Heavenly Father, write Thy new, best name of Love upon our hearts this morning. Help us to remember Jesus Christ. During the busy hours bring Him often to our thought. When the mind is free from some set task may it revert to Him, as the needle turns to the pole. Keep us from wounding Him in thought or word. Make our communion with Him sweet. Give us of His strength, of His wisdom, of His winsomeness. Forgive the professions which have been but empty words. Forgive the sins which have brought a reproach upon Thy church. Forgive us if we have made it difficult to distinguish between the church and the world.
Save us from the sin of despair. Light the lamp of hope in every heart. Fill us with the spirit of expectancy. Teach us that ruined lives may be rebuilt, and that in Christ is sufficiency for all our needs. We are thankful that Christ is the way to our Father’s house, that there is forgiveness for all, the bread of life for all, and a welcome. Cleanse us from the defilement of the way; blot out the memories of the far country; clothe us with the garment of righteousness, and give us the joy of knowing that Thou dost own us as Thy sons and daughters. Amen.
Was Mary the Mother of God? Question: Instead of saying that Jesus “was born of the Virgin Mary”, the New Roman Missal has us saying he “was incarnate of the Virgin Mary.” Why? Answer: To say, “Jesus was born of Mary” sounds like she gave birth to God. The original creed in Latin emphasized her participation in providing flesh (a human body) for Jesus, i.e., the “incarnation” of Jesus. BUT — Among the most controversial and misunderstood arguments over the years goes back to a very early Council of the Church, in which Mary is defined as the “theotokos” or Mother of God. Irenaeus wrote: “The Virgin Mary, being obedient to his word, received from an angel the glad tidings that she would bear God” ( Against Heresies , 5:19:1 [A.D. 189]). The incarnation means that Jesus was born of Mary, doesn’t it? No. And this is a good example of why many people are having a hard time accepting changes in the Missal. They want to know: Why is it even necessary to change the words? We all need to become more aware of words, paying attention to semantics and the true meaning of words, rather than remain on automatic pilot, so to speak, making assumptions about meanings based on how one has used the words in the past. That’s one of the main reasons why Church authorities decided to change the Missal. An example would be how we so readily say “I love pizza” when in fact what is meant is “I enjoy eating pizza”; one cannot “love” an inanimate object, because love is an act of doing good for and caring about someone. To “bear” God and to “give birth” to God have two different meanings or intentions. We all bear God within us, since our baptisms. To “bear” means to “carry”. For example, “I am bearing a heavy load.” To “give birth” to God means that God did not exist until conceived in and produced from Mary’s womb. Mary is the “Mother of God” only by the fact that she carried or “bore” Jesus the Son in her womb and mothered him throughout his childhood years. She did not carry God the Father or God the Holy Spirit in her womb, although her womb did hold Christ’s unity with the Father and the Spirit. And she certainly did not precede God, not even God the Son Jesus. Semantically-speaking, for Jesus to be “born” of the Virgin Mary means he did not exist until conceived in her womb. Because we’ve not been careful with our semantics, we the Church have caused some confusion about our beliefs. It has led Protestants to think that Catholics believe that Mary preceded God. And even within our own Church, it’s hard for those who have not been well formed in the Faith to think of Jesus as existing before he was conceived in Mary’s womb. Did you know that the Old Testament has stories of the pre-incarnated Jesus?
Those who die in Christ are alive in Christ, and by virtue of their union with Christ, they can hear our prayers when we pray to them. They remember us, and they can pray for us.”
Why Is There an Ugly Christmas Sweater Day?
So much that passes for culture is just entertainment. What people consider “culture” is an excuse to have fun. Everything must be full of novelty and excitement. It must be Facebookable and Instagram-friendly. While these fun activities may be popular, they do not constitute culture. They have no depth.
For many, even Christmas need not be meaningful anymore. There are those who think it is an occasion for fun. So much of the commercialization of the Christmas season implicitly has this underlying theme of turning the feast into a big party. As a result, Christmas is no longer what it once was.
Sometimes extreme examples show just how far things have gone. They can illustrate the tragedy of turning Christmas into fun. One such example is called the National Ugly Christmas Sweater Day. Like all things ridiculous, this practice indicates something is wrong with society. It is a symptom of something much more troubling.
Making Holidays Fun
According to the holiday website, the idea behind the day is to recapture “the magic and mystique of Christmas” that may have “faded with maturity and age.” Participants are asked to buy and wear the ugliest possible sweaters for the entire day on the third Friday of December as part of their Christmas celebration.
The merrymakers wear their sweaters to the office, school, or shopping—everywhere. The more outlandish the sweater, the better it is. Revelers are told to throw off formality and embrace the absurd. The ordeal should spark enough funny reactions that can later be shared on social media and garner likes and comments aplenty.
Participants are encouraged to “share this special day with friends and help us spread the word.” They can thus join the “hundreds of thousands of people” who take part in the fun. By celebrating National Ugly Christmas Sweater day, the person can find a way “to make the holidays fun … the way they were intended to be!”
Bad Options
But is it all fun and games? There is another more disturbing aspect about National Ugly Christmas Sweater Day. The holiday promoters are quick to indicate a list of preferred vendors where people can buy ugly Christmas sweaters for men or women. Options include “cute, naughty and funny” designs.
Indeed, a look at some selections reveals more than just garish winter scenes. These sweaters can be crude with primitive depictions of a sexual nature that border on the obscene. These sweaters can also be irreverent depicting Our Lord and the manger scene in ways that touch on the sacrilegious.
This “fun” celebration exists in a climate of absurdity in which all is allowed, and nothing is sacred. It is not surprising that the sacred would not be spared from abuse. What is disturbing is that offensive messages that sully the innocent nature of the feast would still be considered fun.
Just Entertainment
For many people, however, National Ugly Christmas Sweater Day, even with its offensive messages, is only harmless fun. They think fun things have no consequences. Thus, while the practice may be tasteless and crass, they claim it should be tolerated. No one should criticize it. They see it as a right, which, for them, is absolute and supreme. Nothing should restraint it, ever, not even the divine.
When life is considered one big party, the person who talks about danger is a killjoy. However, these things do present a danger because the purpose of life—for everyone—is not fun but sanctification. When so many things become judged by their ability to produce fun, they start losing their meaning. They become empty and shallow.
This is happening now. People are losing their ability to take things seriously and talk about what Russell Kirk called those transcendent “permanent things” that matter. All society suffers and falls apart as a result.
“We have entertainment that tries to exalt itself into culture,” says Rice University’s Prof. Ewa Thompson, “but [it is]hardly any culture, because culture without the transcendent core becomes entertainment.”
An Anti-Christmas
Like it or not, holiday practices like these represent an anti-Christmas in an anti-culture. They detach the august feast of Christ’s birth from the transcendental core of truth, goodness, and beauty that is infused into the Christmas season. Instead, the Ugly Christmas Sweater Day replaces the core with its opposite in the form of all that is avowedly ugly, crude, and false.
Christmas invites children to use their innocence to ascend toward an accessible Christ Child who is God-made-man. An anti-Christmas invites adults to engage in childish behavior to descent into hilarity, vulgarity, and obscenity. Christmas should turn people toward God; an anti-Christmas turns them toward themselves.
This is why anti-Christmas celebrations are so sterile and empty. They are reduced to sparkle trees, inane songs and raucous winter parties. It is a feel-good time of the year that may look good on Facebook but feels increasingly joyless. It becomes a period when few are merry, and some dare not pronounce the word “Christ” in Christmas, lest it remind them of the serious matter of the Redemption.
For many, it is better not to think of these things and rather let the holidays become an occasion of fun “the way they were intended to be!”
Christmas was never intended to be fun. It is supposed to be meaningful and joyful for a reason that cannot be ignored.
“For unto us a child is born, and a son is given, and the government is upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counselor, God the Mighty, the Father of the world to come, the Prince of Peace” (Is. 9:6).
That is why the feast must be surrounded by a real and marvelous culture that celebrates all that is wonderful, honorable, and glorious. Christmas was made for all good Christians to come and adore the Savior of the world.
Why Is There an Ugly Christmas Sweater Day?
So much that passes for culture is just entertainment. What people consider “culture” is an excuse to have fun. Everything must be full of novelty and excitement. It must be Facebookable and Instagram-friendly. While these fun activities may be popular, they do not constitute culture. They have no depth.
For many, even Christmas need not be meaningful anymore. There are those who think it is an occasion for fun. So much of the commercialization of the Christmas season implicitly has this underlying theme of turning the feast into a big party. As a result, Christmas is no longer what it once was.
Sometimes extreme examples show just how far things have gone. They can illustrate the tragedy of turning Christmas into fun. One such example is called the National Ugly Christmas Sweater Day. Like all things ridiculous, this practice indicates something is wrong with society. It is a symptom of something much more troubling.
Making Holidays Fun
According to the holiday website, the idea behind the day is to recapture “the magic and mystique of Christmas” that may have “faded with maturity and age.” Participants are asked to buy and wear the ugliest possible sweaters for the entire day on the third Friday of December as part of their Christmas celebration.
The merrymakers wear their sweaters to the office, school, or shopping—everywhere. The more outlandish the sweater, the better it is. Revelers are told to throw off formality and embrace the absurd. The ordeal should spark enough funny reactions that can later be shared on social media and garner likes and comments aplenty.
Participants are encouraged to “share this special day with friends and help us spread the word.” They can thus join the “hundreds of thousands of people” who take part in the fun. By celebrating National Ugly Christmas Sweater day, the person can find a way “to make the holidays fun … the way they were intended to be!”
Bad Options
But is it all fun and games? There is another more disturbing aspect about National Ugly Christmas Sweater Day. The holiday promoters are quick to indicate a list of preferred vendors where people can buy ugly Christmas sweaters for men or women. Options include “cute, naughty and funny” designs.
Indeed, a look at some selections reveals more than just garish winter scenes. These sweaters can be crude with primitive depictions of a sexual nature that border on the obscene. These sweaters can also be irreverent depicting Our Lord and the manger scene in ways that touch on the sacrilegious.
This “fun” celebration exists in a climate of absurdity in which all is allowed, and nothing is sacred. It is not surprising that the sacred would not be spared from abuse. What is disturbing is that offensive messages that sully the innocent nature of the feast would still be considered fun.
Just Entertainment
For many people, however, National Ugly Christmas Sweater Day, even with its offensive messages, is only harmless fun. They think fun things have no consequences. Thus, while the practice may be tasteless and crass, they claim it should be tolerated. No one should criticize it. They see it as a right, which, for them, is absolute and supreme. Nothing should restraint it, ever, not even the divine.
When life is considered one big party, the person who talks about danger is a killjoy. However, these things do present a danger because the purpose of life—for everyone—is not fun but sanctification. When so many things become judged by their ability to produce fun, they start losing their meaning. They become empty and shallow.
This is happening now. People are losing their ability to take things seriously and talk about what Russell Kirk called those transcendent “permanent things” that matter. All society suffers and falls apart as a result.
“We have entertainment that tries to exalt itself into culture,” says Rice University’s Prof. Ewa Thompson, “but [it is]hardly any culture, because culture without the transcendent core becomes entertainment.”
An Anti-Christmas
Like it or not, holiday practices like these represent an anti-Christmas in an anti-culture. They detach the august feast of Christ’s birth from the transcendental core of truth, goodness, and beauty that is infused into the Christmas season. Instead, the Ugly Christmas Sweater Day replaces the core with its opposite in the form of all that is avowedly ugly, crude, and false.
Christmas invites children to use their innocence to ascend toward an accessible Christ Child who is God-made-man. An anti-Christmas invites adults to engage in childish behavior to descent into hilarity, vulgarity, and obscenity. Christmas should turn people toward God; an anti-Christmas turns them toward themselves.
This is why anti-Christmas celebrations are so sterile and empty. They are reduced to sparkle trees, inane songs and raucous winter parties. It is a feel-good time of the year that may look good on Facebook but feels increasingly joyless. It becomes a period when few are merry, and some dare not pronounce the word “Christ” in Christmas, lest it remind them of the serious matter of the Redemption.
For many, it is better not to think of these things and rather let the holidays become an occasion of fun “the way they were intended to be!”
Christmas was never intended to be fun. It is supposed to be meaningful and joyful for a reason that cannot be ignored.
“For unto us a child is born, and a son is given, and the government is upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counselor, God the Mighty, the Father of the world to come, the Prince of Peace” (Is. 9:6).
That is why the feast must be surrounded by a real and marvelous culture that celebrates all that is wonderful, honorable, and glorious. Christmas was made for all good Christians to come and adore the Savior of the world.
