|
|
|
|
Columbus Day
|
|
So It Is Columbus Day
Today is the second Monday in October and that officially in the US is a holiday—my question is why? For most of my life I have thought that the Saint Christopher of Catholic veneration , the patron saint of travelers and bookbinders was one and the same with Christopher Columbus. Such is not the case. The Saint Christopher of Roman Catholic veneration was a sanctification of a Samothracian named Offero (Offerus) who in the third Century AD was martyred by Dagnus of Samos—a minor Roman under-king. How or why he was killed I have not been able to determine. Offerus was quite a person all right. According to Jacobus de Voragines he was twelve cubits tall and according to the conversion factors in my "Marks Mechanical Engineer’s Handbook" that is just barely short of 18 feet tall. As a result of this stature Offerus made a living by carrying people across a ford in the river which was just barely a ford but which served as one for his eighteen foot height. Once while engaged in this occupation he was approached by an infant who asked to be carried across the ford and Offerus obliged him but as he advanced into the river the weight of the infant became more and more heavy until Offerus just barely made it across and then asked the infant "Why are you so heavy" and the baby replied "I am Jesus Christ and the weight of the sins of the world are upon my shoulders". I am unable to find out which prior pope canonized Offerus and changed his name to "Christophorus" (which is Greek for "Child bearer" but it was way back there in the early history of the Catholic Church and carrying Christ across the river was the miraculous event that was necessary to canonization. Now I am not Catholic and I didn’t know any of this until this morning when I got to wondering why we have Columbus Day and I thought that the Columbus Day holiday and the Saint Christopher observance were one and the same thing—taint so. Saint Christopher was decanonized by a twentieth century pope and declared not to be a Saint but rather a run-of-the-mill martyr because Dagnus had him put to death. I presume that this disqualifies "Saint" Christopher from being the Patron Saint of travelers and bookbinders (which seems to be an odd group together) and makes me wonder what is happening to the world supply of Saint Christopher medals for travelers. Why travelers AND bookbinders?
In 1792 a bunch of Italian immigrants (probably illegals) got together in New York City and decided to celebrate the life and death of Christopher Columbus (not Offerus of Samothrace). Again in 1869 there was a rump celebration and the Italians in San Francisco who were protesting the number and prominence of Irish immigrants in the area (my ancestors were Italians who came to the US through Ireland so I don’t know where they fit) threw a party. In 1937 Franklin Delano Roosevelt declared 12 October to be Columbus Day honoring the Genoa born Italian who was working for the King and Queen of Spain and blundered into an island in the Caribbean–he never actually set foot on the mainland of the US I am told and he was decades if not centuries behind the Vikings and maybe even the Irish and a few years behind the Chinese it now appears in discovering America.. Bear in mind though that FDR did not declare October 12th a holiday–he just declared it to be Columbus Day. Congress on the other hand in 1971 declared the second Monday in October to be an official Federal Holiday and earned the lasting appreciation of Postal Clerks, bank tellers and maybe school teachers in areas densely populated by Italian-Americans and so I can blame the Congress of 1971 for why I don’t get any mail today.
I am not a Catholic as previously stated, I am not an expert theologian , I am not a historian and I am sorry if I have messed up some of the info above—but I did want to find out why the mail; person was not coming around today and I have to drive all the way to Dennis (six miles) to mail some bills due last week and that I had calculated could be held for payment until this week without major consequence and now they won’t even go out of there until tomorrow ---it is a cruel world.
Charles Turrentine
|
|
|
|
|
