An à Paris (Paris: Société des amis du Centre d'études sociologiques, 1976). For a theological point of view, see Aline Schoos, “L’existence chrétienne au rythme du temps,”, La Maison-Dieu 231 (2002) 37-46.

Arnaud Join-Lambert, The Meaning of Christian Festivals in the Emerging Post-Christendom : A Reflection Prompted by the “Resurrection” of Pentecost Monday in France, in : Studia liturgica 39 (2009) 158-170.

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One final anthropological remark: one notes the strong link remaining between feasts and seasons,17 despite the disappearance of rural culture (“agro-liturgical” say certain specialists). The rhythm of life of Europeans is structured by seasons, with regard both to education and leisure as well as biorhythms. Here festivals play a very important role, including religious festivals, even if we cannot truly measure this. A football season or a Formula 1 auto racing season are in any case not sufficient for this. 2. The Cultural Dimension This dimension is problematic only when culture is considered as a constructed product limited in time and space, the work of a precise era. It is obvious that Christian festivals have played an essential role until the recent past. For new conditions there must appear new meanings of old feasts, or else the creation of secular feasts, which do not easily catch on (with the notable exception of World Music Day [“fête de la musique”]). The challenge is considerable for Christian churches in decline. The foundational Gospel was given once and for all. It has already been proclaimed to almost the whole of humanity, and has contributed to the shaping of Christendoms, homogeneous social systems which have since disappeared or are in process of disappearing. In these conditions it is difficult to think of renewing anything at all. This vast question of “evangelization” cannot be reduced to the question of festivals alone. But the festivals are a very significant symptom of the place of the Christian faith in the West today and in the near future. We cannot leave unmentioned the festival of Halloween in Europe which is no longer a novelty among us. The analysts note in general how superficial the festival remains despite its visual prominence and marketing. In the course of a few decades, this typically postmodern festival will perhaps have won its place in the European continental culture to the point of representing a real alternative to All Saints’ in the matter of relations with the departed and the beyond. This may explain the appearance in France and especially in Paris of a new Christian pastoral practice around All Saints’ in reaction to Halloween. Among these initiatives, let us note the “Holy Wins” operation begun by young people in the diocese of Paris in 2002, which by 2007 and 2008 included a festival that gathered nearly 10,000 in the square in front of SaintSulpice. 3. The Symbolic Dimension A symbol is a visible and tangible sign of an invisible and intangible reality. Certain Christian festivals are still undeniably symbols in France, and that includes not only holidays. They are marked in the calendars as much in those of firefighters as in private date books. Let us mention here two possible explanations. At a time when individuals are more and more disoriented and stable points of reference are disappearing one after the other, the festivals give a sense of security, a basic trust,18 which allows one to find one’s place in this newly-emerging world. They are the marks of a paradise lost in which everything and everybody had its place. The perspective here is more psychological than religious. Yet that does not mean that all the Christian festivals play a part, although some of them serve to structure collective and private existence. As to the big festivals, Christmas and All Saints’ remain predominant in that respect. Here may be added the feast days of patron saints, which bear an equally symbolic dimension. The fact that they are mentioned before and after television news along with the weather forecast, or on the radio, as well as in the majority of the written media, is nevertheless 17 18

Cf. Anscar Chupungco, “Fêtes liturgiques et saisons de l’année,” Concilium (F) 162 (1981) 57-67. In the sense of the basic trust defined in his day by the psychologist Erik H. Erikson.

Arnaud Join-Lambert, The Meaning of Christian Festivals in the Emerging Post-Christendom : A Reflection Prompted by the “Resurrection” of Pentecost Monday in France, in : Studia liturgica 39 (2009) 158-170.

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remarkable in the context of the end of Christendom. In this matter of the saint whose name one bears, the dimension of a basic trust in life is even more strongly marked. At a time when anonymity is becoming the general and daily context of numerous people, to be recognized can offer an extra reason for living. Saints days certainly contribute less than before to the betterment of life together such as the French bishops desire. While no longer being a Christian particularity, the mention of the patron saint all the same enriches social relations. 4. The Pastoral Dimension Those three dimensions explain why Christian festivals still play a part among nonpracticing and non-believing Christians and also among non-Christians resident in France. The notion of pastoral practice towards those on the margins was invented worked out a few years ago precisely in order to mark those “places” of contact or even meeting between the kernel of Christian communities and people who are distant but sometimes come close. One part of Christianity speaks to them even if it is not always that part which the Catholic Church would desire to see received among the men and women of today. Our contemporaries often have an interpretation of the symbolic system that is in operation that differs from that of the “official” Church19. This dimension belongs in the first place to what has been long been called popular piety. In the 1960s and 1970s, there were intense debates about the place of these requests and ritual practices that were quickly considered marginal. Thus numerous traditional processions disappeared. The example is well known of the suppression of the Christmas crib or crèche in certain parishes, especially urban parishes, at this time. Today these Ncrèches ativity cribs are present everywhere in the churches, but also in public space and in the homes of private people. The parishes have invented pastoral practices around these crèchescribs, involving competitions, tours of people’s houses, exhibitions or power point displays on Christmas Eve, etc. Up to today, Christmas is still prepared for in the majority of state kindergartens and schools for young children. Discussions take place about the meaning of this action in a multireligious and multicultural context. Should one not make of it a simple feast of childhood and even of the family granted the pluralism today? However, empirical researches have established that the crèche crib remains omnipresent and not only as religious imagery. One service to be rendered by the church to Christians, whatever their degree of faith, is to bring out the deep meaning of the festival of the Incarnation in these conditions and among these people. Opposition to mere commercialization, for the sake rather of a valid festive dimension, is an important pastoral task if Christianity claims to remain credible. Pentecost is quite certainly an important feast from the pastoral point of view, independently of its theological content, by reason of its being a three-day public holiday until 2005 and now once more. Let us take for example the numerous sessions of synods and diocesean festivals during that period.20 Let us take note how significant it is that the events of the local church take place at this time. One can easily understand the embarrassment of the French diocesan officials mentioned earlier when the Monday ceased to be work-free. This practical dimension applies—albeit in smaller degree—in connection with Ascension Day that gives its name to a long weekend.

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See my paper : “Sens et limites de la ritualité des sacrements en postchrétienté occidentale”, Ephemerides theologicae lovanienses 85 (2009) 1-22. 20 Cf. Arnaud Join-Lambert, Les liturgies des synodes diocésains français 1983–1999, Liturgie 15 (Paris: Éditions du Cerf, 2004) 238-40.

Arnaud Join-Lambert, The Meaning of Christian Festivals in the Emerging Post-Christendom : A Reflection Prompted by the “Resurrection” of Pentecost Monday in France, in : Studia liturgica 39 (2009) 158-170.

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As for All Saints’ Day, it has been, for some years, the occasion of intense pastoral activity centered on bereavement and Christian hope: letters are sent to family and friends of those who died in the previous year, there are special celebrations on November 1 and 2, liturgies in the cemeteries. Some parishes have also developed, sometimes very creatively, forms of welcoming and accompanying all-comers to the cemeteries on those dates. By reason of the growing lack of religious culture among the French, the Catholic Church faces the need to reexamine its attitude and its message in the area of Christian festivals. And in the first place, in view of the media: the communications officers of the French episcopate and of the dioceses regularly receive questions from journalists who themselves lack an elementary religious culture. Let us now cross the frontier: as one of the people who is consulted regarding questions of this type in our university of Louvain, I discover year by year the cultural desert of certain Belgian journalists who need to write articles or speak on the radio on the occasion of religious festivals. The role of the church is thus vital in this dimension of service to society and the same goes for theologians who have to explain things in a simplified matter that is quite removed from the academic vocabulary of the university. The feast of Easter is in a distinctly more dangerous situation, for it finds few echoes in a society that is no longer Christendom. Moreover, the principal and primordial feast of the Christian faith no longer has any link in France with school holidays, which have become “spring vacationholidays.” instead of “Easter holidays”.21 One can envisage changes here that would benefit everybody. For the great spiritual advantage of its faithful, the Catholic Church could wish for an exchange between Easter Monday, which would become a work day, and Good Friday, which would become a public holiday. The economic argument would lead in the same direction because studies have proved that a Monday is more productive than a Friday in all sectors of activity; the long weekend of three days would thus remain in effect for people who find no particular meaning in Easter. The unavoidable social impact connected with Easter remains carnival for Lent (and the folklore of eggs and bells over Easter). Yet carnival is at present organized during Lent. In certain schools and communes, this happens after Easter when Easter occurs too early. We are really entered in a post-christendom era. The great handicap of Easter is in this new context that it is a mobile feast. In the secular society of French, Easter no longer sets the law for the civil calendar. Paradoxically, it still does so in Belgium and in other European countries (in the matter of school holidays). The Belgian minister of education in 2008 (who belongs to a party known for its anti-clericalism) remarked with humor that it was the church which still fixed the dates of the Easter school holidays. IV. Conclusion The years 1802, 1905, 2004: it seems the Christian festivals have experienced a FrancoFrench cycle of their own. In conclusion, I emphasize two points. Although the crisis for the Catholic Church goes very deep in France, its leaders seem to have assessed the role, the limits, and the opportunities of Christian festivals in the present context. Many are the bishops, the priests, and pastorally-engaged laity who take diverse initiatives in order to make known the meaning of the festivals. Moreover, they take the opportunity to get beyond the risk of a reduction to folklore fed by a childish nostalgia, in order to allow once more and always a Gospel to resound which intends to be good news. On the other hand, the place of festivals in social life becomes more and more a European question. Although they become more and more reduced to a cultural expression, their religious 21

Only the departments of Haut-Rhin, Bas-Rhin and Moselle keep Good Friday as a public holiday.

Arnaud Join-Lambert, The Meaning of Christian Festivals in the Emerging Post-Christendom : A Reflection Prompted by the “Resurrection” of Pentecost Monday in France, in : Studia liturgica 39 (2009) 158-170.

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dimension remains present. One could ask two questions which are not entirely fictitious. If a public holiday asn “European Day”international festival of Europe were to be proclaimed throughout the European Union, what public holiday would be suppressed in order not to affect the sacrosanct principle of economic growth—which in any case is flagging these days? Probably Pentecost Monday. And for how much longer will it be possible to accept in the European Union that no Jewish or Muslim festival be celebrated—or even of other religious minorities? Christian festivals must thus be taken care of in our ultramodern Europe. Certainly the churches cannot keep up their enormous and omnipresent inheritance that dated from a Christendom situation. In itself, the suppression of Easter Monday and Pentecost Monday would not be dramatic. On the other hand, the disappearance of Ascension Day—or also of Good Friday in Alsace and Moselle—would be much more problematical for the Christians there and would, above all, signify the real end of an epoch. These festivals certainly have no meaning in a society that is secular, religiously diverse, and pluricultural, but they belong to the core of the Christian faith. One does not need to be a great prophet in order to suppose that the coming decades will see many discussions and even conflicts arise on the subject of the Christian festivals in France and in Europe. Summery: The Christian festivals set the rhythm of life in Europe more and more for 1600 years. The Christian calendar enjoyed a monopoly in the organization of social time. In this context, the great festivals played a primary role. Yet the question has contemporary importance by reason of the progressive, yet radical, change of the European context in the matter of the Christian religion. We are no longer in the midst of a modernity characterized among other things by the adoption of a critical distance from religions. What then is the meaning of Christian festivals in this context? We see four parties at play: the Universal Catholic Church with its Code of Canon Law; the local Catholic church with its particular customs; the State and its public holidays; and citizens with their personal convictions and interests. I should first like to take notice of features particular to France and then I will examine in detail a concrete example that may presage the difficult questions to come; the conflict in 2004–2008 around “Pentecost Monday” (or “Whit Monday”). That will allow me to venture some hypotheses towards a future for Christian festivals in the ultramodern society that is process of becoming.