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Patjoe
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I wonder if anyone has an opinion on how Christmas should be described: Is it the celebration of the coming of Jesus?
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tom.wineman
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**The Incarnation of Christ.****“The Word was made (became) flesh and dwelt among us” **
"God was manifested in the flesh"
(John 1:14; 1 Timothy 3:16)
"God was manifested in the flesh"
(John 1:14; 1 Timothy 3:16)
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Joe_Kelley
Guest
It is important to note that though December 25 commemorates Jesus’ birth, March 25, The Annunciation, commemorates His coming to earth.
W
workinprogress8
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I was told that the Advent season is to prepare fort Christ’s coming. As for Christmas, I think it specifically commemorates Christ’s birth, but the season is to prepare for Christ’s coming.
Please correct me if I’m wrong!
Please correct me if I’m wrong!
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Patjoe
Guest
Yesterday, the Holy Father said that Christ came to live among us on Christmas. I am really confused and I don’t mean to nitpick. If one looks just at what has been said in this thread, there is serious contradiction within the Church itself about the language that should be used to indicate the events that occurred in the Humanity of Jesus!
I do not see many issues that could be more important to the world today than to define the exact position of the Church with respect to the beginning of life. It is understandable that sacred writers over the past centuries have used words that are interpreted into English to say “coming” and that mean “birth.” It has not been until quite recently, relatively speaking, that science was able to give us an insight into what happens at the conception of a human being.
But with the industry of abortion becoming so very large and so persuasive in its arguments to vulnerable women throughout the world, there is no room for a gap in the language the Church uses about the most important Conception in the history of the world. I believe that now the biggest problems consist of the placement of the Annunciation within/near the Triduum and the historical significance of Christmas within the Church.
From the time of the original sin until Jesus Came, the world was awaiting the “coming” of the Savior. Then there was that glorious moment when the Archangel Gabriel announced to the Virgin Mary that God had chosen Her to be the Mother of that Savior. When Mary said “Yes” to the Father, the Savior – Jesus – through the power of the Holy Spirit “Came to live among us,” just as at every human conception the human being thus conceived comes to live among us.
Or is the Holy Father saying in the year 2004 that a baby cannot be said to live among until we can see his/her physical body? In other words, is he saying that a baby does not “come” into the world until it is born? Does that not give fodder to the abortionists that any unborn child is not a human being until it is born?
The cycle of the annual Sacred Feasts has us locked into this contradiction – we have Advent when we prepare for the Coming of Christ AFTER He has Come (commemoratively speaking). When the Feast of His actual “Coming” occurs, we are deep within the Lenten Season, when we are preparing for the Death of Jesus (or shortly thereafter). Hence, the irony I heard at Mass yesterday: the homilist said that “we are looking forward to Christmas and the coming of Jesus,” with an aside that “He actually came at the Annunciation.”
Accentuating this dilemma, there is the oddity that the Immaculate Conception is a Holy Day of Obligation but the Annunciation is not; and the Birth of Jesus is a Holy Day but the Birth of Mary is not. That by itself is explicable; but when seen in light of the question I posed above, it is totally frustrating.
And so I have the feeling from over a decade of research into this subject that the Church moves exceedingly slowly – a fact that is very well known – and that for the time being most, but not all, clergy and bishops and especially the Holy Father prefer to leave it as it has been over the history of the Church: a paradox! They know that Jesus actually “Came” among us at His conception; but for the purpose of simplicity and to keep the feel-good comfort of Christmas, we will keep the spiritual fiction that Jesus “came” among us at Christmas. And this fiction has taken on the literary identity of the “Incarnation,” by which the Church says that we must take the whole of the gestation period into account when we speak of the “coming of the Lord.”
That means that the Annunciation will remain a little-understood and intentionally under-publicized Feast. And that means that we are missing the cornerstone of the argument against abortion and a magnificant reason to celebrate not only the Life of the Savior but LIFE itself! At the Birth of Jesus, Christmas, we see the Face of God; and what was made known to humanity through the Blessed Virgin nine months earlier, that Jesus had Come, can be tangibly understood. But celebrating Christmas without celebrating the Annuncation simply does not satisfy the obligation of the Church both to teach us all there is to know about the Christ and to exhaust our ability to give glory to God for His Goodness to us.
The bottom line is that we cannot have it both ways: we cannot condemn the act of abortion because we believe that it is the killing of a human being and then refuse to celebrate the “Coming” of the Savior on the Feast Day of His Conception! Not only is that hypocritical, it is dishonest.
I do not see many issues that could be more important to the world today than to define the exact position of the Church with respect to the beginning of life. It is understandable that sacred writers over the past centuries have used words that are interpreted into English to say “coming” and that mean “birth.” It has not been until quite recently, relatively speaking, that science was able to give us an insight into what happens at the conception of a human being.
But with the industry of abortion becoming so very large and so persuasive in its arguments to vulnerable women throughout the world, there is no room for a gap in the language the Church uses about the most important Conception in the history of the world. I believe that now the biggest problems consist of the placement of the Annunciation within/near the Triduum and the historical significance of Christmas within the Church.
From the time of the original sin until Jesus Came, the world was awaiting the “coming” of the Savior. Then there was that glorious moment when the Archangel Gabriel announced to the Virgin Mary that God had chosen Her to be the Mother of that Savior. When Mary said “Yes” to the Father, the Savior – Jesus – through the power of the Holy Spirit “Came to live among us,” just as at every human conception the human being thus conceived comes to live among us.
Or is the Holy Father saying in the year 2004 that a baby cannot be said to live among until we can see his/her physical body? In other words, is he saying that a baby does not “come” into the world until it is born? Does that not give fodder to the abortionists that any unborn child is not a human being until it is born?
The cycle of the annual Sacred Feasts has us locked into this contradiction – we have Advent when we prepare for the Coming of Christ AFTER He has Come (commemoratively speaking). When the Feast of His actual “Coming” occurs, we are deep within the Lenten Season, when we are preparing for the Death of Jesus (or shortly thereafter). Hence, the irony I heard at Mass yesterday: the homilist said that “we are looking forward to Christmas and the coming of Jesus,” with an aside that “He actually came at the Annunciation.”
Accentuating this dilemma, there is the oddity that the Immaculate Conception is a Holy Day of Obligation but the Annunciation is not; and the Birth of Jesus is a Holy Day but the Birth of Mary is not. That by itself is explicable; but when seen in light of the question I posed above, it is totally frustrating.
And so I have the feeling from over a decade of research into this subject that the Church moves exceedingly slowly – a fact that is very well known – and that for the time being most, but not all, clergy and bishops and especially the Holy Father prefer to leave it as it has been over the history of the Church: a paradox! They know that Jesus actually “Came” among us at His conception; but for the purpose of simplicity and to keep the feel-good comfort of Christmas, we will keep the spiritual fiction that Jesus “came” among us at Christmas. And this fiction has taken on the literary identity of the “Incarnation,” by which the Church says that we must take the whole of the gestation period into account when we speak of the “coming of the Lord.”
That means that the Annunciation will remain a little-understood and intentionally under-publicized Feast. And that means that we are missing the cornerstone of the argument against abortion and a magnificant reason to celebrate not only the Life of the Savior but LIFE itself! At the Birth of Jesus, Christmas, we see the Face of God; and what was made known to humanity through the Blessed Virgin nine months earlier, that Jesus had Come, can be tangibly understood. But celebrating Christmas without celebrating the Annuncation simply does not satisfy the obligation of the Church both to teach us all there is to know about the Christ and to exhaust our ability to give glory to God for His Goodness to us.
The bottom line is that we cannot have it both ways: we cannot condemn the act of abortion because we believe that it is the killing of a human being and then refuse to celebrate the “Coming” of the Savior on the Feast Day of His Conception! Not only is that hypocritical, it is dishonest.
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