Chinese New Year

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Just out of curiosity, what is the Catholic stance on Chinese new year?

Superstition? Culture? I also notice that theme is based on wealth and prosperity.
 
I don’t think there is a particular stance on Chinese New Year. Much like there isn’t a Catholic stance on the habit of the Dutch of eating salted herring. Or of small children preferring candy over vegetables. 😉
 
It’s just new year. I lived in Singapore, where the population is 70% Chinese and we used to get given red envelopes at Mass. Empty of course but the priest never said anything against CNY and he was very orthodox so if there were an objection to be found he’d have said something. 🤷

Gong Xi Fa Cai!
 
Gong hei fat choy!

That said, I don’t think the Church has an official position on it (any more than New Year’s Day for the standard Western calender), as it’s mostly a cultural thing. There are some religious elements, at least among Chinese Buddhists, but from what I’ve seen, it’s mostly a time when Chinese folks celebrate and wish each other a happy new year
 
Chinese New Year is a great celebration of a new year with Chinese culture.
period.
 
Apparently it marks the start of the planting season, which explains why there are so many good wishes for prosperity. It’s cultural. At Chinese parishes, they celebrate with dragon dances. 🙂
 
The Chinese New Year is based on the Dragon what a shame there are so many scriptures on the Dragon being a symbol of Idol Egypt not to mention the seven headed Dragon/Serpent goes after Mother Mary, the Church & Israel in the Book of Revelation 12!( the seven headed snake is worshiped In Cambodia).

If you look up the Chinese Dragon everything matches to the Leviathan in the book of Job 41: The Emperors believed they were children of the dragon. We are to be children of God!
Canst thou draw out leviathan with an hook? or his tongue with a cord which thou lettest down? Job 41:1

He beholds every high thing: he is a king over all the children of pride. Job 41:34
Awake, awake, put on strength, O arm of the LORD; awake, as in the ancient days, in the generations of old. Are you not him who has cut Rahab, and wounded the Dragon? (Strong’s Hebrew #8577 Tannin)

Isaiah 27:1 In that day, the LORD will punish with his sword, his fierce, great and powerful sword, Leviathan the gliding serpent, Leviathan the coiling serpent; he will slay the monster of the sea.
And he laid hold on the dragon, that old serpent, which is the Devil, and Satan, and bound him a thousand years. Rev 20:2

The 12 animals are rooted in China no wonder we owe debt to China we celebrate a year rooted in Imperial China!
 
The Chinese New Year is based on the Dragon what a shame there are so many scriptures on the Dragon being a symbol of Idol Egypt not to mention the seven headed Dragon/Serpent goes after Mother Mary, the Church & Israel in the Book of Revelation 12!( the seven headed snake is worshiped In Cambodia).

If you look up the Chinese Dragon everything matches to the Leviathan in the book of Job 41: The Emperors believed they were children of the dragon. We are to be children of God!
Canst thou draw out leviathan with an hook? or his tongue with a cord which thou lettest down? Job 41:1

He beholds every high thing: he is a king over all the children of pride. Job 41:34
Awake, awake, put on strength, O arm of the LORD; awake, as in the ancient days, in the generations of old. Are you not him who has cut Rahab, and wounded the Dragon? (Strong’s Hebrew #8577 Tannin)

Isaiah 27:1 In that day, the LORD will punish with his sword, his fierce, great and powerful sword, Leviathan the gliding serpent, Leviathan the coiling serpent; he will slay the monster of the sea.
And he laid hold on the dragon, that old serpent, which is the Devil, and Satan, and bound him a thousand years. Rev 20:2

The 12 animals are rooted in China no wonder we owe debt to China we celebrate a year rooted in Imperial China!
As someone from the East, I’d chime in.

The Chinese ‘Dragon’ and its counterparts in other East Asian cultures as we know it today is in reality a sort of a chimerical composite between different animals. As in other cultures, it is proposed that the Chinese dragon was in origin a mythicized portrayal of a species of reptile such as a crocodile or a snake, perhaps one that became extinct long ago. (Some would add dinosaur remains as another origin for the legend; the ancient Chinese referred to unearthed dinosaur bones as ‘dragon bones’, for one - an identification which continued until well recently in Chinese medicine.)

Some scholars believe that the Chinese dragon’s form is the result of the merging of different totems of various tribes consequential to tribal mergers. We do have evidence of serpent worship in ancient Chinese culture: the goddess Nüwa and her brother the culture hero Fu Xi are both depicted as having bodies of snakes, for one. There is also a legend about how when the Yellow Emperor - who had a serpent as his coat-of-arms - conquered another tribe, he would incorporate that tribe’s emblem into his own in some way, thus explaining why the dragon appears to have the features of various animals. Interestingly, the earliest depictions of draconic creatures in China we have, produced by the neolithic Hongshan culture, show them as having a pig-like head and thick, stubby serpentine bodies, curled up in a fetal position. These ‘pig dragons’ are often featured as grave goods: that the pig did have some ritual significance is testified by the fact that pig bones have been found interred alongside human remains at Hongshan burial sites.

No matter the origin, whether as totems or the stylized depiction of natural creatures, the Chinese dragon soon evolved to become a mythical animal. Sources describe a dragon as having the “three pauses and nine resemblances” (三停九似). In other words, the overall length of a dragon’s neck up to its limbs, its limbs up to the waist, and its waist up to the tip of its tail (the ‘three pauses’) are perfectly the same, and it has a stag’s horns, a camel’s head, a cow’s ears, a demon’s/ogre’s (or rabbit’s) eyes, a snake’s neck, a hawk’s claws, a tiger’s paws, a carp’s scales, and a clam’s (or frog’s or tortoise’s) belly (the ‘nine resemblances’). They are also supposed to have a lump at the top of their heads, without which they cannot fly, (unlike Western dragons, they don’t have wings) and a flaming pearl or a jewel under their chin.
 
Answer to : patrick457: " We do have evidence of serpent worship in ancient Chinese culture:"
In the Book of Revelation 12 the Dragon becomes a snake.
Revelation 12:12-16
The Woman Persecuted

13 Now when the dragon saw that he had been cast to the earth, he persecuted the woman who gave birth to the male Child. 14 But the woman was given two wings of a great eagle, that she might fly into the wilderness to her place, where she is nourished for a time and times and half a time, from the presence of the serpent. 15 So the **serpent **spewed water out of his mouth like a flood after the woman, that he might cause her to be carried away by the flood. 16 But the earth helped the woman, and the earth opened its mouth and swallowed up the flood which the **dragon **had spewed out of his mouth.

Even though the Chinese Dragon is considered a composite of the 11 animals 100% of the characteristics match the Leviathan of Job and visually only resembles a snake: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nine-Dragon_Wall

NKJV Job 41

41 “Can you draw out Leviathan[a] with a hook,
Or snare his tongue with a line which you lower?
2 Can you put a reed through his nose,
Or pierce his jaw with a hook?
3 Will he make many supplications to you?
Will he speak softly to you?
4 Will he make a covenant with you?
Will you take him as a servant forever?
5 Will you play with him as with a bird,
Or will you leash him for your maidens?
6 Will your companions make a banquet** of him?
Will they apportion him among the merchants?
7 Can you fill his skin with harpoons,
Or his head with fishing spears?
8 Lay your hand on him;
Remember the battle—
Never do it again!
9 Indeed, any hope of overcoming him is false;
Shall one not be overwhelmed at the sight of him?
10 No one is so fierce that he would dare stir him up.
Who then is able to stand against Me?
11 Who has preceded Me, that I should pay him?
Everything under heaven is Mine.

12 “I will not conceal[c] his limbs,
His mighty power, or his graceful proportions.
13 Who can remove his outer coat?
Who can approach him with a double bridle?
14 Who can open the doors of his face,
With his terrible teeth all around?
15 His rows of scales are his pride,
Shut up tightly as with a seal;
16 One is so near another
That no air can come between them;
17 They are joined one to another,
They stick together and cannot be parted.
18 His sneezings flash forth light,
And his eyes are like the eyelids of the morning.
19 Out of his mouth go burning lights;
Sparks of fire shoot out.
20 Smoke goes out of his nostrils,
As from a boiling pot and burning rushes.
21 His breath kindles coals,
And a flame goes out of his mouth.
22 Strength dwells in his neck,
And sorrow dances before him.
23 The folds of his flesh are joined together;
They are firm on him and cannot be moved.
24 His heart is as hard as stone,
Even as hard as the lower millstone.
25 When he raises himself up, the mighty are afraid;
Because of his crashings they are beside[d] themselves.
26 Though the sword reaches him, it cannot avail;
Nor does spear, dart, or javelin.
27 He regards iron as straw,
And bronze as rotten wood.
28 The arrow cannot make him flee;
Slingstones become like stubble to him.
29 Darts are regarded as straw;
He laughs at the threat of javelins.
30 His undersides are like sharp potsherds;
He spreads pointed marks in the mire.
31 He makes the deep boil like a pot;
He makes the sea like a pot of ointment.
32 He leaves a shining wake behind him;
One would think the deep had white hair.
33 On earth there is nothing like him,
Which is made without fear.
34 He beholds every high thing;
He is king over all the children of pride.”**
 
To me Chinese NY means dinner with Dragon and Phoenix usually means lobster and chicken… Yummmm
 
4Isreal, now you’ve got me confused. What exactly are you trying to prove? :confused:
 
Apparently it marks the start of the planting season, which explains why there are so many good wishes for prosperity. It’s cultural. At Chinese parishes, they celebrate with dragon dances. 🙂
Yes, it’s based on the lunar calendar, which was used in agriculture. There’re different celebrations associated with it, but I don’t think there’s anything particularly religious about it. It’s just like New Year’s based on the Gregorian calendar.
 
4Isreal, now you’ve got me confused. What exactly are you trying to prove? :confused:
That dragons are eeeevil. :rolleyes:

I guess I’m no better off then. <---- Year of the Snake.

Beware Christians, I’m apparently cursed and eeeebil. Behold my awesome snake style kung fu. Wooyah! pokes patrick with hands

Or should I start talking in Parseltongue? starts making poor imitation

P.S.

Oh well, I guess that explains my fascination for these mighty (and wholly misunderstood :dts:) creatures. You silly men in silly armor can keep your silly swords, your silly blonde hair, and your silly chivalric nonsense.

I shall embrace a true force of power!!! >8D summons

http://magiccards.info/scans/en/chk/217.jpghttp://magiccards.info/scans/en/cmd/204.jpg
http://magiccards.info/scans/en/arc/41.jpghttp://magiccards.info/scans/en/fvd/11.jpg

rides on Hellkite

CHARGE!!! XD

Knights: Onward men! Let us slay these beasts and rescue the pr-

dragons attack

Knight: Retreat! RETREAT!!!

Knight: Run away! Run away! D8 <—obvious Monty Python reference. 😛
 
I was not expecting to see Magic cards here! I was expecting to see some Portal 3 Kingdoms cards, though.
 
I was not expecting to see Magic cards here! I was expecting to see some Portal 3 Kingdoms cards, though.
Well I would’ve also thrown the many Final Fantasy versions of Bahamut but they wouldn’t fit. 😛

Then again, ethnicity doesn’t matter much. Dragons are dragons!

(Maybe I should’ve put up more Kamigawa dragons in here though. They’re the Asian dragons of the M:TG multiverse. :hmmm:)

sees fleeing knights

And so dawns the Year of the Dragon. :cool:

Dragons: roar in triumph
 
Patrick “RE: What exactly are you trying to prove?”

LilSheep 88, JMcrae, Allseasons: Catholics who seek the Dragon of Asia for wealth and Prosperity should be aware that it is the Leviathan of Job 41;

it is the Snake who becomes the Dragon to pursue “the woman who bore the male child”;
it is the Dragon of Revelation that pursues “those who hold the testimony of Jesus Christ” because those who revere the Dragon for wealth and Prosperity in Asia have a hard time accepting Jesus Christ as their Savior;

It is why more people easily become Muslim in Indonesia then believe in Jesus since there in no mention of the Dragon in the Quran;

it is the Dragon/Leviathan that works in people who have pride **“he is a king over all the children of pride.” ** Job 41:34
Our Lord Jesus wants us to have a humble and contrite heart and look to God the Father for provision and not the Dragon!!

For ye know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that, though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, that ye through his poverty might be rich.” 2 Corinthians 8:9
 
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