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Entry: The Empty Manger Link: http://www.takimag.com/site/article/the_empty_manger#12513 Post contents: First a gripe (not about this fine article!) then some theology. 1. Error #1: <i>All the world needs if luv (not Faith and Hope).</i> Scrooge was (half) right. Dickens and Hugo, at best, were Pelagians. They wanted the moral fruits of the Faith, but not the Faith. Can’t be. 2. Error #2: <i>Christmas is the biggest (if not the exclusive) Christian High Holy Day</i> Nope. EASTER, not Christmas, is the supreme Christian Solemnity. Every day of the Easter Triduum (Holy Thursday evening, Good Friday, Holy Saturday, Easter Sunday) are more important. Look at the Church’s ranking of feasts: The Triduum comes first and foremost, and Christmas is the equal of Pentecost! Most of the Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, and the Oriental Orthodox world put Easter first. Only in northern western Europe and the Anglophone world is the relation the opposite of where it belongs. Why this happened has a number of reasons, largely secular. The error is compounded by ignoring Advent (a season unto itself with its own spirituality), with the empty feeding trough (a.k.a. “manger”), and forgetting that Christmas is a season of 12 days, not one day, and its climax is Epiphany, the feast the predates Christmas by at least two centuries. For birthdays in the Mediterranean sphere were important only for one people: the Romans. And so in Rome, in the 4th Century, Christmas began and never became standardized throughout the Roman world until after the Chalcedon definition of AD 450. Some Oriental Churches still don’t have it. 3. Error #3 <i>Christmas is for children</i>. This error probably can be attributed to that genius of iconography, St. Francis of Assisi, who began the creche. We forget that he also began the Stations of the Cross. Now some theology: Christmas is very much an adult holy day. 1. The creche is to remind us of our sin, thus removing and Pelagian and Semi-Pelagian heresy. The NT source for the creche is Luke, who is taking his cue from Isaiah’s very first prophesy, 1: 2-4. The dumbest animals in the barnyard know who their Lord is; we don’t. Most of us city slickers, we miss the real purport of the creche. We also don’t know that barns are full of animal droppings, as are our souls. 2. Christmas is the pre-eminent Solemnity of the Blessed Trinity. When did we know and experience God as One? At the burning bush. When did we know and experience Him as Son? Take a look at 1st Corinthians 10:4. Paul rushes right by a profound truth, probably because his congregation knew it already: The Son was always there, always in the world, always active (just not incarnate). We came to know Him and experience Him as Son first at Christmas, and this is the real depth of Christmas’ meaning. The connection with Easter must not be forgotten. The Eastern Church gets it right: The Incarnation is already Redemptive. He is always the Crucified One (as He is always the Resurrected One. And when did we come to know and experience God as Holy Spirit? At Pentecost (at least in Luke’s version; John on Easter Sunday [“receive the Holy Spirit”]). And when did we know and experience Him as Father? We haven’t yet. The Son and The Holy Spirit have told us about Him. It is the joy of the blessed souls in Heaven to experience Him as Father. 3. Now back to where Mr. Zmirak’s article started, The Holy Infant. The best Christmas sermon that I ever heard was in two sentences: “How great is God, worthy to be adored! How small is God, able to be loved.” When y’all are in Rome, go to the Church of Santa Maria Aracoeli to see the Holy Infant image. And y’all be sure to celebrate Holy Week, the Easter Triduum, and Easter Week with just as much intensity. (Bring back the Tenebrae from the Extraordinary Form! Good Friday Processions! The Three Hours devotions and The Seven Last Words! A reverent Easter Vigil, the first “Midnight Mass”! – the Christian version [and a vastly improved version] of the Eleusian Mysteries. And the Easter Bunny doesn’t bother me. Then let’s throw in Easter cards, Easter door and house decorations; and an iconography of light and water, lamb and lily. The folks in Taranto and Seville gave got it right.) A Merry Christmas to everyone! Sent at: 2008 10 06