The Feast of St Nicholas, BC, IIIrd Class
Today is the Feast of St Nicholas. "Hurrah!" as my children would have said when they were younger. They got a gift on his Feast, their regular presents on Christmas morning (they got to open one after Midnight Mass, but I never got to sleep in on Christmas morning!) and another small gift on the Feast of the Three Kings. The whole idea of gift giving at Christmas seems to actually have come from these two Feasts. Of course, there is evidence that as a liturgical celebration, the Epiphany is older than Christmas, so in a way, it was just a transfer.The Collect from the Roman Breviary:
O God, who didst adorn thy blessed Bishop Nicholas, with power to work many and great miracles : grant, we beseech thee ; that by his prayers and merits we may be delivered from the fires of everlasting torment. Through.
The Proper Lessons may be found here.
The article on him from the Catholic Encyclopædia.
From the Golden Legend of Bl. Jacobus Voragine.
From Tradition in Action.
From the Lives of the Saints, by Fr Alban Butler.
From Catholic Forum
(with other links).
From Medieval Saints at Yahoo!.
An Orthodox view from the Orthodox Church in America.
And the article from Medieval Saints at Yahoo! on the fun that was had by all at the Festival of the Boy Bishop, held on this day during the High Ages of Faith.
posted by Jovan-Marya Weismiller, T.O.Carm. @ 22:59
1 Comments:
This Comment is actually from a reader, but we had some problem, so I'm posting a copy of his email!
Christmas is the best and most colorful of the Christian festivals. The story of St. Nicholas has played a huge part in the development of this remarkable feast.
But Christmas is under attack; under the threat of deconstructionism from the Protestants. This article "Should a Christian celebrate Christmas" has appeared on many a Protestant website.
Spengler is a moniker for an Asian Times Columnist who has said something perceptive about the nature of America. He writes that the Soviets, an society built on "reason" was defeated in a country run on Traditionalism; i.e. Afghanistan.
The same failure awaits America in Iraqi in that America is an anti-traditional country;
It is not what the United States does that threatens Islam, but rather what the United States is: a global avalanche of creative destruction that rips apart the bindings of traditional life. The US has offered a world in which traditional society has no place.
What is one of the central features of Protestantism? Anti-Traditionalism. That is a central feature of Protestantism and hence a feature of America since it is a Protestant cultural country.
Anti-traditionalism is Nihilism as Fr. Seraphim Rose has pointed out. Nihilism is the destruction of the Old Order. Protestantism seeks the destruction of the Old Order of Christianity by destroying the clergy and by destroying the Indo-European Order of Priests, Warriors, Workers; Of Royalty, Aristocracy, Commons.
This article about the deconstruction of Christmas is just another example. The early church passed several canons anathemitizing anyone who sought to Judiaze the Faith.
Christianity is an Indo-European Religion, not a Semitic religion. This article has rightly pointed out on all the Indo-European customs in Christianity. They are not so much "pagan" but customs of us Indo-Europeans. Apostolic Christianity is based on Tradition and so therefore brought in and Christianized the customs of the people it evangelized.
Christianity developed over a long period of time. Protestantism came on the scene only recently...it hasn't been there nor developed Christianity and so does not understand this process of the Holy Spirit. Christianity adopted the customs of the Indo-Europeans. What this article wants to do is to semitize the Christian faith and sanitize it of any Indo-European flavor or character.
The facets of the Christmas celebration is exactly the tradition of Europe. The traditions of Christian Indo-Europeans for when they converted to the faith of Christ applied their traditions to their new God in Jesus Christ.
I hope that that the above article can be seen as what it is, the semitizing of the Christian Faith and needs to be rejected wholeheartedly.
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