December 24, 2018
MY CORNER by Boyd
Cathey
CHRISTMAS
GREETINGS…and A Little History
Friends,
On this day, Christmas Eve of the Year 2018, I take the opportunity
to wish each of you and yours a most Blessed and Joyous Feast of Christmas! May
Our Lord bless you and anneal you in His graces.
We have all thought fleetingly, I suppose, about the origin of name
“Christmas” at one time or another, and we know that it comes from the
conjunction of two words: “Christ” and “Mass,” that is, “Christ’s Mass,” the
liturgy celebrated in His honor, commemorating His birth in the historic
Christian calendar.
The Wikipedia, following various histories, sums up well
how the name came to be in popular usage.
"Christmas"
is a shortened form of "Christ's mass". It is derived from the Middle English Cristemasse, which is
from Old English Crīstesmæsse, a phrase first recorded in 1038, followed by the word Cristes-messe in
1131. Crīst (genitive Crīstes) is from
Greek Khrīstos (Χριστός), a translation of Hebrew Māšîaḥ (מָשִׁיחַ), "Messiah", meaning
"anointed"; and mæsse is from Latin missa,
the celebration of the Eucharist.
The form Christenmas was
also historically used, but is now considered archaic and dialectal; it
derives from Middle English Cristenmasse, literally "Christian
mass". Xmas is an abbreviation of Christmas found
particularly in print, based on the initial letter chi (Χ) in Greek Khrīstos (Χριστός),
"Christ", though numerous style guides discourage its use;[37] it has precedent in Middle
English Χρ̄es masse (where
"Χρ̄" is an
abbreviation for Χριστός).[36]
In addition to
"Christmas", the holiday has been known by various other names
throughout its history. The Anglo-Saxons referred to the feast as
"midwinter", or, more rarely, as Nātiuiteð (from Latin nātīvitās). "Nativity", meaning "birth",
is from Latin nātīvitās. In Old English, Gēola (Yule) referred to the period
corresponding to December and January, which was eventually equated with
Christian Christmas. "Noel" (or "Nowel") entered
English in the late 14th century and is from the Old French noël or naël,
itself ultimately from the Latin nātālis (diēs)meaning "birth
(day)."
It is fascinating to note that in 1659 the Puritans in control of
the Massachusetts Bay Colony actually banned Christmas and the festivities
surrounding it which they considered, in their Iconoclastic and heretical way, to
be an affront to God:
“For preventing disorders arising in several places within
this jurisdiction, by reason of some still observing such festivals as were
superstitiously kept in other countries, to the great dishonor of God and
offence of others, it is therefore ordered by this Court and the authority
thereof, that whosoever shall be found observing any such day as Christmas or
the like, either by forbearing of labor, feasting, or any other way, upon such
accountants as aforesaid, every person so offending shall pay of every such
offence five shillings, as a fine to the county.” [ https://newengland.com/today/living/new-england-history/how-the-puritans-banned-christmas/]
For those zealots, Christmas
was a distraction, a pagan celebration that smacked of the feared Catholic and
Anglican traditions. Too much celebration, too much joy took away from their practical
and stern Gnosticism. Indeed, by so doing they actually cut themselves off from living Christian tradition and the inheritance of 1500 years of
Christian faith.
As various distinguished historians
and authors such as Perry Miller and Paul Conkin have detailed, the Puritans of
Massachusetts begat in third and fourth generations a degenerative vision of
humanity that maintained the same frenzied zealotry and framework of the
original Yankee Puritans, but had evolved into philosophical Transcendentalism
and religious Universalism, and later such fanatical aberrations as
Abolitionism and Women’s Suffrage. Without the firm anchor and foundation of
tradition, “faith” became little more than a social philosophy advocating for
change here on earth. In social reform and human progress would Salvation be
found.
And we have seen in our own
time the continued expression, the result of this philosophy. For today it is
the same descendants of those Puritans, now vested in all the gross finery of
Progressivist thought, who advance the latest cause for gender equality, same
sex marriage, transgenderism…the same descendants and their allies who denounce
anyone who challenges the new template on race as “racist”…and who with
unleashed passion demand that the “new Gospel” of American-style secular
democracy and equality be imposed on the rest of the world. There lies
salvation for them.
So, tonight as we begin to
celebrate the Feast of Christmas, by that very act we defy and denounce those
Puritans and their progeny. In the
liturgy for Christmas Eve, we sing:
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“Let the heavens rejoice, and let the earth be glad before
the face of the Lord: because He cometh.”
A blessed and joyous Christmas to you all and to your
families!
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