English Author Urges us to Embrace Our Glorious Traditions

Catholic Communications, Sydney Archdiocese,
25 Aug 2009

Well-known English writer, Catholic columnist, commentator and author, Joanna Bogle is on a mission and is calling for Australian families to embrace and celebrate what she calls "the Church's wonderful history of truths and traditions."

"Just saying I'm a Catholic and I go to Mass on Sunday is not enough," she says and urges us to share in the much larger Catholic culture that dates back thousands of years, insisting this is not only a way to rejoice in our faith and bring families closer together, but is a beautiful way to share our beliefs and to evangelise.

"You can't share your faith by going up to someone and asking: ‘Do you love Jesus?' Evangelising doesn't work that way," she says. Instead she suggests adopt a softer approach by sharing traditions such as Easter, Good Friday, Advent or Christmas with extended family and friends.

"The Church's traditional feast days are a great for triggering questions from friends about the different customs associated with the day. They might want to know why presents are given at Christmas or how Advent also became known as White Sunday or WhitSunday. Or they might ask why Gateau des Rois – the kings' cake – is eaten at  Epiphany."
From these casual discussions come deeper exchanges about faith and spiritual beliefs and what Joanna describes as "a softer more meaningful way to evangelise."

In Sydney this month for the Australian launch of her latest book, "A Year Book of Celebrations and Seasons," Joanna hopes her book will operate as a guide for families to commemorate and honour the Feast days and other important events of the Christian calendar.

Filled with fascinating information along with the author's boundless enthusiasm and rollicking sense of humour, A Yearbook of Seasons and Celebrations details the customs, hymns, rhymes, prayers associated with each particular day, along with recipes for the dishes that are traditionally cooked on these days. For instance split pea soup is eaten on All Souls' Day on November 2 when families remember their dead, tend graves and tell their children about those they love but who are no longer with them. On St Bartholomew's Day on August 24, honey toffee apples are eaten while on St Clement's Day on December 23 children are given oranges and lemons and play a favourite game as they sing the Bells of St Clement's.

A passionate researcher, Joanna has come up with information on everything from making a traditional Advent wreath with its array of purple and pink candles to the history of hot cross buns and how St Nicholas came to be known as Father Christmas. She also sheds light on nursery rhyme favourites such as  Mary Had a Little Lamb as well as the English pub tradition of crossed keys above a doorway. "The Mary in the nursery rhyme referred to Our Lady with the lamb being the Lamb of God, while the crossed keys were originally the keys of St Peter," she says.

Published by Freedom Press with a retail price of $19.95 and available at the Mustard Seed bookshop, Lidcombe, and other leading bookstores, "A Yearbook of Seasons and Celebrations" is jam-packed with fascinating facts, great ideas, mouth watering recipes and is the sort of book you'll want to keep and re read as you have fun creating your own celebrations for the Church's feast days.

Joanna believes retaining our traditions as Catholics is vitally important but laments that across the Western world we increasingly seem to be losing our identity as Christians.
 
"This is no small thing to lose," she argues, pointing out with the Catholic Church grounded in such "glorious truths and traditions," we have an obligation as humans to pass on this heritage.
According to Joanna although sex, greed and money might seem to dominate the Western World at present, humans need deeper more profound values if they are to lead fulfilled and happy lives. The values long held and handed down by the Church are the values to live by, she says, and by celebrating our feast days throughout the year, these values are reinforced and extolled.

With her book already launched in Britain and America, Joanna who unapologetically announces she does not own a TV set and does not watch television, finds herself the newest Catholic television star in the USA and America's latest English-born celebrity chef.

Wearing a red floral apron, she helms a series of specials dubbed Feasts and Seasons of the Church for America's national Catholic television network, EWTV. On each show she gives craft tips, background on Saints' days and cooking demos of recipes for different Feasts from Christmas through to Michaelmas, Advent and All Souls Eve.
With her breezy style, easy humour and unflappable demeanour, she's become a favourite even though as she is the first to admit, she is no Jamie Oliver when it comes to the kitchen.

"I am not the greatest cook in the world and my family are highly amused that I'm now appearing on American TV telling people how to make a Gateau des Roi or stuff a goose with apples for Michaelmas," she says. "With no children of our own, my husband Jamie and I are usually the jolly aunt and uncle who turn up at Christmas with presents and the mince pies, while the ones with children are the ones who do all the hard work."