Category Archives: Christmas

On Dating Christmas

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Each Christmas a friend of mine sends me a text wishing me “seasons greetings”.  He casts a wide net capturing the “spirit” of the season wishing me a “Merry Christmas, Merry Natalis Solis Invictus, and Happy Kwanza” and, just in case, throws in a “Happy Festivus” for the rest of us.  Rather than continually engaging him each year, I now simply respond “Merry Christmas…and as for the rest, I have already aired my grievances.”  His point is rather clear—Christmas is just as made up as the rest of them.  It is an indirect attack on the historicity of Christ, but also a direct attack on the dating of Christmas as December 25th.  Having addressed the indirect attack in other posts, it is the direct attack I would like to address in this post.

The Problem of Accuracy

One of the problems we must admit right away is related to the accuracy of the date.  The Church Fathers are not unanimous in the dating of Christmas and very few mention December 25th.  It is not until much later that the Church selected that date to mark the Solemnity of Christmas.  Part of the problem is the abundance of calendars used in the ancient world.  The two most commonly ones that were used Egyptian and the Julian Calendar.  The Jews also used a calendar based on the lunar cycles (354 days) rather than on the solar cycle (365).  These were considered obsolete when the Gregorian Calendar was adopted in the 1500s (although the Orthodox still mark Christmas on January 7th which is the equivalent to December 25th on the Julian Calendar).  The point is that our December 25th is not the same day as the December 25th using the Julian Calendar, which was the one in use in the Roman Empire at the time of Christ.  We have to admit that there is a “translation” problem that makes the exacting dating difficult.

This does not mean, however, that the selection of December 25th is arbitrary and meaningless.  But this is to yield to the sentiment that somehow accuracy and meaning are synonymous.  Just because we cannot accurately calculate the date of Christ’s birth doesn’t mean December 25th is arbitrary.  In fact, it is the most fitting date to celebrate the historical reality of Christ’s nativity because it preserves the meaning of Christ’s birth.

There is a principle at play in the discussion that, in our Big Bang/Evolutionary ideal, is often forgotten.  Nothing within Creation is arbitrary.  Even the tiniest activity is charged with meaning, not because of the Butterfly Effect, but because of Christ.  To put it in biblical terms, “in Him were created all things in heaven and on earth…all things were created through Him and for Him” (Col 1:16, emphasis added).  At the center of Creation, at the center of history, is Christ.  All of Creation points to Him and all of Creation finds its meaning in Him.  Christ really is the answer.  He is, to use Aristotelian terms, the Final Cause of each thing in Creation.  This was His reason for creating so many natural images so that He might use them to describe Himself and His Kingdom. 

The Fittingness of December 25th

With this in mind, why is December 25th fitting then?  To grasp this we must go back to “the beginning”.  Many of the Jews and ancient Christians believed that the Sun was created on March 25th.  It is assumed that when God created the Sun to “separate day from night” (Gn 1:14), this separation was equal.  This only occurs on two dates throughout the year—the two equinoxes in the Spring and the Fall.  The date for the Vernal Equinox in the Julian Calendar was March 25th.  God chose the fourth day for the creation of the sun because it was the day in which the “sun of righteousness” (Mal 4:2) was to come into the world.  Its creation is for the sake of God Himself entering Creation.  This entering into Creation occurred when the Holy Spirit overshadowed His Mother at the Annunciation.  It is for this reason To mark Christ’s conception the Church celebrates the Feast of the Annunciation on March 25th .

As an aside, March 25th is also believed by many Church Fathers to be the day Christ died.  “On the third day, He rose again” and man was re-made.  Again, we see the parallel with Creation.  The Sun is created on the 4th day and then “on the third day” (Day 6) man is first made.  This only seems like a stretch when we forget the principle articulated above.  If all things really were made for Christ, then this is exactly what you would expect.

If Christ was conceived on March 25th, then it would be reasonable to celebrate His birth nine months later on December 25th.  This is the reason for the December 25th celebration.  In support of this date we also have the witness of nature itself.  “The true light which has come into the world” (Jn 1:9), comes right after the Winter Solstice, when the amount of light coming into the world from the Sun begins to increase.  December 25th is most certainly fitting.

The three Wise Men knew all of this.  This is why they followed the Star.  They knew nature points to the True King.  The choice of December 25th is a defense of the primacy of Christ, not just over Solis Invictus, but over all of Creation.  We too would be wise to pay attention to this principle.

Who were the Magi?

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Throughout history there has been a universal fascination with the event of Epiphany.  One cannot help but wonder about the experience of the Magi as they traveled a great distance to meet the King of Kings.  But why did they come?

Explanations of the Star

There have been a number of possible explanations offered as to what drew the Magi to Bethlehem.  We know of course that they were following a star, one that they had been looking for.  The first explanation is the one that has been offered by several Church Fathers and Doctors of the Church (such as St. John Chrysostom and St. Thomas Aquinas for example).  We could categorize theirs as wholly supernatural.  From the perspective of faith, the description of the star in Matthew’s Gospel, especially how it stops and starts again, sounds eerily famililar—almost like the description of the shekinah cloud as Israel left from Egypt.  The Star went before them the whole of their journey, so bright that it was even visible in the daytime.  It also traced a rather odd course for a celestial body.  First it went from east to west but then stops over Jerusalem (where it disappeared).  It then moves from north to south as it guides them from Jerusalem to Bethlehem and remains over the house where Our Lord was to be found.

In more recent times, some scientists have put forward a more “natural” explanation as an alternative.  In his book, Star of Bethlehem, astronomer Konradin Ferrari d’Occhieppo says that around 7-6BC there was a great conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn in the sign of Pisces which would have been bring enough to merit consideration for the star.  It would have captured the imagination of the Magi because Jupiter was the star of the highest Babylonian deity and it was lined up alongside Saturn which was the cosmic representation of the Jewish people.  Other scientists have offered similar explanations including a great movie called The Star of Bethlehem.  What is left unexplained in these natural accounts is how the “star” disappeared and reappeared in the same spot and how it suddenly changed its course.

There might be a tendency to reject the natural in favor of the supernatural because it seems take away from the miraculous event it was foretelling.  In either case though it is the same God Who is guiding the star.  All creation finds its meaning in Christ so that God, when He set the world in motion, could have set the heavenly bodies in such a manner as they would converge to form a bright appearance at the moment of Our Lord’s birth.  All of history is His story.

The Meaning of Epiphany

God is omnipotent in His Providence because He reveals Himself to the world through events.  If we examine the meaning of the star as revealing the God Who became man, then the most plausible explanation is one that combines both explanations.  The scientific explanation (either the conjunction of the two planets or another explanation) would have led the Magi to Jerusalem.  They would have gone as far as they could by human reason.  To find the King of Kings they would need revelation.  So, they had to consult the Jews who were the keepers of God’s revelation.  With the star’s reappearance, they were guided by some visible supernatural sign. This explanation would enable us to read literally the text that says that the “star stopped over the place where the child was” (Mt 2:9).  For a star to lead them to a specific house one would imagine that it would have had to be very close; something akin to the Miracle of the Sun witnessed by 70,000 people in Fatima, Portugal 100 years ago.

There is a second meaning of the event as well that comes to the front when we ask who these Magi were.  They were either astrologers or astronomers, although there was not necessarily a distinction between the two in the ancient world.  The planets are named after their deities because they believed that the heavenly bodies ruled over the events of man.  They studied the heavens in order to divine what was to happen on earth.   With or without the knowledge of Balaam’s prophecy in Numbers 24:19, (“there shall come a Star out of Jacob”), they would have considered the bright star to mean something significant.  Once they witnessed the extraordinary action of the star, they would have realized that it was the child himself that was directing it.  As Pope Benedict puts it, they would have come to realize “[I]t is not the star that determines the child’s destiny, it is the child that directs the star.”

The Magi embarked as pagans, but they return Christians.  The seeds of truth found in their pagan religions have led them to the fullness of God’s revelation.  God may have left traces of His truth in creation and in the minds of men, but that all changed at the coming of Christ.  As St. Gregory Naziazen says, astrology came to end because all stars from that point on followed an orbit traced by Christ.  God has personally come to meet man and from that point forward man would be able to approach Him.

Christ is the great demythologizer.  The world is no longer governed by forces in the heavens but instead by the God Man.  They approach a little baby who looks like every other human baby, and yet this little child can move everything within creation to suit His purposes.  Their gods, if they existed, would have to obey this infant.  They are not disappointed when they meet this child without any stately appearance but instead pour expensive gifts upon Him.  The Magi come pagans and leave Christians.

The Myth of Santa Claus

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As children enter their second decade, they enter a yuletide game of cat and mouse with their parents who are trying to stretch out their belief in Santa Claus.  As they grow wiser in the ways of the world, learn how to search order history on Amazon and find their parents’ secret hiding place, it is only a matter of time before the ruse is up.  Or, at least, a ruse is what it feels like.  Parents must grow increasingly clever and deceptive as their child’s hunger for the truth of Santa Claus grows.  Labeling the whole thing a lie, many parents opt to forgo the visit from Father Christmas in order to remain truthful with their children.  Others argue that it is no lie, only a myth meant to convey the deep meaning of Christmas to children.  Just in time to make or break Christmas, we will enter the debate.

A word first about myths.  In an age where we are besieged by facts, there is a tendency to equate facts with truth.  Truth, while it may include facts, transcends mere facts.  It is the conformity of thought with reality.  Reality, in order to be explained and understood, often requires more than mere facts.  This is where myth comes in.

Because of our fascination with facts, we see myths, because they are “made up”, as lies.  They may be, as CS Lewis once said, “lies breathed through silver,” but lies nonetheless.  But myths are not fabricated prevarications but word-sacraments that act as signs pointing to some aspect of reality that would otherwise remain obscure.  The best myths are like flashlights focusing their beams on truth.  But myths can also be false.  In fact, those myths that act as clear signs pointing to something obscure in reality we would call true myths.  Those whose signs point away from the truth or remain so obscure themselves we would call false myths.

The Myth of Santa Claus

Santa Claus then, just because he is made up, is not necessarily a lie. He may be a myth.  But if he is a myth then the question really is whether the myth is a true or a false one.  More to the point, what does Santa Claus as a sign point to?

To answer this we must begin with a little history of the myth itself. His association with the real St. Nicholas of Myra is well known.   But in truth he is only remotely associated with the cult of the 3rd Century saint.  The real St. Nicholas was known for his generous gift giving especially bestowing upon poor families dowries for their girls to get married.  The cult around him emerged as Christians sought his intercession for large purchases and when getting married, some even choosing his feast day, December 6th, as the day to exchange their nuptial vows.  Other than the obvious fact that he is a Christian, there is nothing in his history nor in his cult specifically that would associate him with Santa Claus.

The connection with Christmas came when the Episcopal Minister Clement Moore wrote a poem in 1822 entitled “An Account of a Visit with St. Nicholas” or, as we know it today, “The Night Before Christmas.”  Sentimentality aside, when one reads the poem you get the sense that the children who had hung their stockings in anticipation of St. Nicholas’ arrival (perhaps related to the saint himself filling shoes with gifts in his lifetime) got more than they bargained for when Santa Claus appeared as “chubby and plump, a right jolly old elf” with a sleigh full of toys, eight reindeer and magical powers that allow him to travel up and down the chimney.  Advertisers loved Moore’s Santa Claus because thanks to other literary giants of the day like Washington Irving, gift giving became an important part of Christmas.  By the 1840s stores were already using his image to advertise Christmas sales.  Stores began to have men dress up like Santa Claus so that children could visit and tell him what gifts they would like while their parents shopped for said gifts. 

Treating Santa Claus as a myth leaves us with the conclusion that he is not a mythical representation of St. Nicholas of Myra.  It seems that his creation myth repudiates the simple and holy saint, rejecting him as simply not enough.  He obscures rather than makes us better understand the great saint and the intercessory power of saints in general.  Saints do intercede for us and get us things that we ask for, but they are not supply chain experts who manufacture the things themselves nor do they employ little elves as their helpers.  They distribute God’s manifold gifts.  Rather than determining whether we have been naughty or nice to bestow gifts upon us, they give according to whether the gifts themselves will make us naughty or nice.  In fact the True Gift of Christmas came to save the naughty and not the nice who had no need of Him.  Rather than using magic to travel up and down chimneys or ride in a sleigh of magical reindeer, they are “like the angels” and share in the powers of Christ’s resurrected body.  Rather than residing in the North Pole, they look upon the face of God in heaven. 

In short, a child looking upon Santa Claus would conclude very little about St. Nicholas or saints in general.  But perhaps the myth is not really about St. Nicholas but about Christmas itself.  After all, St. Nicholas is really a sign himself pointing to Christ.  Unfortunately, this explanation, while fulfilling our nostalgic longings, also falls flat.

The problem is not so much a battle between material versus spiritual gifts.  When Israel was a child, God bestowed material benefits on them in order to point towards the spiritual gifts He wanted to give them.  The Divine Pedagogy uses things that are seen to reveal things unseen.  Likewise the problem is not that it is only for children.  Signs pass away as one approaches the thing signified.  If we reverse this relationship and start with the thing signified we can then see why Santa Claus is a false myth.

No child will make the connection between Santa Claus and Christ.  Parents have to tell them.  But the meaning of a true myth as a sign should be obvious, otherwise it is a terrible sign.  Sure, the parents may have to remind them, but the sign ought to be enough.  The fact that we struggle to “keep Christ in Christmas”, but have no trouble “keeping Santa Claus in Christmas” shows that the myth has eclipsed the truth.  As further evidence, once the sign passes away and gives way to the thing signified, the children have gotten the message loud and clear: Christmas is about giving gifts.  Otherwise, the gift giving would cease (or at least the felt obligation of it) once the person grasped that Christmas was about the gift of Christ.

Is Santa Claus a Lie?

And this is why Santa Claus ultimately is not just a false myth but also a lie.  True myths may be confused for facts, but they never fabricate the facts.  Fabricating facts is simply a nice way to say lying.  Parents must make up the fact of gifts under the tree to support the myth of Santa Claus.  But, as we said, a true myth does not need the support of facts.  Its truth stands on its own foundation.  Intuitively parents know this because they universally speak about whether their children know the “truth about Santa Claus” or not.  No one speaks of a true myth in those terms.

But what’s the harm?  Maybe it isn’t true, but it creates a nice holiday that everyone seems to enjoy.  No child ever felt betrayed by his parents for playing the Santa Claus game.  But this ignores the fact that lies are wrong, not just because they harm other people, but because they are an offense against God. 

Lies ultimately are an attempt on our part to alter reality.  We try to speak or act a different reality into existence.  They are an offense against God then because they usurp His right to determine reality.  This is why a false myth like this is also a lie—it tells a falsehood about reality and tries to make reality other than it really is.  God could very easily have given St. Nicholas the power to visit homes each year.  As proof of this, St. Nicholas brings gifts of healing and consolation to thousands of people who apply his manna, the mysterious substance that seeps from his bones every year and has been the source of many miraculous cures.  But He didn’t do it because, ultimately, it wasn’t for the benefit on mankind.  If we trace the fruit that has come from Santa’s arrival in the 19th Century, we must admit that He was right.     

The Gift of Advent

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In what became an international best-seller, Crossing the Threshold of Hope, Pope, St. John Paul II summarized Original Sin as “above all” an attempt “to abolish fatherhood”.  When Adam and Eve seized the apple from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, they didn’t just disobey, but epically failed to see that God in His fatherly love was offering everything they would ever need or want as a pure gift.  Instead of receiving the gift they attempted to appropriate it for themselves.  They wanted to “be like God” on their own terms and not as beneficiaries of the Divine Goodness.  That Satan tempted them to do so should not be all that surprising because these are the same conditions under which he too fell.  Rather than receive the gift from God, he decided he would grasp his greatness as his own.  Satan would “be like God”, but only on his own terms.

There is a flip side of this that can easily be overlooked but is something worthy of deeper reflection.  The abolition of fatherhood really comes about not by outright denial of it, but through a usurpation of sonship.  Lucifer was not so foolish as to think he could somehow eclipse God.  Instead he thought he could eclipse the Son by usurping His throne and ruling with God.  Lucifer’s transition to Satan was when he identified himself as only begotten son and not creature.  Thinking that equality with God was something to be grasped (c.f. Phil 2:6) rather than received, he, according to St. Bernard of Clairvaux, tried to “usurp a similitude with the Most High that was the Son’s by right.”

“You are My Beloved Son…”

Sonship, St. Paul’s great ode to the humility of Christ tells us, is not something that can be grasped but something that the Son must share with us.   Even the Son Himself does not grasp His Sonship but receives it from the Father.  And all that belongs to Him as Son, He gives to us by way of participation.  The Son did not shed His humanity when He ascended on high but instead took it with Him to affirm that mankind was made for this.

Notice that I didn’t say that the Word became Flesh and dwelt among us simply to redeem us.  That He did, but to stop there is to confuse the means with the end.   God redeems us so that He can give Himself to us.  This is a recurring theme in Scripture, but nowhere does it shine forth more brightly than in St. Paul’s canticle to marriage in the fifth chapter of his letter to the Ephesians (5:21-33).  In it, the Apostle to the Gentiles draws an analogy between the marital relationship of man and woman with Christ’s relationship to the Church.  Marriage is a Sacrament precisely because this analogy is real.

But St. John Paul II says that we can actually illuminate Christ’s relationship with the Church by looking at marriage (see Theology of the Body, 18 August 1982).  In other words, he suggests that we reverse the analogy by closely examining the spousal imagery.  The Divine Bridegroom wishes to remove every imperfection in his spouse by cleansing her in the “bath of water with the word” so that she is without spot or wrinkle or any blemish (Eph. 5:26-27).  This nuptial bath is an obvious allusion to Baptism, but that is just the beginning.  What the Bridegroom really wants is his bride to be spotless, so that He who is also spotless can unite with her in a one flesh communion (Eph 5:30-32).

The Great Mystery

Within marriage the gift that the spouses give to each other is first and foremost themselves—“I take you…”  So too with Christ.  In Baptism, He claims each one of us for Himself and says “I take you…”  Yes, He gifts us with the fruits of redemption, but the real Gift is Himself.  As John Paul II puts it in one of his addresses from the Theology of the Body “In him, We have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses…’ (Eph 1:7). In this manner men who through faith accept the gift offered to them in Christ, really become participants in the eternal mystery, even though it works in them under the veil of faith. According to the Letter to the Ephesians 5:21-33, this supernatural conferring of the fruits of redemption accomplished by Christ acquires the character of a spousal donation of Christ himself to the Church, similar to the spousal relationship between husband and wife. Therefore, not only the fruits of redemption are a gift, but above all, Christ himself is a gift. He gives himself to the Church as to his spouse” (15 September 1982).  It seems as if the Saintly Pontiff, despite his Thomistic roots, thinks that the Incarnation would have happened even if man had no sinned.  God, for all eternity, planned to become one flesh with mankind.

If we take this theme and shine its light on the Parable of the Prodigal Son then we can begin to examine our own relationship to this truth.  The younger son wants to appropriate his sonship and take his father’s gifts by fiat.  But when “he comes to his senses” and returns contritely to the father, he bestows the gifts of sonship on him.  The older son on the other hand also rejects his sonship.  He is simply looking for his father to provide for his needs, like those who go to God only for redemption.  That is non-trivial of course, but to stop there is to never see the generosity of the father who says “everything I have is yours.”  It is servile rather than filial.

If divine sonship cannot be grasped but only received then we ought to dedicate this Advent to meditating upon this truth.  We should study the life of Our Lord and learn from Him so that we might take our place with Him upon His throne.  If we truly are sons in the Son, then we need to act like it.   Likewise we would do well to prepare ourselves for His second coming when He will initiate the Wedding Feast of the Lamb by allowing Him to cleanse us of every spot and blemish.  Light your lamps and go out and meet Him!   “Jesus is the reason for the season” indeed.

A Truly Virgin Birth

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Sometimes familiarity can be a catalyst for myopia, especially when it comes to the mysteries of the faith.  Christmas is no exception in this regard and offers an excellent opportunity to expand our sights by fixing them on some of the not-so obvious mysteries hidden with of Our Lord’s nativity.

In his customary manner, St. Matthew ends his account of the birth of Our Lord with an Old Testament proof-text to show how the prophets spoke specifically about Jesus.  Quoting Isiah 7:14, the Evangelist says, “All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had said through the prophet: Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall name him Emmanuel, which means ‘God is with us.’” (Mt 1:24).  It is common for us to use this as Scriptural proof of the virgin birth of the Messiah, but unfortunately very little attention is paid to what this actually means.  More to the point, we often substitute our idea of the virginal birth with the idea of the virginal conception.  Both of course are true, but how is it that a virgin could give birth?

If we come at it from the perspective of the one who gave birth, clarity emerges.  For a belief in Our Lady’s perpetual virginity is really saying three things.  First, that she became pregnant with Our Lord without “knowing a man” (Lk 1:34).  Second, that Our Lady remained in this state after the birth of Our Lord.  These two are obvious, but it is the third that helps bring illumination—Our Lady remained a virgin “even in the act of giving birth to the Son of God made man” (CCC 499).  Or, as the Council of Ephesus puts it: “After giving birth, nature knows not a virgin: but grace enhances her fruitfulness, and effects her motherhood, while in no way does it injure her virginity.”

The Miracle of Christ’s Birth

In order to keep her virginity intact, Our Lord did not leave His Mother’s womb through the birth canal.  He would have been delivered in a miraculous manner, passing directly from her womb into the outside world.  Without getting overly bogged down in the biological details, we can still glean some particularly poignant aspects of the mystery.

As a first consequence of this, Tradition has always taught that Our Lady’s partus was completely devoid of pain.  This is more than an interesting fact, but carries with it a very deep corollary that Our Lord wished to establish from the beginning of His mission.  When Our Lord came into the world, He came to suffer so as to redeem us.  But He was unwilling to be the cause of any other unnecessary suffering.  As St. Thomas says, “But the mother’s pains in childbirth did not concern Christ, who came to atone for our sins. And therefore there was no need for His Mother to suffer in giving birth”(ST III, q. 35, a.6).  Our Lady would suffer because of her role as the New Eve, but only in the amount that was absolutely necessary.  Likewise, all those associated with Him (us) are guaranteed only to suffer when it is necessarily tied to His redemptive mission.  He did, and still does, refuse to “break the bruised reed or quench the smoldering wick” (Is 42:3).

Remaining on the more practical level, we can also see why this miraculous intervention might be necessary.  If Our Lady’s virginity remained physically intact, there can be no doubt as to the truth of the virginal conception.  This is also why it is reasonable to believe that Our Lady remained a virgin throughout her entire life.  While we do not get overly fixated on the biological details, the virginal birth is still a biological fact.

Virginity, properly understood though, is not just a biological fact.  It is a condition of the entire person and does not simply mean someone who has never had sex.  Our Lady is ever-virgin because she is all-pure, both body and soul.  Her body is as a sacrament revealing the state of her soul.  In order to affirm this Our Lord does not destroy the physical sign of her personal virginity.

As a point of clarification, we call it a miracle because it defies the laws of nature for a human body to pass under its own power from its mother’s womb.  This should be seen as distinct from Christ, while operating under the power of His resurrected body, had the power of subtlety, that is, the power to pass through physical objects.

The Miracle as a Sign

But we also refer to it as a miracle because, like all Christ’s miracles, it has great value as a sign.  The same infant that was wrapped in swaddling clothes, that is burial cloths, had just passed from the closed womb pointing to the time when He would pass from the tomb.

His birth also was to serve as a sign revealing the fullness of Our Lord’s person as true God and true man.  As St. Thomas says, “He mingled wondrous with lowly things. Wherefore, to show that His body was real, He was born of a woman. But in order to manifest His Godhead, He was born of a virgin, for ‘such a Birth befits a God,’ as Ambrose says in the Christmas hymn” (ST III, q28, art. 2, ad. 2).

The miracle also serves as a sign of our ultimate redemption.  Living in this post-lapsarian world, it is difficult to view creation as anything other than a closed system of corruption.  By passing through Our Lady’s womb, without leaving behind the natural traces of corruption, Our Lord was pointing ahead to the redemption of creation in the New Heavens and the New Earth where corruption is no longer possible.

Finally, Our Lord wanted to point each of us to the true joy of Christmas.  By taking something that is naturally painful and filling it with gladness, He was forever instituting Christmas as a day of great joy.  Merry Christmas everyone!