Christmas is Coming the Geese are Getting Fat.
(Photo krb - 2019)
Christmas is a wonderful celebration but let's face it, Christmas is a construct. A celebration of Jesus' birth was not thought of until the 4th Century (CE) and the 25th of December was chosen to counter the pagan festival of the winter solstice. It was chosen as appropriate because at that point, in the Northern Hemisphere, the winter solstice marks the return of the Sun. So, the (re)birth of the Sun marks the birth of the Son. There are many other reasons for 25th of December including that it is 9 months after the feast of Annunciation, although which came first is anyone's guess. Recent research indicates that the most likely date of the birth of Jesus is September 4th century BCE. Interest in the festival of the nativity of Christ was slow to catch on and it wasn't until the 9th Century (CE) that it gained any momentum. Even now Christmas is celebrated at different times across the Eastern and Western Churches: some on December 25; some on 6 January and some on 7 January; these last two coinciding with the celebration of the Baptism of Jesus.
Many of the traditions that are part of our tradition have roots far back in history, like the Christmas Tree dating from the 16th Century (CE) some, like the sending of Christmas Cards from the mid 19th Century, are more recent. This tradition has almost died in very recent times largely overtaken by social media. The exchange of gifts has long been part of the tradition but it has really taken off in the west in relatively recent times one suspects with the growth of the middle class. There is also a hint of the Protestant Ethic there as well. And Father Christmas or Santa Clause is very recent based on the Northern European celebration of the Feast of St Nicholas on 6 December. The image of Santa Clause as a little, plump, kindly old man dressed in red with a white beard comes from a 1930s Coca Cola advertisement, but this popular image has now been almost universally accepted as the standard.
In recent times, while the church has done its best to give Christmas its appropriate place in its liturgical life as it has struggled against the huge secular popularity of the festival as a community and family celebration sadly driven by commercial interest. I remember with great fondness the mad celebration of Christmas in the tiny parish where I was part-time priest-in-charge in the mid 1990s. Services would start at 5:00pm on Christmas Eve in the most isolated location. The church had no electricity, so we needed a daytime start. The normal congregation of perhaps 5 grew to 50 for that service. After a short break it was off to the 10:00pm service in a locality to the north - again with a huge congregation compared to normal. After a traditional Christmas party, it was back to a full church at the main centre for the midnight mass at 11:30pm. Then up early on Christmas day for the small service at 7:00am at a village to the southeast and hopefully grabbing some breakfast in between on to the final service in the main centre at 10:00am. As soon as it concluded I would drive very carefully the 230km home to celebrate our family Christmas. I get the sense that the attitude of the church in recent times has changed. It is almost as though the church has surrendered the celebration of Christmas to the secular world perhaps as church attendance has drastically declined even at Christmas. It is very difficult to communicate the deeply significant religious message of Christmas in a world dominated by the voice of commerce. Even the glorious music of Christmas has lost out in a world that has grown deeply distrustful of religion.
I hope that as the celebration of Christmas grows closer that you will have an opportunity to pause and think about its significance, of a defenceless baby born not in a royal palace but in a dingy stable, born to displaced parents in an unknown town in the middle of nowhere.
Advent blessings and peace to all.
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