Andrew’s

November 30, 2023

Saint Andrew (c. 1611) by Peter Paul Rubens

Being a Microsoft user, I receive a daily news feed called Bing Daily.  The email provides the typical mix of fluff and stories deemed “relevant to me” by an AI bot.  When Bing’s algorithm chooses which stories to display, it takes into consideration whether the source of the news ranks well for “newsworthiness, originality, authority, relevance, and readability.”  Bing also has search quality raters and defines “authority” as outlets that “identify sources, authors and attribution of all content.”  Readability includes sites that have correct grammar and spelling and where advertising does not interfere with the user’s experience.  Bing defines “originality” as sites with unique facts or points of view.  Bing also has a feature called “Spotlight” which provides overviews of a news topic by showing a timeline of events from “various perspectives”.  That said, today’s Bing Daily headline wished me a “Happy Saint Andrew’s Day”.

When I looked online, I found Saint Andrew’s Day, also called the Feast of Saint Andrew or Andermas (i.e., Andrew’s Mass), is the feast day of Andrew the Apostle celebrated on November 30th.  Andrew is the New Testament disciple who introduced his brother Simon (Peter) to Jesus at the beginning of Jesus’ ministry.  Saint Andrew’s Day marks the beginning of the traditional Advent devotion of the Saint Andrew Christmas Novena for the Roman Catholic Church.  The day is Scotland’s official national day and has been a national holiday in Romania since 2015.  In Scotland and countries with Scottish connections St. Andrew’s Day is marked with a celebration of Scottish culture and traditional Scottish food and music.  The day is also seen as the start of a season of Scottish winter festivals encompassing Saint Andrew’s Day, Hogmanay (last day of the old year), and Burns Night (celebration of Scottish poet Robert Burns) around January 25th.  There are week-long celebrations in the town of St Andrews and some other Scottish cities.  Andrew is also the patron saint of Cyprus, Scotland, Greece (city of Patras), Romania, Russia, Ukraine, the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople, San Andres Island (Colombia), Saint Andrew (Barbados), and Tenerife (Spain).

Saint Andrew’s Day is also important in the ancient fishing town of Póvoa de Varzim in northern Portugal on Cape Santo André (Portuguese for Cape of Saint Andrew).  Near the cape there are small depressions in a rock (mystery stone) that residents believe to be the footprints of Saint Andrew.  Saint Andrew’s Chapel is of probable mediaeval origin and is referenced in documents from 1546 CE and earlier.  The chapel is the burial site of drowned fishermen found at the cape.  Fishermen also request intervention from the saint for better catches.  Single girls wanting to get married threw a little stone to the chapel’s roof, hoping it would lodge and indicate an impending marriage.  The assimilation of Christian and pre-Christian beliefs (syncretism) has also associated the chapel with white magic up to the present day.  It was common to see groups of fishermen carrying lights and making a pilgrimage to the cape’s chapel along the beach on Saint Andrew’s Eve.  They believed Saint Andrew still fished from the depths of the sea for the souls of those who drowned, and those who did not visit the chapel in life would have to make the pilgrimage after their death as a corpse.  Might as well get this done early.

Thoughts:  There are federal observances of days, weeks, months, or other periods designated by the US Congress for various reasons that are different from federal holidays.  These observances appear in Title 36 of the United States Code (36 U.S.C. § 101 et seq.) and include 29 days, 9 weeks, and 6 months, along with the 21 day period from Flag Day to Independence Day to generally honor the US.  These are added to the religious days (St. Andrew’s) and periods (Advent), commercial days (Black Friday), product days (avocado day), and ethnicity (days, weeks, months), and that is just the US.  If you cannot find something to celebrate, you are not looking.  Enjoy the Day!  Act for all.  Change is coming and it starts with you.