“Did you have a nice Christmas?”

It’s a question I seem to get a lot, starting December 26th. My usual response is that I am having a very nice Christmas. In fact I am writing this on the 6th day of Christmas, only halfway through the 12 days from the 25th of December to the 6th of January, which you may remember is the original big day for celebrating at this time of year. And it seems that may be partly due to the reality that the practice of celebrating people’s birthdays is only a few hundred years old.  For most of our history it was common for Christians to celebrate the feast day of the saint a person was named for. Which for Jesus would have been Joshua, whose feast is September 1st. The celebration of Jesus coming into the world centered on his being made manifest to humanity in three ways: the coming of the magi to Bethlehem, His baptism in the Jordan by John, and the changing of water into wine at the wedding feast of Cana. All three of those were celebrated on the feast of Epiphany. As a more full celebration of that coming of Christ developed, we started beginning the days of celebration starting with celebrating his birth and stretching them until the Sunday after Epiphany celebrating Christ’s baptism. So let us celebrate the many holy days of Christmas, for it is indeed a mystery much too huge to fit into any one day.

-Fr Lou