The Peace of Christmas

The triumph of Christmas.

Christmas Mass in Aleppo's

Old City, in the war ravaged Cathedral of St. Elias.

Before and after.

Peace to men and women in the war-torn land of Syria, where far too much blood has been spilled. Above all in the city of Aleppo, site of the most awful battles in recent weeks, it is most urgent that assistance and support be guaranteed to the exhausted civil populace, with respect for humanitarian law. It is time for weapons to be still forever, and the international community to actively seek a negotiated solution, so that civil coexistence can be restored in the country. - Pope Francis, Urbi et Orbi

Fans of Christmas past ...

 Excruciating. 

Rating Midnight Mass at the Vatican.

Evidently it didn't meet with approval by some Catholics - the music was off.*

I turned on the Mass from St. Peter’s Basilica for a little bit.  It was an object lesson in how not to sing Gregorian chant.  Excruciating.  The pace of this would put a funeral face one just about anyone.  It’s great that they have some Gregorian chant, it being the sacred music that Second Vatican Council elevated above all others, but… at least sing it right.  How hard is this?

The complaint used to be there was no chant used, or the choir was notoriously poor - even when the acceptable popes were celebrating Mass at Christmas.  This Christmas chant was used, but it wasn't right - it missed.  People stopped their ears, turned the tv channel, while a near riot was caused in the basilica, people shouting for it to stop.

Do people just go to Mass to hear it read properly, to be entertained by delightful music and elaborate vestments and elegant decor ... while every little detail must be slavishly accurate for them to be properly edified?  Perhaps that is what brings in the donations?


*I don't have cable and to my knowledge the Mass wasn't broadcast on local channels.  I went to a very early Christmas Mass on Christmas Day - gloriously ordinary.

Corked you say?  I'll ask people to send

you more Christmas cards then, if that will make you happy.

Merry Christmas!

On the feast of Stephen ... Parish Offices Closed - No Mass - Church Closed

St. Stephen - Ulisse Sartini

Archdiocesan Offices are closed too.

Now some parishes will probably have Mass on the Second Day of Christmas - but some will not.  Some may have the church or chapel open, although some are all locked up.  Sort of seems like taking the Mass out of Christmas.

What?  I'm not complaining - it just strikes me as ironic.  I'm not saying priests shouldn't have a day off, or go on holiday.  I also realize there are fewer priests these days.  I know many priests live off 'campus' and no longer live in rectories, and some have more than one parish as well.  I live in the city, if I had to, I could drive to another church.

It just seems contradictory however.  Catholics complain that Christmas is anticipated, decorated, celebrated far too early - during Advent, oh my gosh! no! - and yet in Christmas season - the Second Day of Christmas in fact, the parish church gets locked up.  The same thing will happen over New Year's weekend.

Christmas too secular?  Too commercial?

Really?  I think it's funny when religious people say that.

Happy Christmas!

Boxing Day!

Tired of being told how you should celebrate Christmas?  Or what Christmas is all about?  Or 10 things you should know about nothing? 

What?

"I beg your pardon!

Why that is not what Boxing Day

means at all!"

 

The Feast of Stephen

 

 

 

St. Stephen the Deacon

Ulisse Sartini

 

 

The second day of Christmas.

I have not had to run into burning schools or put my life at risk, and my complaints about ill treatment are generally little more than privileged whines. Nor do I want to be a martyr, if it can be at all avoided. The point, though, is not whether we die for Christ but whether we are willing to die for Christ. If it’s love, it’s total. There’s no middle way when it comes to the romance of faith. - Read the rest at Christmas, Suffering and the Cross

 

The Feast of Stephen, the Second Day of Christmas, and Boxing Day

Boxing day... 

I wanted to make up a story about the origins of modern Boxing Day and how it began the practice of re-gifting Christmas presents one doesn't like.  I had a story all ready to tell about how the late Princess Margaret reinvented the custom after her divorce from Tony. 

According to an obscure urban legend, Princes Margaret, drunk and out of cigarettes had given the servants the day after Christmas off, having no one to send to the store, the Princess called out the window to passers by to fetch her a carton of cigarettes.  When the poor pedestrians returned with the smokes, she threw all the boxes of gifts she had received from her ex-husband onto the pavement below - when suddenly a riot broke out... between the servants (who were returning home from the pub) and the pedestrians who had waited upon Her Royal Highness in their absence.  The Canadian Mounties, who had been in London for a horse show on St. Stephan's Day, had to break up the riot and began to distribute the gifts accordingly.  Many of the servants didn't want the gifts and graciously re-gifted their packages to the poor pedestrians, who later exchanged them for something useful at Herod's.

I decided against the idea of making up a silly story because... well, just because - what's the sense?  However, if you would like to know more about boxing day and re-gifting, go here.

The Second Day of Christmas

Did you know some people actually believe today is the First Day of Christmas?  Catholics know better, I assure you.  From The Widow of Rudd:

Some people have asked me why I start the 12 Days of Christmas on Christmas Day itself, when 'everyone knows' that they start on the day after Christmas.

Well, no. Only the English and those copying them know that they start on the day after Christmas. And even they were not always sure.

I will lay before you all the circumstantial evidence, and you can decide for yourself.

When is the Octave of Christmas? January 1st. If 1 January is the eighth day, then when was the first day? (Go ahead, you can count on your fingers if needed)... Widow's Weeds

 

Very good, but I have much simpler proof.  If Sunday is the first day of the week, just as Easter Sunday is the first day of Easter - and Easter itself is liturgically considered to be one day concluding on the Second Sunday of Easter, then it follows that Christmas Day is the first day of Christmas.  That's it then.  Today is The Second Day of Christmas.  Merry Christmas.

And happy St. Stephen's Day.

Immediately after Christmas Our Lord teaches us what the Christian life encompasses...

Art credit and more information

on St. Stephen's Day go here.

Nuts?

The enduring grace of Christmas.

It happened.

Christmas isn't about presents - or even receiving what you want in prayer.  It isn't about the giving or the receiving, or the lack there of.  It isn't about lights and decorations and greetings and parties or carols or religious or secular Christmas songs and stories.  It isn't about delicious food and drinks and treats and sweets.  It isn't about setting up a creche in front of the courthouse or insisting upon calling a tree a Christmas tree or wearing a button that says I celebrate Christmas.  It isn't about family being more important than going to church on Sunday because Christmas falls on a Sunday this year.  It isn't about all of those customs and traditions that have become ritualized and formalized or just trashed over the decades. 

It isn't about me or my religious and political positions, nor my moral judgements, or even my social position or influence - low or high or in-between or non-existent.  It isn't about who is for us or who is against us.

It is about love.

Beloved,
let us love one another
because love is of God;
everyone who loves is begotten of God
and has knowledge of God.
The man without love has known nothing of God
and has no knowledge of God,
for God is love.
God's love was revealed in our midst in this way:
he sent his only Son to the world
that we might have life through him.
Love then consists in this:
not that we have loved God,
but that he has loved us
and has sent his Son as an offering for our sins.
Beloved,
if God has loved us so,
we must have the same love for one another... 1 John 4

Christmas is an epiphany, not a matter of sentimentality or a commercial celebration.

Jesus Christ is the proof that God has heard our cry. And not only this! God’s love for us is so strong that he cannot remain aloof; he comes out of himself to enter into our midst and to share fully in our human condition (cf. Ex 3:7-12). The answer to our cry which God gave in Jesus infinitely transcends our expectations, achieving a solidarity which cannot be human alone, but divine. Only the God who is love, and the love which is God, could choose to save us in this way, which is certainly the lengthiest way, yet the way which respects the truth about him and about us: the way of reconciliation, dialogue and cooperation. - Benedict XVI

In thanksgiving for the one thing necessary.

Feast of Stephen

Merry Christmas

Feast of the Holy Family.
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Art:  The Holy Family with St. Anne and St. Elizabeth and John the Baptist - by the workshop of Franz Floris, 16th century

"I'm so glad it's over - aren't you!"

A woman I know once said that to me the day after Christmas.  She also boasted she had taken the tree down Christmas night and had the ornaments all packed away before she went to bed - explaining garbage day was the next day and she wanted the tree picked up rather than sitting out on the curb for a week.  How neat and tidy.
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Christmas in the United States.
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Photo: Jayne Mansfield showing off her ornaments.

"I hate it that Christmas comes and goes so fast!"

Have ya got yur tree down yet?

My best friend Darold said it when I spoke with him this morning: "I hate it that Christmas comes and goes so fast!"

I said, "What do you mean? Christmas just started on Christmas Day!"

He said, "Well yeah - that's what they say - but it's really over. Some people have even taken down their tree already."