Christmastide

Christmas to Candlemas in a Catholic Home
By: Helen McLoughlin - Liturgical Press
Christmas is a liturgical season of great joy. It lasts forty days, from December 25 to February 2, during which the birth of Jesus Christ, our Savior, is celebrated as one continuous festival. The finale comes with His presentation in the temple. A season most dear to Christian hearts, Christmas is as distinct in the liturgy as Advent, Lent, Easter, or Pentecost. Four weeks of Advent are scarcely enough to "prepare the way of the Lord" for His coming to us as King. However, if we have used that season as a preparation, we are ready now to receive the Redeemer who will deliver us from sin in answer to our requests. Christ's coming must be, not a lovely idyll or a pastoral scene, but a reality accomplished in our lives and our children's. Forty days of rejoicing are not too long a celebration for so great an event.

The early Church selected December 25, the date of the winter solstice when God the Creator gives the sun an increase of natural light in northern hemispheres, as the day on which to celebrate the birth of the Sun of Justice, Light of the world. Radiating from the Divine Child are a galaxy of wonderful saints whose lives afford a continuing interest in celebrating the feast of His birth.

Micheas, who lived in the days of Isaiah, prophesied the birth-place of the Messiah:

"Thou, Bethlehem, art a little one among the thousands in Judah; out of thee shall He come forth unto me that is to be the Ruler of Israel; and His going forth is from the beginning, from the days of eternity." The name Bethlehem means "House of Bread." To Bethlehem at Christmas comes the Savior, who is the Bread of Life. By our participation in this mystery of the Holy Eucharist, the divine transformation takes place whereby He "reshapes the body of our lowliness after the shape of the body of His splendor."

Our forebears gave the name Christmas to the feast of our Lord's birth because they kept the Mass of Christmas, the "Christ Mass" as the heart of their celebrations. Following closely the liturgy of the Church, they centered their customs and wrote their hymns and carols according to the Church's keeping of the holy seasons. Those practices increased their admiration for His Virgin Mother Mary, who gave Almighty God His human form. He had created heaven and earth by His Word alone, but He allowed His becoming man to depend on one of His creature's (Mary's) "fiat", "Be it done to me according to Thy Word." Mary consented. Our ancestors in the Faith honored Mary in their great masterpieces because she is God's Mother. For the same reason the world in our day honors here as Queen of Heaven.

Christmas Eve
Taken From: "Family Advent Customs" by: Helen McLaughlin
Various home ceremonies on Christmas Eve are perhaps the easiest of all to establish. Where children are small they are the surest link between altar and home. If they believe in "Santa Claus", this emphasis on Christmas as the Feast of Baby Jesus and His Birthday will focus their thoughts on the Holy Child.

In the home on Christmas Eve, while Dad opens the doors of the "Christmas room" or takes down the curtain from the portion of the living room where Christmas tree, gifts and lovely creche have been prepared for the family by the Christ Child - - and as Dad gets the living room ready by turning on the lights of the crech and tree and turning OFF all other lights in the house, the children and mother gather in another room. When dad lets it be known that all is ready, the children process down the hall to the living room carrying lighted candles. The child in the front carries the Baby Jesus to the living room creche while all sing "Silent Night".

Then the father reads from the Roman Martyrology:

Father: "In the forty-second year of the Empire of Octavian Augustus, in the Sixth Age of the world, while all the earth was at peace, Jesus Christ, Eternal God, and Son of the Eternal Father, willed to consecrate the world by His gracious coming; having been conceived of the Holly ghost, and the nine months since His conception having now passed (all kneel) He was born as Man of the Virgin Mary at Bethlehem of Juda. (VERY SOLEMNLY):

THE BIRTHDAY ACCORDING TO THE FLESH OF OUR LORD JESUS CHRIST.

After the reading, all sing the third verse of "Silent Night"

The Blessing of the Christmas Tree
In recent years, in a growing number of Catholic families, there takes place in the home a blessing of the Christmas tree. Parents should remind the children of the part a TREE played in the sins of our first parents and of the sacred wood of the TREE on which Jesus Christ, whose birthday we now celebrate, once paid the price of our redemption.

Children love the story of why we use the tree. The tree goes back to the Jewish Feast of Lights. It was St. Boniface who gave the balsam fir tree to the pagan Druids in place of the oak tree, the symbol of their former false god. "The fir tree is the wood of peace, the sign of an endless life with its evergreen branches. It points to heaven. It will never shelter deeds of blood, but rather be filled with loving gifts and rites of kindness. When St. Ansgar preached to the Vikings, he referred to the fir tree as a symbol of the faith, for it was, he said, "as high as hope, as wide as love, and bore the sign of the Cross on every bough."

In some homes, the tree is blessed on Christmas Eve, and the crib on Christmas morning.

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