Pastor’s Letter: December 22, 2024

Pastor’s Letter: December 22, 2024

20 Dec 2024 | Posted by: chadmin

Dear St. Philomena Parish Family,

May the peace and joy of the newborn Christ be in your hearts this week! I pray that all of you enjoy a truly blessed Christmas! As we are in our final preparations for the celebration of Christmas, I thought it might be a good opportunity to reflect on some of our traditions which can help us enter more deeply into the celebration of Christmas.

“Mom, can I put baby Jesus in his crib?”  This was a common line in our household growing up—and also a common cause for sibling rivalry. Did you ever wonder why we have the manger scene under the Christmas tree? According to the Book of Blessings, “In its present form the custom of displaying figures depicting the birth of Jesus Christ owes its origin to Saint Francis of Assisi who made the Christmas crèche or manger for Christmas eve of 1223. However, as early as the fourth century (St. Sebastian catacombs in Rome, discovered in 1877), representations of the nativity of the Lord were painted as wall decorations depicting not only the infancy narrative accounts of Christ’s birth, but also the words of the prophets Isaiah and Habakkuk taken to mean that the Messiah would be born in the midst of animals in a manger” [Isaiah 1:3, “An ox knows its owner, and an ass, its master’s manger”; among Greek manuscripts of Habakkuk 3:2 was the phrase, “Between two animals you are made manifest.”]. Whenever we look at a manger scene, the words of the Christmas Gospels come alive and we rejoice at “seeing” our Lord Jesus born in the manger at Bethlehem! The prayer of blessing asks the Lord that the manger would “remind us of the humble birth of Jesus, and raise up our thoughts to him, who is God-with-us and Savior of all.”

Generally, the manger scene is placed under or near a Christmas tree. As the Book of Blessings says, “the use of the Christmas tree is relatively modern. Its origins are found in the medieval mystery plays which depicted the tree of paradise and the Christmas light or candle which symbolized Christ, the Light of the world.” The evergreen character of the tree calls to mind Christ, who is always present among us and who is our source of unending life. The wood also recalls for us the cross, on which our salvation was won. “According to custom, the Christmas tree is set up just before Christmas and may remain in place until the solemnity of the Epiphany.”  Now, Fr. Daniel, if we could only get those lights untangled!  =)

Bonus on the names of Christmas and Santa Claus:

Where does the name of Christmas come from? As the Catholic Encyclopedia explains: The word for Christmas in late Old English is Cristes Maesse, the Mass of Christ, first found in 1038, and Cristes-messe, in 1131. In Dutch it is Kerst-misse, in Latin Dies Natalis, whence comes the French Noël, and Italian Il natale; in German Weihnachtsfest, from the preceeding sacred vigil.

How about Santa Claus? The Pocket Dictionary of Saints teaches that the name Santa Claus came from the Dutch, who contracted and abbreviated the name St. Nicholas into Sint Klaes and then Santa Claus…So there really is a connection back to good St. Nick!

Know of my prayers and blessing for this week!

In Christ,

Father Luke