The Folklore of Pentecost

We continue to learn from Fr. Francis X. Weiser, this time regarding the ancient customs of Pentecost.

Holy Ghost Dove

From the earliest centuries of the Christian era preachers and writers have mentioned the dove as a symbol of the Holy Spirit. This symbolism, of course, was inspired by the Gospel report of Christ's baptism. (Luke 3, 21-22) The dove, as a symbol of the Holy Spirit, may be seen in churches, on priestly vestments, on altars, tabernacles, sacred utensils, and in many religious paintings.

In medieval times the figure of a dove was widely used to enact in a dramatic way the descent of the Holy Spirit on Pentecost Sunday. When the priest had arrived at the sequence, he sang the first words in a loud and solemn voice: Veni Sancte Spiritus (Come, Holy Ghost). Immediately there arose in the church a sound “as of a violent wind blowing.” (Acts 2, 2) This noise was produced in some countries, like France, by the blowing of trumpets; in others by the choirboys, who hissed, hummed, pressed windbags, and rattled the benches. All eyes turned toward the ceiling of the church where from an opening called the “Holy Ghost Hole” there appeared a disc the size of a cart wheel, which slowly descended in horizontal position, swinging in ever-widening circles. Upon a blue background, broken by bundles of golden rays, it bore on its underside the figure of a white dove. Meanwhile, the choir sang the sequence. At its conclusion the dove came to rest, hanging suspended in the middle of the church. There followed a “rain” of flowers indicating the gifts of the Holy Spirit, and of water symbolizing baptism. In some towns of central Europe people even went so far as to drop pieces of burning wick or straw from the Holy Ghost Hole, to represent the flaming tongues of Pentecost. This practice, however, was eventually stopped because it tended to put the people on fire externally, instead of internally as the Holy Spirit had done at Jerusalem. In the thirteenth century in many cathedrals of France real white pigeons were released during the singing of the sequence and flew around in the church while roses were dropped from the Holy Ghost Hole.

Like all such religious pageants this dramatic addition to the liturgy of Whitsunday was attacked and ridiculed by the Lutheran reformers. Among other instances there is a report from the town of Biberach in Germany describing how in 1545 children broke the Holy Ghost Dove of the local church and carried the pieces in a mock procession through the streets.

A fairly general custom in medieval times, and one still practiced in many sections of central and eastern Europe, is the use of artfully carved and painted wooden doves, representing the Holy Spirit. Usually this figure is suspended over the dining table. Often it is encased in a globe of glass, into which it has been assembled with painstaking effort, a constant reminder for the members of the family to venerate the Holy Spirit. [Editor's note: I have tried to find one of these through internet and eBay searches, but have had no luck. Anyone else?]

Other Customs

Like Easter night, the night of Pentecost is considered one of the great “blessed nights” of the year. In many sections of Europe it is still the custom to ascend hilltops and mountains during the early dawn of Whitsunday to pray. People call this observance “catching the Holy Ghost.” Thus they express in symbolic language the spiritual fact that only by means of prayer can the divine dove be “”caught” and the graces of the Holy Spirit obtained.

In rural sections of northern Europe superstitions ascribe a special power of healing to the dew that falls during Pentecost night. To obtain these blessings people walk barefoot through the grass on the early morning of the feast. They also collect the dew on pieces of bread which afterward are fed to their domestic animals as a protection against disease and accidents. In many places, all through Whitsunday night can be heard the noise of shooting (Pfingstschiessen) and cracking of whips (Pfingstschnalzen). In pre-Christian times this observance was held to frighten harmful powers away from home and harvest; in Christian times it assumed the character of a salute to the great feast.

The modern version of the ancient spring festival (maypole and May Queen) is connected with Pentecost in many sections of Europe. The queen is called “Pentecost Bride” (Pfingstbraut). Other relics of the Indo-European spring festival are the games, dances, and races held at Whitsuntide. This tradition used to be most popular everywhere in the Middle Ages, and still is in central Europe. In England, Pentecost Sunday was a day of horse races, plays, and feasting (Whitsun ale). In Germany, too, people would hold banquets (Pfingstgelage) and drink “Pentecost beer.” Finally, there exists a Christian version of ancient nature lore in the custom of blessing flowers, fields, and fruit trees on the Vigil of Pentecost. In German-speaking countries the red peony (paeonia officinalis) bears the name Pfingstrose (Rose of Pentecost), and the oriole (oriolus oriolus) is called Pfingstvogel (Pentecost bird).

The Folklore of Ascension Day

Having praised the writings of Fr. Francis X. Weiser in two previous posts (here and here), I thought it meet to share the following excerpt from his magnum opus, the Handbook of Christian Feasts and Customs (New York: Harcourt, Brace, and World, 1958), pp. 243-45.

Ascension Plays

During the tenth century some dramatic details were added to the liturgical procession on Ascension Day in the countries of central and western Europe.

In Germany it became a custom for priests to lift a cross aloft when the words Assumptus est in caelum (He was taken up into Heaven) were sung at the Gospel.

From the eleventh century on, the procession was gradually dropped in most countries and in its place a pageant was performed in church. These “Ascension plays” have never been accorded official approval or liturgical status by the Roman authorities.

By the thirteenth century it had become a fairly general custom to enact the Ascension by hoisting a statue of the Risen Christ aloft until it disappeared through an opening in the ceiling of the church. While the image, suspended on a rope, moved slowly upward, the people rose in their pews and stretched out their arms toward the figure of the Saviour, acclaiming the Lord in prayer or by hymn singing. Hundreds of reports in old books from the fourteenth to the seventeenth centuries contain vivid descriptions of this ancient custom.

One of the most charming examples is the Ascension play of the Bavarian monastery in Moosburg, recorded by the priest and poet Johann von Berghausen (1362). In the center of the church, directly underneath an opening in the ceiling, a platform decorated with colored cloths and flowers was erected. On this platform stood a little tent, open at the top, which represented the Mount of Olivet. Inside the tent was placed a statue of the Risen Christ, holding high the banner of victory. A strong rope that hung down from the ceiling was fastened to a ring on top of the wooden image. After Vespers (in the afternoon), a solemn procession moved from the sacristy to the platform. It was led by two boys in white dresses. They impersonated angels; on their shoulders they wore wings and on their heads little wreaths of flowers. They were followed by a young cleric who represented the Blessed Virgin, “dressed in the robes of holy and honorable widowhood.” To his right and left walked clerics enacting Saint Peter and Saint John. Behind them came ten other clerics in Oriental gowns; they were barefoot, and on their foreheads they carried diadems inscribed with the names of the Apostles. The altar boys and priests, vested in festive garb, concluded the group. In front of the platform, the deacon sang the Gospel of Ascension Day, and the choir intoned the antiphon, “I ascend to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God” (John 20, 17).

The priests then venerated the image of Christ with inclinations and incense. Finally, while the choir sang Ascendit Deus in altum, alleluia (God rose on high), the statue was slowly pulled aloft. As it rose higher and higher, a few figures of angels holding burning candles came down from “Heaven” to meet the Lord and to accompany him on his journey. From a large metal ring that was suspended below the opening, there hung cloths of silk representing clouds. Between these “clouds” the image of the Saviour slowly and solemnly disappeared. A few moments later, a shower of roses, lilies, and other flowers dropped from the opening; then followed wafers in the shape of large hosts. The schoolchildren were allowed to collect these flowers and wafers, to take them home as cherished souvenirs. Father Berghausen explains this custom as follows: “The little ones collect the flowers which symbolize the various gifts of the Holy Spirit. The wafers indicate the presence of Christ in His eucharistic Body, which remains with us, under the species of bread, to the end of time.” While the congregation stood with eyes raised to the ceiling, the two “angels” intoned the final message of Ascension Day, which predicts the triumphant coming of the Lord on the clouds of Heaven, for the great judgment at the end of the world: “Why do you stand looking up to heaven? This Jesus, who has been taken up from you into heaven, shall come in the same way as you have seen him going up to heaven.” (Acts 1, 11) The celebration was concluded with solemn Benediction.

The Lutheran reformers violently attacked not only occasional abuses in these plays, but the whole institution. However, Luther himself seems to have later regretted the hasty condemnations of earlier years, for in a message to his preachers he wrote in 1530: “If such customs had remained as pageants for the sake of youth and school children, to furnish them with a presentation of Christian doctrine and Christian life, then it could well be allowed that Palm donkeys, Ascension plays, and many similar traditions might be admitted and tolerated; for by such things conscience is not led into confusion.”

Other Customs

It was a widespread custom in many parts of Europe during the Middle Ages to eat a bird on Ascension Day, because Christ “flew” to Heaven. Pigeons, pheasants, partridges, and even crows, graced the dinner tables. In western Germany bakers and innkeepers gave their customers pieces of pastry made in the shapes of various birds. In England the feast was celebrated with games, dancing, and horse races. In central Europe, Ascension Day is a traditional day of mountain climbing and picnics on hilltops and high places.

Popular superstitions threaten dire punishments to anyone who works on Ascension Day in field and garden, but especially to women who do their sewing on the feast. Any piece of garment that has been touched by a needle on the Ascension will attract lightning before long, and many stories are told of how people were killed that way. In some sections of Europe it is said that weddings should not be held on Ascension Day because one of the partners would die soon. Those who go bathing in rivers and lakes are exposed to the danger of drowning more than on other days. It seems that all these superstitions are relics of the pre-Christian lore of the demons of death who were said to roam the earth and kill people around this time of the year.

Francis X. Weiser, SJ, the Domestic Heortologist, Part Two: Liturgiology

Soon I discovered that most people have no clear notion of the origin, background, and true meaning of these customs which they observe in their homes. Since the great majority of our Christmas, Easter, Thanksgiving, and other observances actually go back to the inspiration of liturgical thought and symbolism, I judged it a worthwhile subject to explain. Also a priestly subject; for, given the fact that our popular customs contain the radiation of the liturgy, the understanding of this radiation would make the celebration of our Christian feasts within the family warmer, holier, and more truly joyful. At the same time, a better grasp of the religious meaning and message of our family customs would give parents valuable help for the religious training of their little ones.

--Rev. Francis X. Weiser, SJ

Last week, we surveyed the life and writings of Fr. Francis X. Weiser, SJ, whom we have dubbed “The Domestic Heortologist.” This, week, we examine the principles undergirding his work on the liturgical year.

In the paragraph cited above, Weiser outlines four features of his liturgical works that are worth examining in detail (albeit in a different order): 1) an explanation of customs to correct widespread ignorance; 2) the formation of children; 3) the radiation of the liturgy; and 4) an emerging American melting pot of devotional practices. To these we add a fifth: Weiser’s relationship to the Liturgical Movement.

1. Correction of Ignorance

Weiser begins his Holyday Book thus:

“Many people celebrate the holydays and know their names; but of their history, meaning and origin they know nothing … Truly, such ignorance deserves to be blamed and ridiculed” – St. John Chrysostom … This book was written to provide the information which St. John would have wished the faithful to possess.

Like other voices in the Liturgical Movement, Weiser placed a premium on a historical understanding of liturgical and paraliturgical practices, and lamented the lack of historical accuracy in much of the literature on the subject. On one end of the spectrum are “viciously false” attempts to trace every Christian holiday to a pagan source; on the other are pious “etiological” explanations that substitute for careful historical research. Weiser sought a middle ground between these two extremes.

2. Formation of Children

In his publications and in his forty-year pastoral ministry to college students in Austria and the United States, Fr Weiser had an abiding interest in the formation of Catholic youth, and he saw his liturgical writings as a part of that apostolate. In one of his last books on the Church year, he writes:

Happy the children who grow up in a home that is rich in traditional celebrations! Their lives will be more full and radiant through the inspiration of this childhood experience. Faith, culture, emotional security, absorbing joy, satisfaction of mind and heart, a warm spirit of love and union in the family, sound development of character and personality traits, appreciation of true values: these are some of the fruits which a childhood of such joyful family celebrations produces.

Weiser also believed that filling a home with liturgical joy was a form of evangelization. In his most popular juvenile fiction novel, Das Licht der Berge, the initially agnostic narrator Fritz describes the effect that his cousin’s pious home had on his brother Otto. Their cousin’s family observes a traditional Christmas Eve, which includes elaborately decorating the manger scene. Fritz notes that “Otto went about the job with the utmost interest. I could notice how his soul was opening out as a result of the religious atmosphere he breathed in this house.” Fritz would eventually be caught up by the same breath as well.

3. Radiation of the Liturgy

The religious atmosphere that Weiser describes is one that is informed by sacred liturgy (its rites and calendar) but separate from it. A phrase that he uses to describe the relationship between the Church’s official ceremonies and the laity’s domestic devotions is “the radiation of the liturgy into Catholic homes.” As he explains:

The radiation of liturgy has created many symbols, customs, and traditions that have enriched the observance of festive days and seasons in home and community, and remnants of pre-Christian lore have, in most cases, assumed new meanings and motivations through the influence of liturgical thought and celebration.

Therefore, Weiser concludes, understanding

this radiation would make the celebration of our Christian feasts within the family warmer, holier, and more truly joyful. At the same time, a better grasp of the religious meaning and message of our family customs would give parents valuable help for the religious training of their little ones.

Weiser’s works have been described as a study of the paraliturgical, but since the word, for some at least, denotes practices in opposition to the official liturgy, perhaps the better term is “periliturgical,” that is, customs surrounding the liturgy, like rays around the sun. In any event, his interest in the subject was shared by many Americans in the post-war era. As Msgr. Luigi G. Ligutti, leader of the Catholic rural life movement in the United States, writes in his preface to Florence Berger’s 1949 Cooking for Christ:

This book is an extension of the Missal, Breviary and Ritual because the Christian home is an extension of the Mass, choir and sacramentals. … Liturgical seasons or feast days were intended not merely for church and cloister. To be fully effective and enjoyable, they have to wrap kitchen and commons in their colorful mantle. The motto of the National Catholic Rural Life Conference is “Christ to the Country and the Country to Christ.” We paraphrase it here by saying “Christ to the Kitchen and the Kitchen to Christ.” This is reverent as well as simple.

Berger herself is more succinct: “If I am to carry Christ home with me from the altar, I am afraid He will have to come to the kitchen because much of my time is spent there.” In many respects, Weiser wrote his liturgical books for readers like Florence Berger.

4. The Melting Pot

Weiser describes American holiday life as one that is “molded into one unit out of the best national Christmas lore of various immigrant groups.” Our author wished to contribute to this eclectic molding by making people aware of the Christian meaning behind ethnic lore. His writing is at times nostalgic, but it is not antiquarian or archeologist. Despite his fond boyhood memory of the visit of St. Nicholas, for example, he does not advocate the restoration of this practice but rather “a revival of the veneration and annual celebration of the Saint, who is still patron of little children.”

Weiser was hardly alone in trying to create an American melting pot from international Catholic customs. As early as 1941, fellow emigrees like Therese Mueller published her Family Life in Christ. Of her Claudio Salvucci writes:

Having watched European parents relinquish their children’s Catholic upbringing to religious institutions, only to see the secularization of those institutions, she was keen on giving Catholicism a solid grounding within the home, including celebrating feasts, praying the Office, and maintaining a home altar. Mueller popularized the German Advent Wreath in the United States and helped standardize its violet and pink candles as an antidote to the “horrible, secularized, commercialized Santa Claus, more and more shameful each year.”

An American development: the violet and rose Advent calendar

Possibly the most famous author of this period was Weiser’s friend Maria von Trapp, who in 1955 wrote Around the Year with the Trapp Family, a compendium of periliturgical devotions. Again Salvucci:

Like Mueller, she was a German-speaking emigrant from the Hitler regime, and she had an existing, deeply Catholic Austrian cultural bank to draw from that her American friends admired. They said to her: “These lovely old folk customs of yours–couldn’t they be introduced in our homes too? They really are not necessarily Austrian or Polish or Italian–they are Catholic, which is universal.”

Kathryn A. Johnson notes that this chapter of American Catholic history was marked by a “shift from ethnic communities with special religious traditions to a ‘melting-pot’ approach to family rituals” and that popular literature was an important catalyst in this transition:

In the mid 1950s, for example, two manuals, Rev. Francis Weiser’s Religious Customs in the Family and Rev. Bernward Stokes’ How to Make Your House a Home, were published as aids “for persons whose duty it is to shape and mold the character of children.” These books covered the teaching of both general customs, like the sign of the cross and the sacraments, and special seasonal rituals, including Christmas traditions, Holy Week, and the customs of Lent. These books, and literally thousands of other books and articles—the Family Life Bureau alone published five books on family liturgical practices—taught Catholic parents “modern” ways to incorporate older customs into their homes.

5. The Liturgical Movement

Just as Weiser was responding to a moment in American history, so too was he capitalizing on and contributing to a moment in Church history. The Liturgical Movement in the United States was enjoying unprecedented popularity, with a growing thirst for the kind of information that Weiser was providing. Weiser himself supported this movement, dedicating his Holyday Book to “the Liturgical Movement in the United States.”

But Weiser was also critical of certain strains of the Liturgical Movement of his time. In an article entitled “Some Observations on Recent Literature,” he warmly welcomes the flood of literature that, like his own, attempts to enrich family life with religious customs. But he also points out three areas of concern:

First, he did not approve of trends that blurred the difference between priest and laity, liturgy and domestic custom. Some contemporary authors were advocating that the father merely repeat the words and actions of the priest at home, even to the extent of blessing an object with holy water and calling it a “sacramental.” Weiser advises caution: “It is possible that Rome will approve this new procedure. On the other hand, it might be advisable to make sure of such approval before spreading the custom too far.” Instead Weiser recommends:

Let liturgy, its thought and symbols, inspire your celebrations in the home; but instead of using liturgical texts and symbols in a mere imitation of what the priest does, create new and different forms for these thoughts and symbols in your home. (This is the way most of our beautiful customs developed centuries ago.) Know the liturgy, explain it to your children, make them love it; but don’t “perform” it vicariously in your home.

Second, Weiser was wary of unwarranted innovation,

It would seem to be of special importance that, above all else, we present the true story of these established customs and make them understood again in their original meaning. Since they exist already in millions of families, it should be comparatively easy to get our population (and not only the Catholics) interested in such explanations. Thus the radiant light of liturgical inspiration and religious thought could be rapidly spread everywhere by explaining the “old” customs before we try to introduce “new” ones.

and especially wary of innovation that arose from ignorance or haste:

Many Catholic writers, not familiar with the true history and meaning of our established festive lore, too quickly propose ready-made changes, substitutions and suppressions. The result is a confusing variety of well-meant suggestions, often advanced with more zeal than knowledge or psychological insight.

As mentioned earlier, Weiser was a student at Innsbruck of the famous Jesuit liturgical historian Josef Andreas Jungmann, to whom he dedicated his Handbook of Christian Customs:

This book is dedicated, as a belated but sincere token of gratitude, to my former professor at the University of Innsbruck (Austria), the Rev. Joseph A. Jungmann, S.J. The lasting influence of his personality and example no less than his masterful teaching inspired me, as it did many others of his former students, to attempt a modest contribution to the great task of making the treasures of holy liturgy better known and appreciated. May this handbook not only be useful to anyone seeking information and understanding of our feasts and folklore, but also help toward a joyful and fruitful celebration in our churches, hearts and homes.

His sincere gratitude, however, should not be mistaken for complete agreement. Jungmann was convinced that liturgy had become a “lifeless act” through clericalization and thus he became an advocate for sweeping liturgical reform. Weiser, as far as I can tell, does not recommend a single change to the liturgy. On the contrary, rather than see the liturgy of his day as lifeless, he saw it as radiating life and continuing to inspire personal, domestic, and cultural development around the world. “The celebration of our Christian feasts within the family [can be] warmer, holier, and more truly joyful” not through liturgical innovation but through a recovery of understanding why we do what we do.

Rev. Josef Andres Jungmann, S.J.

Reception

Weiser’s works were generally well received in the 1950s and 1960s. Nash K. Burger wrote in the New York Times:

Since books about Christmas seem as inevitable as Christmas itself, it would be well if they were all as satisfying as Francis X. Weiser’s “The Christmas Book.” Seldom have so many aspects of the origin, observance and meaning of this important Christian holy season been presented in such attractive form.

America Magazine called Handbook “a very palatable and often engrossing introduction to the liturgy”—nay more, it was “an introduction to Christian culture” that is “engagingly written.” Oxford’s Journal of Bible and Religion voiced a similar sentiment about The Holyday Book, describing it as a “a most informative and at the same time delightful book” written in a “friendly, sympathetic style” by an author who “manifests an extraordinary knowledge of languages, folklore, customs, liturgy, and even of cooking recipes” yet who “wears his scholarship gracefully and lightly.”

Responding to these compliments, Weiser revealed the “secret” of his writing as well as his perennial concern for the youth and his own high standards:

Allow me to tell you a secret. I never had the benefit of “studying” English; never had a teacher or any formal instruction in this language. All the English I know, was-to use a popular expression-just “picked up” by reading good English books. (The word “good” refers to both English and books.) That is the reason why I am now so keenly and sadly aware of the incredible harm which the atrocious language and spelling of our comic books must cause to the minds of children. If reading “good English” books gave me my knowledge of the language, what kind of language habits will the comics produce in our children?

According to the Archivum Historicum Societatis Iesu, Weiser’s biographies of famous Jesuits are brief, accurate, and designed to excite zeal for the missions. They also do a fine job relaying the facts but do not use the critical method of historical scholarship. His liturgical books are “a sketchy but deftly written survey of nativity plays, flowers, symbolic lights and fires, and Christmas foods. Although more comprehensive studies of this fascinating subject have been made by popular writers for a general public, the Christmas Book will find many interested readers among laymen of the Roman Catholic faith.” “Folklorists,” writes one reviewer, “will wish for a more detailed, carefully annotated study. The reference notes serve as a somewhat insufficient guide to the sources used in compiling the data.” “This book [in the genre] of popularization pursues a pastoral goal and includes neither a bibliography nor critical discussion,” writes another.

Aside from his own personal observations or experiences, Weiser depended on the scholarship of others to compile his overview of liturgical customs. One drawback to such a dependence is that one’s “sketches” are only as good as one’s sources; when they err, so do you. In Handbook, for example, Weiser opines that pretzels derive their name from bracellae, a supposed Latin name for “little arms.” The problem is that no such word exists in Latin; it is more probable that pretiola (“little rewards”) is the source of the word “pretzel.”

The Post-Vatican II Era

Weiser’s last monograph on heortology, The Year of the Lord in the Christian Home, appeared in 1964. After that, and aside from some miscellaneous articles on the Church, he returned to German juvenile fiction and biography: between 1966 and 1974, he published seven more books and three biographical entries for New Catholic Encyclopedia. His last book to appear in English was Kateri Tekakwitha in 1971, a translation of his 1970 Das Mädchen der Mohawks, and his last book of all was his 1974 biography of Jesuit priest and explorer Pierre de Smet, In den Bergen von Montana (In the Mountains of Montana).

In 1970 at the age of sixty-nine, Weiser retired from teaching at Boston College and moved to Campion Center in Weston: a Jesuit retirement community, the center is located on the campus of the former Weston College where he had taught twenty years earlier. (Weiser’s retirement may have had something to do with the 1967 Age Discrimination in Retirement Act, which mandated retirement at the age of sixty-five). The year that he retired, “in recognition of his scholarly and literary achievements,” his alma mater the University of Innsbruck awarded him a citation of honor and the Jubilee Medal. Francis X. Weiser, S.J. passed away on October 22, 1986 at the age of eighty-five.

It is not known why such a prolific author stopped writing on the liturgy. There may be several reasons. First, Weiser may have said all that he wanted to say on the subject. The Handbook of Christian Customs is already a thorough compendium of the entire liturgical year, and his subsequent books on periliturgical practices cover all the essentials of domestic devotion.

Second, he may have recognized that the cultural conditions that made his works popular and useful were no longer as strong. The 1950s was a great melting pot moment; the divisive 1960s was not.

But perhaps the greatest reason for Weiser’s abandonment of heortology was the general reform of the Roman Rite that was already taking place in 1964 and that would culminate with the promulgation of a new Missale Romanum in 1969. The new missal included a significantly different calendar that at times makes difficult the implementation of Weiser’s assembled folklore. Gone were the customs surrounding Septuagesima and the customs surrounding saints’ feast days, such as St. Thomas the Apostle, whose feast (once rich in winter customs) was transferred from December 21 to July 3.

That said, Weiser’s work still contains valuable information that is relevant today [even for those observing the Novus Ordo]: almost everything he says about Advent and Christmas, for example, is still applicable, even for his beloved feast of St. Nicholas. Moreover, his work remains a model for us all, whether we are scholars or simply members of the Body of Christ trying to enrich our lives with the Church’s liturgy. As he writes: “When we Catholics write about our own religious feasts and customs, the goal is to present our very best, not only in devotion and inspiration but also in scholarship.”

A version of this article (with full annotation) appeared as “The Domestic Heortologist: An Introduction to Francis X. Weiser, S.J.” in Antiphon: A Journal of Liturgical Renewal 29:2 (2025), pp. 144-171. Many thanks to its editors for allowing its publication here.

Francis X. Weiser, SJ, the Domestic Heortologist, Part One: Biography

Francis X. Weiser, S.J. (1901-86) is better known today among homeschooling Catholic families than liturgical scholars, but his works on the Church calendar were once held in high regard for their erudition and clarity. Weiser’s popular books on Christian festivities and customs played a role in the American Liturgical Movement of the 1950s, and they still serve as a model for balancing scholarly rigor and pastoral sensitivity. In this article, we examine Father Weiser’s life and writings: in the next, his liturgiology.

Early Life

Franz Xavier Weiser was born in Vienna, Austria on March 21, 1901 to Franz S. Weiser and Maria (née Schipp) Weiser. At the time, Vienna was still, as Weiser would later describe it, “the gay capital of a famous empire” and “the great metropolis of music and song.” The pre-war culture of the Imperial City would have a significant impact on Weiser and his authorial ambitions:

You might say that we grew up to the tunes of Haydn, Beethoven, Mozart, Schubert, and Strauss. I have a vague feeling that this atmosphere of culture, music, and art, had much to do with my desire to write. At the age of eight or nine, while still a little boy in grammar school, I used to ask God daily in my evening prayer to “let me write books.”

Another formative influence on Weiser was domestic devotional practices. Joseph Ratzinger, who lived only a few miles from the Austrian border in a similar Catholic milieu, writes in his autobiography: “The Church year gave the time its rhythm, and I experienced that with great gratitude and joy already as a child, indeed, above all as a child.” As a boy Ratzinger was particularly fond of the liturgies and Bavarian customs of the Christmas and Easter seasons. “Every new step into the liturgy was a great event for me,” he recalls. “It was a riveting adventure.”

Weiser’s earliest recollections were of a similar kind. One of his first memories was that of his mother Maria making the sign of the cross on his forehead and wishing him good night. “This simple action,” he writes, “taught me more than any words the great truth that parents are God’s representatives.” He learned the same lesson from “an old and very wholesome practice [that] demanded that children, before going to Confession, should ask forgiveness from their parents for offenses and faults committed in the home.” Weiser’s mother was also adept at explaining the meaning of Christian practices to her son. He recalls:

It was the general custom among Catholics to greet priests on the street and in public in order to profess the Faith and show reverence for the holy priesthood. When I was a little boy, my mother told me, “You must always joyfully greet a priest, whether you know him or not. Your Guardian Angel, too, greets the priests with great love and reverence.” These simple words of my mother made a deep impression on me; I never forgot them.

Other memories of Weiser were tied to the liturgical year, such as his family’s observance of name days, the feast day of the saint after whom one is named. Weiser writes:

I remember how from early childhood I went to church with my father every year on the feast of St. Francis Xavier, attending the Holy Sacrifice and later receiving Communion, too. Returning home, I found the table cheerfully decorated with flowers and little presents. Mother, Father, brothers and sisters offered their congratulations. Then we sat down to a joyful breakfast, my proud little self sitting in the place of honor. And all this because centuries ago a wonderful young man in Spain loved God so much that he became a Saint. I cannot express the powerful conviction that filled me every year on this occasion, how great and important it is to become holy. This was one of the eloquent lessons which our religious customs taught me without words, but with an effect greater than many words could achieve. Judging from this aspect, we may truly say that such Catholic customs in the home educate the children more efficiently than the best Catholic teachers could ever do in school.

But perhaps his most important devotional memory is that of the annual visit of St. Nicholas:

I still vividly remember the annual visit of this friendly and saintly figure on the evening of December 5. With joy and happy excitement we awaited his coming. We were convinced, as little children easily are, that he really was our great Patron Saint who came from Heaven on his feast day to visit us children whom he loved so much. With utter sincerity we promised him to overcome our faults, to obey our parents and to prepare our hearts for Christmas. Gratefully we accepted his gifts and kissed the ring on his holy hand. Never again in all my life have I experienced the unspeakable thrill of a physical nearness to Heaven as I did on those evenings of my childhood when “St. Nicholas” came to us. When I later found out that it was not really the Saint but a man representing him, this caused me no shock or harm. The thrill I had felt remained in my memory and has remained to this day with all its beauty.

Both Ratzinger and Weiser’s childhood memories would presage their later interest in liturgical studies.

Early Writings

Weiser received the standard gymnasium education of his day: Latin at the age of eleven, Greek at fourteen, three years of Italian, and instruction in religion, literature, history, geography, mathematics, physics, chemistry, biology, drawing, music, art appreciation, and singing, all “topped by a two-year course in fundamental philosophy.” But instead of going on to university, he entered the Jesuit novitiate at the age of nineteen. In 1924, he began a seven-year period of matriculation at the University of Innsbruck, ending with doctorates in philosophy, theology, and education/psychology. Among his teachers at Innsbruck was a fellow Austrian Jesuit, the liturgical scholar Josef A. Jungmann. In a brief autobiographical essay Weiser calls these degrees the recorded “fruits” of his studies but adds: “The unrecorded fruit (which is more important), is supposed to have become a part of my personality, and is known only to God.”

Weiser was ordained a priest on July 26, 1930 at Holy Trinity Church in Innsbruck. The next year he began his tertianship, the third stage of probation and a special year of spiritual training for Jesuits before they take their final vows, at the novitiate of St. Andrew-on-Hudson in Hyde Park, New York. During his time in the United States, he took courses at nearby Marist College in Poughkeepsie and visited St. Louis University and the Missouri countryside.

Weiser’s superiors encouraged him to pursue his childhood interest in writing, and soon he was an accomplished author. He published eight books between 1927 and 1931: three biographies (of Jesuit missionaries Johann Grueber and Blessed Charles Spinola and the Jesuit martyr Miguel Pro), four novels, and a history of a German Catholic student association in Prague called Nordgau. His novels from this period include Der Sohn des weißen Häuptlings (The Son of the White Chief), Alfreds Geheimnis (Alfred’s Secret), Walter Klingers Weltfahrt (Walter Klinger’s World Tour), and Das Licht der Berge: Aus dem Leben eines jungen Menschen (The Light on the Mountains: From the Life of a Young Person). Das Licht remains Weiser’s most popular book: it went through thirty-eight editions in German between 1931 and 1998, sold over one million copies, and has been translated into thirty languages. The International Companion Encyclopedia of Children’s Literature (2004) designates the book as a Bildungsroman in which

Hein Moll, a boy from Tirol, is confronted in the capital Vienna with a number of fundamental issues. By trial and error he finds the strength to remain faithful to his Christian ideals. In this type of traditional novel a priest often acts as an adviser. In more recent juvenile fiction religion no longer forms the familiar setting in which the young characters grow up.

Vienna, 1932-38

In 1932 Weiser returned to Vienna, where he served as the national moderator of Austria’s Marian Congregations (a student sodality run by the Society of Jesus) and the editor of their monthly magazine Unsere Fahne (Our Flag). The two positions dovetailed nicely with his already-apparent interest in youth formation through juvenile fiction and inspirational biography. By the time he left Vienna in 1938, he had written another sixteen books: biographies, novels, plays, travelogues, and a scholarly monograph on a German dialect that is still being cited in linguistic studies.

Several of Weiser’s works during this time owe their inspiration to his stay in America. His 1933 Im Lande des Sternenbanners (In the Land of the Star-Spangled Banner) is a travelogue while his 1936 Amerikanisches Tagebuch (American Diary) draws from his trip to Missouri in order to reminisce “on the exploits of pioneer Jesuit missionaries such as Father De Smet and Father Franz Xaver Weninger.” Weiser also published separate biographies on DeSmet and Weninger along with a biography of Jesuit Father James Bouchard (a Delaware Indian originally named Watomika) and the Jesuit martyr Jean de Brebeuf.

The Anschluss, the War, and Its Aftermath

Most likely it was Weiser’s prior experience with and fondness of America that influenced his decision of where to go when Nazi Germany annexed his homeland on March 12, 1938. Although some members of the Austrian episcopate welcomed the “union of Greater Germany,” it was clear to Weiser that “Catholic youth work” would be “made well-nigh impossible” by Nazi occupation. By year’s end he moved to America. Drawing from an uncited source, the German-language edition of Wikipedia states that “Francis Weiser was sent by his order to the United States in 1938 to study the history of the Jesuit mission in North America” while the Jesuit Archives asserts that he “fled to the United States.” Weiser himself simply writes: “I ‘returned’ to the United States that same year and have remained here ever since.”

In 1938, Weiser was appointed associate pastor of St. Ann Church in Buffalo, New York. The following year, he was transferred to Boston to become the associate pastor of Holy Trinity Church, a parish of 490 families and two schools with 400 students that primarily served German Americans. When the pastor’s health began to decline in 1943, Weiser was made his successor and remained pastor of Holy Trinity until 1950.

Weiser thus had the unenviable position of shepherding a German parish in the United States during World War II, a time when anti-German sentiment ran high. But he made the best of these “bittersweet years.” A history of Holy Trinity published in 1994 describes him as “an intellectual of the first rank” who “was an extremely active pastor.” In 1944, the parish’s week-long celebration of their centennial included several Missae cantatae and a Solemn High Mass, visits from local dignitaries such as the mayor of Boston and archdiocesan administrator Richard J. Cushing (later cardinal), and a special concert featuring some personal friends of Weiser who had likewise fled the Anschluss and emigrated to New England: the Von Trapp Family Singers. (I have also heard from former Holy Trinity parishioners that the Trapps, who lived in Stowe, Vermont, would serve in the choir for a High Mass anytime Fr. Weiser needed them for a special occasion).

The centennial would prompt Weiser to write his only book during the war, a history of Holy Trinity. In the preface he evinces, as he did in his autobiography, an appreciation of external accomplishments coupled with an awareness of the primacy of “unrecorded fruits” in the interior life:

The history of the parish possesses an (sic) unique interest. Naturally, its first and foremost achievement as a Catholic parish will always remain hidden within the sphere of personal religious life, but its external activities exhibit features which will engage the attention not only of its own parishioners but of all Catholics.

The Von Trapps

In this brief monograph Weiser also took advantage of his friendship with the von Trapps; the illustrations were drawn by their daughter Agathe. And after Captain Georg von Trapp passed away in 1947, Weiser dedicated his Christmas Book to him. In addition to his regular pastoral duties, Weiser helped found the Massachusetts branch of the National Catholic Women’s Union and soon became their National Spiritual Director (a position he would hold for twenty years) and the National Youth Director of both the National Catholic Women’s Union and the National Catholic Central Union of America. he also served as auxiliary chaplain to German POWs at Fort Devens from 1943 until 1945.

But it was after the war that his activities reached a new level. Stories began to reach the U.S. of nuns starving to death and of Soviet troops raping and plundering in Austria and Germany; Weiser’s beloved Vienna was designated by a United Press International report as the hungriest capital in Europe. Under Weiser’s leadership, Holy Trinity became the premier parish in the United States for European war relief. In May 1946, the archbishop of Boston, recognizing his efforts, named him the official representative of the archdiocese for relief work for the national Catholic Welfare Conference in Germany and Austria. Between 1946 and 1949, the Holy Trinity rectory was stacked high with packages of food and clothing to be shipped to Europe as Weiser answered 25,200 letters from Europe begging for assistance. During this period, Holy Trinity raised $85,000 ($1,126,075 in today’s money) for the purchase of food and medicine and shipped almost 500,000 pounds of clothing and shoes and almost 18,000 cans of food. In recognition of his relief work and his impact on German youth in the 1920s and 30s, Weiser was awarded the Order of Merit First Class by the Federal Republic of Germany in 1957.

Return to Academia

Weiser returned to juvenile fiction with his 1949 Rothäute und Bleichgesichter (Redskins and Palefaces). Over the next thirteen years he would produce a steady stream of publications similar in kind to his prewar output: biographies of Jesuit missionaries, Bildungsromane, etc. All of them were still in German, although one of them, his travelogue to the Holy Land, later appeared in English. During this same period Weiser also had a minor influence on film. His 1936 Het lied van de Donau (The Song of the Danube) was the inspiration for the 1947 Dutch movie Jeugdstorm (Youth Storm), and his children’s classic The Light of the Mountains was made into a German film in 1955 titled Het licht der bergen. According to the Internet Movie Database, Weiser is credited as a writer on a total of three movies. The final entry in his filmography, in which he is listed as the screenplay’s sole author, is a 1965 Yugoslavian television movie Sasvim Malo Skretanje (Quite a Little Turn).

Weiser continued his work in charitable services, administering the funds of the St. Joseph’s Mission Fund from 1950 to 1968. The 1950s would mark two major developments in his life. In 1950 he earned a second doctorate in theology from the Gregorian University in Rome. Upon his return to the U.S. (by now an American citizen), he held academic instead of parochial positions. From 1950 to 1961 he was a professor of Philosophy and German at Emmanuel College (a women’s college in Boston founded by the Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur), and around the same time he also taught at Weston College, a Jesuit institution in Weston, Massachusetts. After Weston was integrated into Boston College in 1959, Weiser became a Spiritual Counselor in the Boston College School of Education (which had an all-female student body) from 1961-70. At Boston College he also taught courses in ethics, philosophy, and theology. By 1957, he was referring to himself as “a college professor by duty and habit.”

Boston College Emeritus Professor Mary T. Kinnane describes Weiser as “somewhat larger than life” and an “excellent colleague and a good friend.” She adds:

He was a distinguished international scholar in Linguistic Philosophy with a doctoral degree from the University of Innsbruck, Austria, and the Gregorian in Rome. He had a diverse background in counseling as a Church pastor for eleven years and was a college professor for thirteen years. He had been Chaplain to the Von Trapp family, both in Austria and the United States.

Father Weiser was a proud man, with a marvelous humility in speech and mien. His books, The Christmas Book and Easter Book, are popular purchases at the Holy Seasons since they are especially rich in explaining the symbols of the seasons, their origins, and their spiritual importance. His account of the Holy Land is also impressive. As the speaker at School of Education Christmas Assemblies in Campion Hall, he explained the origins of the Christmas tree and its lighted decoration (“O Tannenbaum!”), and the angelic symbol of the pretzel! One short anecdote should be recalled since it represented Father’s attention to detail in the area of housekeeping. Twice a week, Father would suggest we have a simple lunch of soup and sandwich in his office, usually to discuss our programs for students, students with special needs, or our policy on student life and whatever agenda were pertinent. An early arrival to his office would find Father with large pieces of felt-like material attached to his shoes as he moved around rhythmically to polish his ever-shiny floor. How fortunate we all were and are to have been able to share the life of such fine and distinctive, marvelous Jesuits. How enriching for students and all!

Weiser influenced other students in the area as well. New Testament scholar Pheme Perkins (current Joseph Professor of Catholic Spirituality at Boston College) met him when she was just “a high school kid”:

He would come to give a talk at my best friend’s grandmother’s house in Wayland [Massachusetts] one evening a month to a group of conservative lay Catholics. We would get out of school to go out there, so we could ride her horses, go to the talk, spend the night, and get returned to the prep school the next day. Neither of us were Catholic.

After I became a Catholic my freshman year in college when I was seventeen, Fr. Weiser was my spiritual director, also aiding my German reading with a combination of the pious young adult novels he wrote (don’t remember a thing about them now) and his copies of Orientierung. He had been in the Jesuits with Hugo Rahner, so discussions of Karl Rahner were often filtered through Hugo who could actually write much better German! When I started a New Testament doctoral program after college, I was treated [by Fr. Weiser] to a slew of anti-Bultmann articles.

The Liturgical Turn

Kinnane’s allusion to The Christmas Book and The Easter Book brings us to the second major development in Weiser’s life at this time, his turn to heortology. He himself defines the field as “the historical science that explains the origin and meaning of feasts. The word ‘heortology’ is derived from the Greek heorte (feast) and logos (discourse).” And for him at least, that discourse includes not only “the origin, history, development, and observance” of Christian feasts but “their celebration in folklore” as well. It was Weiser’s experience of America that generated his interest in the topic. He writes:

I was deeply impressed by many aspects of American life. Among them was the charming sight of the popular Christmas celebration. This tradition had been molded into one unit out of the best national Christmas lore of various immigrant groups. It was only during the second half of the last century that our American Christmas observance came to be established.

Soon I discovered that most people have no clear notion of the origin, background, and true meaning of these customs which they observe in their homes. Since the great majority of our Christmas, Easter, Thanksgiving, and other observances actually go back to the inspiration of liturgical thought and symbolism, I judged it a worthwhile subject to explain. Also a priestly subject; for, given the fact that our popular customs contain the radiation of the liturgy, the understanding of this radiation would make the celebration of our Christian feasts within the family warmer, holier, and more truly joyful. At the same time, a better grasp of the religious meaning and message of our family customs would give parents valuable help for the religious training of their little ones.

Weiser used his spare time to research, and very often he felt like abandoning the project because of the difficulty in finding reliable source material. It took him six years, but in the end he had published five books: The Christmas Book in 1952, The Easter Book in 1954, The Holyday Book and Religious Customs in the Family in 1956, and The Handbook of Christian Feasts and Customs: The Year of the Lord in Liturgy and Folklore (a compendium of the first three).

Next week, we will examine the characteristics of Fr. Weiser’s liturgical theology.

A version of this article (with full annotation) appeared as “The Domestic Heortologist: An Introduction to Francis X. Weiser, S.J.” in Antiphon: A Journal of Liturgical Renewal 29:2 (2025), pp. 144-171. Many thanks to its editors for allowing its publication here.