Catholic Church

By Jackie and Bobby, Ascension Presents - The party starts now and keeps going until the Baptism of the Lord because Christmas is a season! So be counter-cultural and keep your decorations up, at least until January 13. There are so many feasts during the Christmas Season: St. Stephen, St. John the Evangelist, Mary Mother of God, the Epiphany. Why stop celebrating once the presents are given? The Church wants us to continue our celebration through the new year. So keep singing those songs, because Christmas is all about God becoming flesh and that’s too big a deal to be done with rejoicing after just one day.

By St. Augustine of Hippo  (354-430) ), The Catholic Thing - Arouse yourself, O man; for you God has become man. “Awake, sleeper, and arise from among the dead, and Christ will enlighten thee.”  For you, I repeat, God has become man.  If He had not thus been born in time, you would have been dead for all eternity. Never would you have been freed from sinful flesh, if He had not taken upon Himself the likeness of sinful flesh.

By Philip Kosloski, Aleteia - It can be a little confusing. In secular society, Christmas is celebrated around the time of Halloween up until Christmas Day. On the day after Christmas all the decorations are put away and Christmas trees are put on the curb... The USCCB explains how, “The liturgical season of Christmas begins with the vigil Masses on Christmas Eve and concludes on the Feast of the Baptism of the Lord. During this season, we celebrate the birth of Christ into our world and into our hearts, and reflect on the gift of salvation that is born with him…including the fact that he was born to die for us.”

By Msgr. Charles Pope - So, it was fitting that Christ should be born of a woman, Mary, so as not to lose the natural in the supernatural, to show that both the natural (because He is true man) and the supernatural (because He is true God) should balance and complete each other.