April Fool's

Neither filthiness, nor foolish talking, nor jesting, which are not convenient: Ephesians 5:4

"A popular theory suggests that April Fools’ day is a remnant of early ‘renewal festivals’ which took place in many different cultures to

mark the beginning of spring. 

The Romans, for example, had a festival named Hilaria on 25 th March, which they marked with masquerades.... these festivities typically involved “ritualized forms of mayhem and misrule.” Participants donned disguises, played tricks on friends as well as strangers, and inverted the social order.

An ancient Roman myth also tells the story of the God Pluto who abducted Proserpina, the Goddess of grain and harvest. Proserpina's mother could only hear the voice of her daughter when she searched for her in the vast expense of the underworld. This fruitless search ended in vain and inspired the idea of a fool's errand. 

During the middle ages, a number of celebrations developed which

appear to have evolved from earlier pagan festivals and which served as direct predecessors to April Fools’ Day. The most important of these was the Festus Fatuorum (the Feast of Fools) which evolved out of the Saturnalia. 

On this day, (mostly observed in

France) celebrants elected a mock pope and made fun of church rituals. The church, of course, did its best to stamp out the tradition, but it persisted until the sixteenth century. In late medieval Europe, fools, jokers, or jesters, as they came to be known, were popular entertainers who performed in town squares and royal courts.....it seems clear that the tradition of a day devoted to honoring merriment and misrule had ancient origins which were most likely rooted in springtime festivities." 

AncientOrigins

The "Really" File - (This is Ireland?)

For many walk, of whom I have told you often, and now tell you even weeping, that they are the enemies of the cross of Christ: Whose end is destruction, whose God is their belly, and whose glory is in their shame, who mind earthly things. 

Philippians 3:18, 19

 

"St. Patrick’s Day is a national holiday in Ireland, observed on
March 17th each year. To mark this day, the Irish government established the annual St. Patrick’s Festival, which celebrates Irish arts, culture, and tradition. 

St. Patrick was a seventh-day Sabbath-keeper who worshipped God on the true Lord’s Day, Saturday. He was also a missionary and evangelist who established churches and converted pagans to Christ and eventually became the Apostle of Ireland. And here we see the nation of Ireland making a mockery of the godly man, St. Patrick.

From the "Really" File

The official website for the St. Patrick’s Festival includes “A Snakey Paradise Cabaret Special” as one of the festival’s activities.

The advertisement for the comedy show, which is part of the St. Patrick’s Festival, showcases St. Patrick as a transgender woman wearing women’s underwear." AdventMessenger

REALLY?

 

3 Presidents Die on July 4th: A Coincidence?

The blessings of thy father have prevailed above the blessings of my progenitors unto the utmost bound of the everlasting hills... Genesis 49:26

 "Founding Father Presidents—John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, and James Monroe—died on July 4, the Independence Day anniversary.

But was it just a coincidence?

On July 4, 1831, James Monroe, the fifth President, died at the age of 73 at his son-in-law’s home in New York City. Monroe had been ill for some time and newspapers had reported on Monroe’s illness before his passing.

Local and national newspapers were also quick to report after Monroe’s death that they thought his July 4 passing was a “remarkable” coincidence, at the least, since Thomas Jefferson and John Adams had both also died on July 4, 1826 – the 50th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence.

The oddness of the events wasn’t lost on the New York Evening Post in 1831, when the newspaper founded by Alexander Hamilton called it a “coincidence that has no parallel”.

Then the Frederick, Maryland Town Herald marked Monroe’s passing on July 9, 1831 by also noting the “presidential coincidence”:  “This have three of our revolutionary presidents departed this life on the anniversary of our independence; presenting the most remarkable tissue of coincidences that have marked the history of nations,” the newspaper said.

The death of these three presidents on the same day of the year was a long shot. There is an interesting blog post at the Boston University’s History Society that excerpts Margaret P. Battin’s research on the coincidental deaths of Adams and Jefferson.

“Given the insufficient historical evidence available, we can’t know

the truth about why Adams and Jefferson died on the same day,” Battin said. (She didn’t include Monroe in her study.) 

Battin evaluated the circumstances under six different criteria, ranging from 

 

--mere coincidence and 

--divine intervention,

--to the men’s willingness or desire to die on the anniversary day.

But back in 1826, Daniel Webster’s eulogy for Adams and Jefferson spoke to a point that many people believed: that something other than coincidence was involved." NCC Staff