Christmas for Those Bowed Down by the Fatigue of this World

At Christmas 2023 the world is frazzled by the winds of war: Ukraine, Russia, Israel, Hamas, the Culture Wars, the political wars, and even a divisive Catholic war.

December 20, 2023 by Fr. Gordon MacRae

“I have often thought it very well that Christmas should fall out in the Middle of Winter.”

— Joseph Addison (1672-1719) English poet and statesman

+ + +

Because of the limits under which I write, I had to begin to ponder this Christmas post just a few days after publishing “Thailand’s Victims of Hamas in Israel” on December 6 this year. No matter how hard I tried, I just could not make the leap from what happened to those young Thai men at the vicious hands of Hamas to find any joy in Advent hope and a Christmas spirit. I am hearing of a similar quandary from lots of readers.

Then, when the mail arrived later that same day, I picked up my copy of the December 6 edition of the National Catholic Register a very good newspaper owned by EWTN. On the front page was a large, simple, but beautiful Advent candle array with the inscription, “O Come, Divine Messiah ... .” It was very nice.

But that was all above the fold. As I flipped the paper over to see below the fold, I was assailed by the glaring headline, “Searching for Answers : Why Was Bishop Joseph Strickland Removed?” Just to the right of it on the front page was an op-ed by Fr Raymond De Souza declaring Bishop Strickland to be the former Bishop of Tyler, Texas and the current “Bishop of Twitter.”

Father De Souza ended his op-ed with a criticism that Bishop Strickland could have attended the US Bishops’ annual meeting in Baltimore even after his removal, but “preferred to pray the Rosary outside as the still-presiding Bishop of Twitter.” I was in no mood by then to make light of what happened to Bishop Strickland. The NC Register news account on the same page ended with a statement that Bishop Strickland was asked by the Apostolic Nuncio not  to attend the USCCB meeting.

This edition of the NC Register was dated December 6. The news account about Bishop Strickland continued on page 6, and the op-ed by Fr De Souza also continued on page 6. There were a lot of sixes in this story. Three, to be exact.

Then, on the heels of this, it was announced that the honorable and ever faithful Cardinal Raymond Burke was told to vacate his apartment in Rome and was stripped of his retirement income and any official position. No public reason was given, but the assumption of many is that both men were removed for being critical of Pope Francis. I am loathe to jump to such a conclusion, but in the absence of any other plausible one it is what most Catholics conclude.

On “The World Over with Raymond Arroyo” on EWTN on November 30 (replayed on December 5), the guests included the Catholic Register Vatican reporter Edward Pentin and Damien Thompson from The Spectator of London. Of interest, I quoted both men at length in my recent post, “Pell Contra Mundum: Cardinal Truths and the Synod.” On EWTN, both men drew the same conclusions that I described above. It was riveting, but profoundly sad.

This all seems embarrassingly petty next to the non-Catholic headlines running parallel to it: Russia’s imperial crushing of Ukraine, the Hamas brutality in Israel, Israel’s apocalyptic response, and the woke world’s decision to not see or speak the truth about the grotesquely inhuman physical and sexual violence Hamas has inflicted on innocent victims.

The Ukraine, Russian, Israeli and Hamas battles will not pause for Advent and Christmas while the relatively petty Catholic battles seem to have chosen Advent and Christmas for their escalation. That is difficult to get past. Can we move Christmas to mid-summer when many battlefields take a time-out from the heat? I suppose not.

But we can do the next best thing. We can pause for more than just a cursory time-out to honor the Birth of the Messiah. So we are repeating our BTSW Christmas card of past years with new inspired music videos, some thoughts on Christmas, a few links to inspiring Christmas posts, and an invitation to come together in a time of Eucharistic Adoration in the chapel of our Patron, Saint Maximilian Kolbe, who was no stranger to the winds of war.

+ + +

How December 25 Became Christmas

Father Abraham first heard God 21 centuries before a star rose above Bethlehem. We now live in the 21st century after. At the center of all things, Christ is born.

“For while gentle silence enveloped all things, and night in its swift course was now half gone, thy all-powerful Word leaped from heaven, from the royal throne, into the midst of the land that was doomed.”

— Wisdom of Solomon 18:14-15

No one really knows when or why tradition first places the Birth of Christ on December 25th, but the custom is ancient. Some theorize that it was influenced by a Roman pagan feast called Saturnalia that stretched for twelve days from the winter solstice into January. The “Twelve Days of Christmas” are thus linked by some historians to pre-Christian Roman tradition. The Persian cult of Mithra, “Sol Invictus” (the “Unconquerable Sun”) practiced by many Roman legionnaires, was also marked on December 25th, and some propose a link between that and the date for Christmas.

However the observance of Christ’s birth on December 25th is far older than the time when Christianity became respectable in the Roman Empire. The first recorded mention of December 25 as the date of observance of the Feast of the Holy Birth was in a Roman document called the Philocalian Calendar dated as early as 336 A.D. Popular observance of the December 25 date of the Nativity, however, was at least a century older.

One obscure theory points to an early Roman Empire legend that great men are fated to die on the same date they were conceived. One tradition traced the date of Passover at or near March 25 in the year Jesus of Nazareth was crucified. If thus among some Romans it became popular belief that he was conceived on that date, then nine months to the day later would be December 25. In the Roman Calendar which preceded our Gregorian Calendar, March 25 was considered the first day of the new year, and to this day it remains observed as the Feast of the Annunciation.

The Roman Martyrology also includes a solemn and far more ancient reach into Judeo-Christian Tradition. The “Proclamation of the Birth of Christ” is sometimes read at the Midnight Mass at Christmas after a procession from the entrance of a church to the Nativity scene. That proclamation places us at a special point in Salvation history. In fact, from our perspective, it places Christ at the very center of that history.

The Proclamation declares that Christ was born in the 21st century after Abraham, our Father in faith, ventured out of Ur of the Chaldees and first encountered God. We now live in the 21st century after. So we kneel before Him this Christmas season knowing that Christ is exactly equidistant between us and the very genesis of the human experience of God. It’s a realization that ought to shake us out of our political and theological divisions, out of our spiritual doldrums, out of any more mundane concerns.

Instead of quibbling over who among the alienated might be saved and how, this Christmas makes us fall on our knees, in sin and error pining, as He appears and our souls feel their worth. All divisions cease.

The Roman Martyrology Proclamation of the Birth of Christ:

The twenty-fifth day of December when ages beyond number had run their course from the creation of the world, when God in the beginning created the heavens and earth, and formed man in His own likeness; when century upon century had passed since the Almighty set his bow in the clouds after the Great Flood, as a sign of covenant and peace — In the twenty-first century since Abraham, our father in faith, came out of Ur of the Chaldees; in the thirteenth century since the people of Israel were led by Moses in the Exodus from Egypt; in the tenth century since David was anointed King; in the sixty-fifth week of the prophecy of Daniel; in the one hundred and ninety-fourth Olympiad; in the year seven hundred and fifty-two since the founding of Rome; in the forty-second year in the reign of Caesar Octavian Augustus, the whole world being at peace — Jesus Christ, eternal God and Son of the eternal Father, desiring to consecrate the world by his most loving presence, was conceived by the Holy Spirit, and when nine months had passed since His conception, was born of the Virgin Mary in Bethlehem of Judah, and was made man.

— The Nativity of our Lord Jesus Christ according to the flesh

O Come! Let us adore Him!

+ + +

Credit: Jobs for Felons Hub

Our Christmas Card from East of Eden

I am forced by circumstance to live in a place with men who are banished, not just from home and family and freedom, but too often also from hope. Some with even the darkest pasts have come into the light to thrill us with their stories of grace and true repentance and conversion. You have read of several in these pages and there are other stories yet to come. Some of these wounded men become saints, I am not fit to fasten their sandals.

We live East of Eden, a place from which the Magi of the Gospel saw a star and heard good news, the very best of news: Freedom can be found in only one place, and the way there is to follow the Star they followed. If you follow Beyond These Stone Walls, never follow me. Follow only Christ.

My Christmas card to you is this message, a tradition of sorts from behind these stone walls. My small, barred cell window faces East. It is there that I offer Mass for readers Beyond These Stone Walls. So my gaze is always toward the East, a place to which we were all once banished to wander East of Eden.

At the end of these cold and gray December days I step outside to watch toward the West as the sun descends behind towering prison walls. It reminds me of my favorite prayer,

Lead, Kindly Light, amid the encircling gloom, Lead Thou me on;
The night is dark, and I am far from home; Lead Thou me on
Keep Thou my feet; I do not ask to see
The distant scene; one step enough for me.

I was not ever thus, nor prayed that Thou shouldst lead me on;
I loved to choose and see my path, but now, Lead Thou me on.
I loved the garish day, and, spite of fears,
Pride ruled my will: Remember not past years.

So long Thy power hath blessed me, sure it still will lead me on,
O’er moor and fen, o’er crag and torrent, till the night is gone.
And with the morn those Angel faces smile,
Which I have loved long since, and lost awhile.

— Saint John Henry Newman

+ + +

Here is composer Eric Genuis with his original composition of Panis Angelicus, courtesy of Catholic TV.

+ + +

Here is the great Celine Dion with my favorite Christmas hymn, “O Holy Night.”

The Eucharistic Adoration Chapel established by Saint Maximilian Kolbe was inaugurated at the outbreak of World War II. It was restored as a Chapel of Adoration in September, 2018, the commemoration of the date that the war began. It is now part of the World Center of Prayer for Peace. The live internet feed of the Adoration Chapel at Niepokalanow — sponsored by EWTN — was established just a few weeks before we discovered it and began to include in at Beyond These Stone Walls. Click “Watch on YouTube” in the lower left corner to see how many people around the world are present there with you. The number appears below the symbol for EWTN.

Click or tap here to proceed to the Adoration Chapel.

The following is a translation from the Polish in the image above: “Eighth Star in the Crown of Mary Queen of Peace” “Chapel of Perpetual Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament at Niepokalanow. World Center of Prayer for Peace.” “On September 1, 2018, the World Center of Prayer for Peace in Niepokalanow was opened. It would be difficult to find a more expressive reference to the need for constant prayer for peace than the anniversary of the outbreak of World War II.”

For the Catholic theology behind this image, visit my post, “The Ark of the Covenant and the Mother of God.”

Lead, Kindly Light: A Christmas Card to Our Readers

Abraham first heard God 21 centuries before the Magi followed a star to Bethlehem. We now live in the 21st century after. At the center of all faith Christ is born.

December 21, 2022

Note from Fr. Gordon MacRae: Dear Readers, Some elements of our Annual BTSW Christmas Card may seem a bit familiar to you. We have used some of these elements in our posts of Christmas past. Since 1949, The Wall Street Journal has published as its top editorial each Christmas Eve an outstanding piece of writing from the late Vermont C. Royster, the WSJ’s former Editorial Page Editor. His yearly repeated Christmas essay is “In Hoc Anno Domini,” (In this year of the Lord). It is one of the finest examples of historical Christian writing I have encountered, and one of the most faith-filled. Mr. Royster was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom and was a two-time recipient of the Pulitzer Prize. So at the expense of sounding a bit pretentious, if The Wall Street Journal can get away with publishing an annual Christmas gem, then so can I.

I begin our Christmas Card this year with Vermont C. Royster and his “In Hoc Anno Domini.”

When Saul of Tarsus set out on his journey to Damascus the whole of the known world lay in bondage. There was one state, and it was Rome. There was one master for it all, and he was Tiberius Caesar.

Everywhere there was civil order, for the arm of the Roman law was long. Everywhere there was stability, in government and in society, for the centurions saw that it was so.

But everywhere there was something else, too. There was oppression — for those who were not the friends of Tiberius Caesar. There was the tax gatherer to take the grain from the fields and the flax from the spindle to feed the legions or to fill the hungry treasury from which divine Caesar gave largess to the people. There was the impressor to find recruits for the circuses. There were executioners to quiet those whom the Emperor proscribed. What was a man for but to serve Caesar?

There was the persecution of men who dared think differently, who heard strange voices or read strange manuscripts. There was enslavement of men whose tribes came not from Rome, disdain for those who did not have the familiar visage. And most of all, there was everywhere a contempt for human life. What, to the strong, was one man more or less in a crowded world?

Then, of a sudden, there was a light in the world, and a man from Galilee saying, Render unto Caesar the things which are Caesar’s and unto God the things that are God’s.

And the voice from Galilee, which would defy Caesar, offered a new Kingdom in which each man could walk upright and bow to none but his God. Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me. And he sent this gospel of the Kingdom of Man into the uttermost ends of the earth.

So the light came into the world and the men who lived in darkness were afraid, and they tried to lower a curtain so that man would still believe salvation lay with the leaders.

But it came to pass for a while in divers places that the truth did set man free, although the men of darkness were offended and they tried to put out the light. The voice said, Haste ye. Walk while you have the light, lest darkness come upon you, for he that walketh in darkness knoweth not whither he goeth.

Along the road to Damascus the light shone brightly. But afterward Paul of Tarsus, too, was sore afraid. He feared that other Caesars, other prophets, might one day persuade men that man was nothing save a servant unto them, that men might yield up their birthright from God for pottage and walk no more in freedom.

Then might it come to pass that darkness would settle again over the lands and there would be a burning of books and men would think only of what they should eat and what they should wear, and would give heed only to new Caesars and to false prophets. Then might it come to pass that men would not look upward to see even a winter's star in the East, and once more, there would be no light at all in the darkness.

Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ has made us free and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage.

— Vermont C. Royster, The Wall Street Journal, December 24, 1949

+ + +

The liturgies of Christmas set out in the Roman Missal and Lectionary express the spirituality of the entire ecclesial body of the baptized into the Life, Death, and Resurrection of Jesus Christ, our communal past and hopeful future.

The Mass at Night for the Christmas Vigil begins with a moving recitation of the Roman Martyrology which places the Birth of the Messiah into a real historical context:

The twenty-fifth day of December when ages beyond number had run their course from the creation of the world, when God in the beginning created heaven and earth, and formed man in His own likeness; when century upon century had passed since the Almighty set his bow in the clouds after the Great Flood, as a sign of covenant and peace — In the twenty-first century since Abraham, our father in faith, came out of Ur of the Chaldees; in the thirteenth century since the people of Israel were led by Moses in the Exodus from Egypt; in the tenth century since David was anointed King; in the sixty-fifth week of the prophecy of Daniel; in the one hundred and ninety-fourth Olympiad; in the year seven hundred and fifty-two since the founding of Rome; in the forty-second year in the reign of Caesar Octavian Augustus, the whole world being at peace

— Jesus Christ, eternal God and Son of the eternal Father,

desiring to consecrate the world by his most loving presence, was conceived by the Holy Spirit, and when nine months had passed since His conception, was born of the Virgin Mary in Bethlehem of Judah, and

was made man.

— The Nativity of our Lord Jesus Christ according to the flesh

+ + +

I am forced by circumstance to live in a place with men who are banished, not just from home and family and freedom, but too often also from hope. Some with even the darkest pasts have come into the light to thrill us with their stories of grace and true repentance and conversion. You have read of several in these pages and there are other stories yet to come. Some of these wounded men become saints, I am not fit to fasten their sandals. We live East of Eden, most justly so, but some not.

The Magi of the Gospel saw a star and heard good news, the very best of news: Freedom can be found in only one place, and the way there is to follow the Star they followed. If you follow Beyond These Stone Walls, never follow me. Follow only Christ.

My Christmas Card to you is this message, a tradition of sorts for Beyond These Stone Walls. My small, barred cell window faces East. It is there that I offer Mass for our readers. So my gaze is always toward the East, a place to which we were all once banished to wander East of Eden.

At the end of these cold and gray December days I step outside to watch toward the West as the sun descends behind towering prison walls. It reminds me of my favorite prayer,

Lead, Kindly Light, amid the encircling gloom, Lead Thou me on;

The night is dark, and I am far from home; Lead Thou me on.

Keep Thou my feet; I do not ask to see

The distant scene; one step enough for me.

I was not ever thus, nor prayed that Thou shouldst lead me on;

I loved to choose and see my path, but now, Lead Thou me on.

I loved the garish day, and, spite of fears,

Pride ruled my will; Remember not past years.

So long Thy power hath blessed me, sure it still will lead me on,

O’er moor and fen, o’er crag and torrent, till the night is gone.

And with the morn those Angel faces smile,

Which I have loved long since, and lost awhile.

— Saint John Henry Newman

This moving prayer by Saint John Henry Newman has been set to music as a tribute to Saint John Paul II:

+ + +

My favorite Christmas hymn, “O Holy Night,” was originally based on a French poem entitled Cantique de Noël by Placide Cappeau in 1843. Composer Adolphe Adam set it to music in 1847. The English version (with small changes to the initial melody) is by John Sullivan Dwight. The hymn reflects on the birth of Jesus as humanity’s redemption.

This wonderful hymn has been performed by many noted vocalists over the last two centuries. Few have performed it with more beauty and heartfelt faith than Celine Dion. Celine today suffers from a neurological disorder that may inhibit her voice. Please offer a prayer for her. Celine Dion’s beautiful voice should be long remembered for her rendition of this most beautiful of Christmas hymns.

+ + +

Some of our Readers around the world live in difficult circumstances. There are many who come to this site from Ukraine besieged by war over the last year. Many others have lost loved ones and are now besieged by loneliness. I drafted this Christmas message as a place where perhaps we could all meet for a time in this Christmas Season. One of our Patron Saints, Saint Maximilian Kolbe, founded a religious site in his native Poland called Niepokalanowa. Today the Chapel has a real-time live feed for a most beautiful adoration chapel where people around the world can spend time in Eucharistic Adoration. We invite you to come and spend some quiet time this Christmas celebrating the rebirth of the Messiah in your own life.

As you can see the monstrance for Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament is most unusual. It is an irony that all of you can see it but I cannot. So please remember me while you are there. For an understanding of the theology behind this particular monstrance of the Immaculata, see my post “The Ark of the Covenant and the Mother of God.”

+ + +

Note from Father Gordon MacRae:

Blessings to you all during this joyous Christmas Season. We are living in darker times, and this Christmas is like no other, but we are children of the Light and we are promised that the darkness will never overcome it. May God Bless you and keep you safe. Feliz Navidad!

+ + +

Please also visit our Special Events page.