St. Joseph, image from the Kloster Einsiedeln website
The abbreviation for Switzerland is CH, which stands for the Latin Confoederatio Helvetica, meaning the Swiss Confederacy, as Switzerland is a federal country composed of 26 Cantons, much like the U.S. is a federal country composed of 50 states. The Cantons vary quite a bit, linguistically, culturally and geographically. In Switzerland, French, German, Italian, and Romansch are all spoken, depending on where you are. Some Cantons are Protestant (notably, Canton Zurich), while others are Catholic. This variability is explained in part because Switzerland was formed by smaller culturally distinct regions coming together, and by the mountainous Alpine geography that makes up most of Switzerland, which made travel from one part to another in earlier times difficult.
We live in Canton Schwyz, a Catholic, German-speaking Canton. Here, religious holidays are often also government holidays. My daughter’s school events often take place in our village’s Catholic church. For instance, before Christmas we all had to go to the Advent Mass (Adventsdienst), where the children sang Christmas songs. Now that it is Lent, I’m sure we’ll be called back to the church to hear the children sing Easter songs. For being in such a tiny village, the church is quite ornate–I’ll post some pictures in future posts. The neighboring (and larger) village of Einsiedeln also has a Catholic Abbey, called the Kloster Einsiedeln. I’ll post about this in the future, too, as it is a pretty amazing place.
Kloster Einsiedeln, image from myswitzerland.com
This lengthy introduction is all background for explaining that, as you might know if you’re a good Catholic, today is St. Joseph’s Day, celebrating St. Joseph, the spouse of the Virgin Mary.
Reading the Wikipedia page on St. Joseph just now reminded me of how, when I put my house in the U.S. up for sale to move here to Switzerland, my grandmother mailed me a small plastic St. Joseph, which she told me to bury upside-down in the yard to help the house sell more quickly. I carefully followed her instructions, but sadly, it did not help. When the house still hadn’t sold after being up for sale for five years, I ultimately let the bank have the house–along with the upside-down St. Joseph in the backyard.
Anyway, living in a Catholic Canton as we do, today is also an official holiday, meaning my kid is home from school and I’m trying to come up with something to do today to get us out of the house. It also means that nothing’s open today, and I really should have bought more milk on Saturday. You’ve really gotta plan these things in Switzerland.
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