The Catholic bulletin. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1911-1995, 1915-12-18
THE DAY OF THE NATIVITY

THE FOURTH CENTURY-THE
ADVENT SEASON - SIGNIFI-
CANOE OF CHRISTMAS DAY.
It was not until the fourth century
that the Churches of the East began
to keep the feast of our SaYior's birth
in the month of December. Up to
that period they had kept it, at one
time on the sixth OF January, thus
uniting it, under the generic term of
Epiphany, with the manifestation Of
our Savior made to the Magi, and in
them, to the GentiIes; at another
time, as Clement of Alexandria tells
us; they kept it on the tWenty-fifth
of tie month Pachon (May 15), or on
the twenty-ffth of the month Phar-
muth april 20).
st. John ChrysOstom, in a Homily
which he gave in 1856, tells us that the
Roman custom of celebrating the
birth of our Savior on the twenty-fifth
of December had then only been OBJ
served ten years in the Church of An
tioch. 1t is probable that this change
had been introduced in obedience to
the wishes of the Apostolic See,
wishes which received additional
weight by the edict of the Emperors
Theodosius and Valentinian, which
appears towards the close of the
fourth century, and decreed that the
Nativity and the Epiphany should be
made two distinct feasts. The only
Church that has maintained the Gus
tom of celebrating the two mysteries
| on January 6, is that of Armenia, ow-
ing, no doubt, to the Circumstance of
that country's not being put under the
authority of the emperors; as also,
because it was withdrawn, at an early
period, from the influence of Rome, by
schism and hereSy.
Everything is mystery in this holy
season. The Word of God, Whose
generation is before the day star, is
borne in time-a Child is Coda Vir-
gin becomes mother, and remains a
Virgin-things divine are commingled
with those that are Humankind the
| sublime, the ineffable, antithesis, eX.
pressed by the beloved disciple in
those words Of his gospel: "The
Word was made Flesh" is repeated in
a thousand different ways in all the
! prayers of the Church-and rightly
| for it admirably embodies the whole
| of the great portent, which unites in
one Person the nature of man and the
| nature of God.
The four weeks of preparation are
| over-they were the image of the -four
thousand years which preceded the
| great coming-and we have reached
| the twenty-fifth day of December, as a
long desired place of sweetest rest
But why is it that the celebration oil
our Savior's birth should be the per
petual privilege of this one fixed day
while the whole liturgical cycle has
every year to be changed and remod
eled in order to yield that ever vary
| ing day which is the feast of His res
direction? The question is a very
natural one, and we find it proposed
and answered even as far back as the
fourth century; and that, too, by St
Augustine in his celebrated epistle tc
Januarius. The Holy Doctor offers
this explanation: eve solemnize the
day of our Savior's birth in order
that we may honor that birth which
was for our salvation; but the pre-
else day of the week on which He was
born is void of any mystical signif
canoe. Sunday, on the contrary, the
day of our Lords resurrection, is the
day marked in the Creators designs
to express a mystery which was to be
commemorated for all ages
The early Christian writer's OBJ
served that as, according to a sacred
| tradition, the creation of man took
place on Friday, and our Savior suf
fered death also on Friday, for the re
demption of man; that as, moreover
the resurrection of our Lord was or
| the third day after His death, that is
on Sunday, which is the day on which
the light was created, as we learn
| from the Book of Genesis, hence these
two solemnities of our Lords Passion
and Resurrection not only remind us
of these divine facts, but they more
over represent and signify mysterious
and holy things.
And yet we are not to suppose that
| because the feast of our Savior's
birth is not fixed for any particular
day of the week, there is no mystery
expressed by it's being always on the
twenty-fifth of December. For in the
/ first place, the feast of Christmas is
kept by turns on each day of the week
to express that it's holiness extends tC
all the sins of Adams children fol
whose pardon the Son of God was
born. Moreover, the great mystery Of
the twenty-fifth of December being
the feast of the Nativity has refer
ence, not to the division of time
marked out by God Himself, which il
called the week, but to the course Of
that great luminary which gives life
to the world because it gives it ligh
and warmth. Jesus, our Savior, the
Light of the World, was born whe1
the night of idolatory and crime wa!
the darkest; and the day of His birth
the twenty-fifth of December, is tha
on which the material sun begins tt
gain an ascendency over the reign o
gloomy night, and shows to the worlC
the triumph of his brightness.
~RR@RN-RR ~ HrR ~