Why the secular Christmas is so rubbish
It's not because they leave the Baby out of the picture, because often he is included.
It’s not because they leave the Baby out of the picture, because often he is included.
(WM Review) – Christmas is a season of bloodshed. Immediately after the feast of the Nativity itself, the Church begins commemorating martyrdoms, starting with St Stephen, as if to insist that the mystery of Bethlehem cannot be separated from the mystery of Calvary.
After St Stephen, we are met with St John the Evangelist (who was a martyr in will but not in actuality, being miraculously preserved from death), the Holy Innocents, and St Thomas Becket – with the Octave finishing with the feast of the Circumcision, when the Precious Blood was first shed.
Further, everything about Christmas points towards the Passion.
Christmas points towards the Passion
We celebrate the birth of Christ because he was born to be our Redeemer. He came into the world in order to suffer, to consummate the Passion on Good Friday, and to die. He assumed our human nature and was born precisely so that he might offer himself as a sacrifice, for the glory of God and the redemption of Man.
But before he was rejected by the Jews, he was rejected by Bethlehem – at least in the sense of there being no more dignified place than a stable for his parents, and for his birth.
The stable is not merely a charming or sentimental image. It is the result of Christ’s abasement, and his acceptance of poverty and humiliation – all of which reached their culmination in the Passion.
Bethlehem itself points towards the beginning of the Passion at the Last Supper, in that the name of the town means “House of Bread.”
Before the wood of the Cross, there was the wood of the manger – a food trough for animals – which further emphasises the idea of Christ giving himself to us as our food.
We are indeed like animals, having degraded ourselves through sin – but the ox and the ass between which Christ was laid also point towards the two thieves with whom he was crucified. The tract in the Good Friday Mass of the Pre-sanctified conveys this double sense:
“In the midst of two animals Thou shalt be made known.”
This Baby is therefore not simply a beautiful child, but the Lamb of God, already marked out for sacrifice. Christmas derives its true meaning from this reality.
But this is not all.
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