Question: What are the 12 days of Christmas?
 
We all know the famous song about the 12 Days of Christmas, and the better one about the 12 Yats of Christmas, but what are the 12 days of Christmas? Early in the Church there were disagreements about the date of Jesus’ birth. Some believed it was in March, some during June or July, but most people settled on either December 25 or January 6. Therefore, both of these days became important feast days related to the birth of Christ. On December 25 we celebrate Christmas and on January 6 we celebrate Epiphany, which is the revelation, or making known, of the birth of Christ by the Magi. Since there are 12 days in between Christmas and Epiphany, with Epiphany being on the 13th day, we traditionally celebrate Christmas for all 12 of those days. Therefore, the 12 days of Christmas don’t end on December 25, they begin on December 25.
 
Question: Who were the Magi?
 
In the second chapter of the Gospel of Matthew we read about people who visit Jesus after he was born. The Bible calls them magoi, singular magos, which we normally translate as wise men. It doesn’t call them kings, like in the popular song “We Three Kings,” but that idea might have started because of the expensive gifts that they bring, gold, frankincense, and myrrh. Similarly, we normally think of three wise men, or three kings, but the Bible doesn’t say that there were three of them, only that they brought three gifts. The Bible says that they came from the east, but it doesn’t specify exactly where they came from. The Magi originally referred to a group in Persia, where Turkey is located now, who performed religious rites and rituals in the Persian religion  as well as practicing astronomy and astrology, which would explain how they saw the star and knew what it meant. This makes a good case for Persia, but the word “magi” was used for similar people in other areas as well, so we can’t be sure exactly where they came from. What we do know is that the coming of the magi to worship Jesus was a sign that people from other gentile nations would also recognize Jesus and come to worship God as well.
 
Question: Since Christmas isn’t in the Bible, why do we celebrate it?
 
Even though we don’t know for sure when Jesus was born, we celebrate his birth on December 25 because it’s good to set aside special dates to celebrate important things, and the birth of Jesus Christ is one of the most important things that have ever happened in human history. The idea of celebrating important things at a certain time comes from our Jewish heritage. In the book of Leviticus in the Old Testament, the Lord gives Israel certain times to celebrate special feast days to remember the Passover and other events that show God’s love and care for them. We still celebrate Passover and Pentecost, which were originally Jewish, Old Testament feasts, but we celebrate them in the Christian context. Therefore, it made sense to most of the early Christians to choose a date to celebrate the birth of Jesus as well. So, Christmas may not be specifically in the Bible, but it is inspired by a Biblical world view and fully supported by the Church.
 
Question: Is Christmas based on a pagan festival?
 
You may have heard that Christmas is just a Christian version of the Roman pagan festival of the Unconquerable Sun, Sol Invictus, or Saturnalia, which celebrated the god Saturn, but this is not supported by good historical research. Saturnalia was celebrated on December 17, and later extended until December 23, but it was over before December 25, so there doesn’t seem to be any connection. As for Sol Invictus, the first reference we have to the birth of Jesus being on December 25 is by St. Hippolytus of Rome writing around the year 204 AD. However, the first reference we have to the feast of Sol Invictus being on December 25 is in a work called the Chronography of A.D. 354, which was written nearly 150 years after the first reference to December 25 as the birth of Christ. In fact, the cult of Sol Invictus doesn’t seem to have been very popular in Rome until the reign of Aurelius from 270-275 AD, also after the above date. However, even if it does turn out to be true, it would do nothing to undermine the Christian faith in Jesus as the true Son of God and Light of the world.
 
Once a month I’ll write an article answering a question from a parishioner on the Church, the Mass and sacraments, the Bible, the Blessed Virgin Mary and the Saints, spiritual theology, or anything related to Christianity. Either write your question down and put it in the collection basket, or email me at [email protected]. ​

​Question: Where did Advent come from?
 
We have evidence of the time before Christmas being a particular time of spiritual preparation dating back to the Council of Saragossa in 380 AD. By the end of the sixth century the season began to take shape as a time of fasting and prayer in preparation for the celebration of Christmas. Pope St. Gregory the Great established the time of Advent in the form we still use today, fixing it at four weeks and composing prayers and antiphons to be used specifically during this time.
 
Question: Why do you wear pink on the third week of Advent?
 
There are various liturgical colors for different seasons and celebrations during the year, but the color pink (technically “rose”) is only used twice during the year, and one of those times is during Advent. The third Sunday of Advent is known as Gaudete Sunday, which means Rejoice Sunday. It comes from the first prayer of that Mass, “Gaudete in Domino semper. Rejoice in the Lord always,” which is a direct quote from St. Paul’s Letter to the Philippians chapter 4, verse 4. The idea is that we are supposed to rejoice at being close the celebration of Christmas. The color pink symbolizes this joy because it is a lighter color than purple, which represents repentance, but not the full gold of Christmas. We rejoice, but we’re still in a mode of repentance.
 
Question: What are we supposed to do during Advent?
 
Remember that Advent is supposed to be a time of spiritual preparation for Christmas, and we prepare through prayer, fasting, and almsgiving. You can pray during Advent by reading the Infancy Narratives in the Gospels (Matthew 1-2 and Luke 1:1-2:40) and considering what the birth of the Son of God means for the world and for you. Another tradition Advent prayer is the “O Antiphons,” which should be familiar because of the song, “O Come, O Come Emmanuel.” 
 
You can fast by abstaining from meat, or some other food, on Fridays of Advent, which the Church asks us to do in Canon 1251 of the Code of Canon Law, “Abstinence from mean, or from some other food as determined by the Episcopal Conference, is to be observed on all Fridays, unless a solemnity should fall on a Friday. Abstinence and fasting are to be observed on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday.” This is binding on all Catholics who are at least 14 years old.
 
You can give alms by donating to Church, to the St. Anthony box, or to other charities. We say that Christmas is the season of giving, as God gave us His greatest gift at Christmas, His Son, but we can start giving already during Advent.

ANNOUNCEMENT: Once a month I’ll write an article answering a question from a parishioner on the Church, the Mass and sacraments, the Bible, the Blessed Virgin Mary and the Saints, spiritual theology, or anything related to Christianity. Either write your question down and put it in the collection basket, or email me at [email protected]. ​

Question: Who Made God?
 
Answer: The above question came from one of our second graders in the Parish School of Religion and was asked while I was visiting the classes last Tuesday evening. There was a follow up question from another student, “How does God create?” These are good and profound questions, and can lead us to better understand the nature of God. 
          The short answer is that no one made God because He has always existed. God is eternal, without beginning or end. The long answer begins with looking at the world around us. In our experience we know that everything has a beginning and that everything is eventually destroyed. Someone made the computer I’m typing this on and the paper that it’s printed on; likewise, the tree that paper came from grew from a seed that came from another tree, and so on for everything. Logically, we know that this can’t go on forever, into eternity. There has to be something outside of this chain of causes, which isn’t explained by something else but which explains its own existence. 
          Have you ever set up a chain of dominoes and then knocked them over? The dominoes represent the universe and the person represents God. God sets up the dominoes and then starts the whole chain, but He isn’t simply another part of the chain, He’s present at every part of it. Another way to think of it is like a library. When you go to the library to borrow a book, if they don’t have the book they can borrow it from another library. What if that library doesn’t have the book? Then they could borrow it from another library, and that library from another, and so on. However, unless someone actually has the book, then you’re never going to get it. In a similar way, we receive our existence from others, and they received their existence from others, and so one, but there has to be someone who simply is and possesses existence in themselves. Therefore, God reveals Himself to Moses as, “I AM WHO AM” (Exodus 3:14),  and St. Paul said, “For in Him we live, and move, and exist” (Acts of the Apostles 17:28). God is the One who IS, and He is the cause of our existence. In the Catholic Tradition St. Thomas Aquinas described God as Ipsum Esse Subsistens, or Subsistent Being Itself, because God’s very nature is to exist while His creation (everything besides God) could not exist. 
          There’s a joke about a scientist who told God that we don’t need Him anymore, because we can even make life through our scientific knowledge. So God invited the scientist to go ahead and show Him what he could do. The scientist then reached down to gather some clay to form into a person, but God stopped him, saying, “Get your own clay.” When we make something, a painting, or a chair, or a garden, we make it out of stuff that already exists. We make a painting with a canvas and paint, a chair from wood, wicker, or plastic, and a garden from seeds or saplings. God is capable of making things in this way, but He can also create things directly, from nothing. God can both give something existence and give it form. 
          This particular bulletin article might not be interesting to everyone, but I hope it will be to some people, and I hope I’ve done justice to these ideas and explained them well. I also hope that we can all respond with gratitude for the sheer gift of existence, which can come from God alone.

ANNOUNCEMENT: Once a month I’ll write an article answering a question from a parishioner on the Church, the Mass and sacraments, the Bible, the Blessed Virgin Mary and the Saints, spiritual theology, or anything related to Christianity. Either write your question down and put it in the collection basket, or email me at [email protected]. 

Question: Is making the sign of the Cross an act of prayer?
 
Answer:          This was more of a recommendation for an article than an actual question, but let’s take the opportunity to reflect on the Sign of the Cross. We make the Sign of the Cross when we enter and exit Church, when we cross in front of a Church, at the beginning an end of prayer, and probably more times that I’m forgetting. Making the Sign of the Cross reminds us that we’re in the presence of God, calls to mind the central mysteries of the faith, and prepares us to pray. In fact, it is itself a prayer and something that we shouldn’t just take for granted. 
            The three central mysteries of the faith are the Holy Trinity, the Incarnation, and the Paschal Mystery, and all three of them are called to mind when we make the Sign of the Cross. We literally sign our bodies with the Cross. The Cross is the instrument through which the Lord offered His life to the Father for our salvation, and so the Cross has come to represent our salvation through the death and Resurrection of the Lord. Signing ourselves with the Cross shows that we belong to Christ. In the Rite of Baptism the priests, parents, and godparents sign the infant on the forehead with the sign of the Cross as the priest says, “N., the Church of God receives you with great joy. In her name I sign you with the Sign of the Cross of Christ our Savior.” Likewise, bearing the Cross is the sign of a follower of Christ, as the Lord said, “Whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me (Mk 8:34).”
            The Cross of Christ also points to another great mystery of faith, the Incarnation. The Lord was only able to take up His Cross and be nailed to it because He had already taken on a human nature. In Himself, God is impassable, meaning unable to suffer, because He is pure existence in Himself. In the Incarnation the Son of God, coequal with God, took on a human nature without ceasing to be God. The person of Jesus Christ is both God and man; as man He is able to suffer the death of the Cross, and as God He was able to transcent the grave. As man He was able to offer atonement for our sins, and as God He is able to make the perfect offering of Himself. As St. Paul wrote, “Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not consider equality with God something to be seized. Instead, he emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being made in the likeness of man, and accepting the state of a man. He humbled himself, becoming obedient even unto death (Phil 2:5-8).”
            Every time we make the Sign of the Cross we invoke the Most Holy Trinity, showing that we are speaking and acting “in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.” We call on God Himself and recognize that God is three person united in one Divine Nature. The Sign of the Cross shows that the three great mysteries of the faith, the Trinity, the Incarnation, and the Paschal Mystery of Christ’s death and Resurrection, are all united in the one Mystery of the Faith. When you make the Sign of the Cross and call upon the Holy Trinity bring all of this to mind. Thank the Lord for the gift of salvation through His death and Resurrection, praise the Lord for His awesome Incarnation, and life your thoughts to God Himself.
 
ANNOUNCEMENT: Once a month I’ll write an article answering a question from a parishioner on the Church, the Mass and sacraments, the Bible, the Blessed Virgin Mary and the Saints, spiritual theology, or anything related to Christianity. Either write your question down and put it in the collection basket, or email me at [email protected]. ​

​Question: Where did the Rosary come from?
 
Answer:        The Rosary is perhaps the most common prayer of the Catholic faithful throughout the entire world, and the daily Rosary and family Rosary are recommended as among the most salutary prayers for growth in holiness. If you pray the Rosary, you’ve probably noticed how difficult it is to form a habit of praying the Rosary every day, and to truly meditate on the prayers when you do pray it. As a friend of mine from seminary, now Fr. Travis Burnett, said, “The Rosary is so difficult to pray because it’s so powerful. The devil doesn’t want us praying it.”
            The Rosary was originally connected with the Psalter, the book of Psalms in the Old Testament. The ancient Jewish practice of praying the psalms was retained by the early Christians, and was eventually taken up by the monastic communities, especially the Benedictines. They would pray all 150 psalms in a daily or weekly cycle. This practice spread and is now mandatory for all priests and religious. The Laity, however, often couldn’t participate as they usually didn’t have a copy of the Bible (which were copied by hand and extremely expensive) and may not have been able to read anyway. So, even early in Church history people starting reciting 150 Hail Mary’s or Our Father’s every day, which was known as the Angelic Psalter, like the Davidic Psalter in the Bible. 
            During the Middle Ages, between the 12th and 15th centuries, this practice developed into the modern Rosary. There were several different forms of praying it and many different collections of mysteries. It was probably during this time that it gained the name “The Rosary.” Roses were connected with the Blessed Mother, and the main prayer of the Rosary became the Hail Mary, which were said to be as roses given to the Blessed Mother as each one was prayed. The Rosary was preached and promoted during this time as a way to learn and promote the faith, to ward of heresy, and to grow in the spiritual life. St. Dominic, famously, is said to have had a vision of the Blessed Mother while he was preaching against the Albegensian and Cathar heresies in southern France and Spain. It was latter preached also by Blessed Alan de la Roche in the 15th century for the conversion of sinners. In the 16th century it began gaining popularity in Eastern Europe after the Muslims conquered Constantinople in 1453 and began their invasions of Hungary and the Balkans.
            In 1570, the Ottoman Turks invaded the island of Cyprus to take it from the Republic of Venice, who were the main power holding them in check in the Mediterranean Sea. They appealed to the Holy Father, Pope St. Pius V, for help, and he organized an alliance of Catholic states, including Spain, Portugal, Venice, Genoa, and the Knights of Malta. By the end of September the fleet was ready to set out, so the Holy Father asked all of the faithful to pray Rosaries and implore the intercession of the Blessed Mother for victory. On October 7, 1570, the the Catholic fleet of around 250 ships met the Muslim fleet of around 350 ships near Lepanto, Greece. The Catholic fleets flagship the Real, under the command of Don Juan and flying a blue banner of Christ crucified, met the Ottoman flagship the Sultana, under the command of Ali Pasha. It came down to hand to hand combat, and in the fighting Ali Pasha was killed and the Ottoman flagship captured, causing a breakdown of morale and discipline in much of the fleet. The fighting was fierce, but by the end of the day the allied victory was complete. The Catholic fleet had lost only 12 galleys and had 8,000 dead, but they had sunk 50 Ottoman galleys, captured 117 galleys, and freed 15,000 slaves. Pope St. Pius V received news of the victory on October 22 and celebrated a Mass of Thanksgiving in St. Peter’s Basilica. The victory was attributed to the intercession of the Blessed Mother and a feast to Our Lady of Victory was added to the calendar on October 7, the anniversary of the Battle of Lepanto, which is still celebrated every year as the Feast of Our Lady of the Rosary.
            To bring the history of the Rosary up to date, Pope St. John Paul II added a set of mysteries, the Luminous mysteries, to the Rosary in 2002 in the Apostolic Letter Rosarium Virginis Mariae. The mysteries take us through the life of Christ, from His birth in the Joyful Mysteries, to His Passion and death in the Sorrowful Mysteries, to His Resurrection in the Glorious Mysteries. The Luminous Mysteries complet the life of Christ by inviting us to meditate on His public ministry. In the letter, Pope St. John Paul II describes the purpose of the Rosary, saying, “With the Rosary, the Christian people sits at the school of Mary and is led to contemplate the beauty of the face of Christ and to experience the depths of his love. Through the Rosary the faithful receive abundant grace, as though from the very hands of the Mother of the Redeemer (Rosarium Virginis Mariae, 1).”

​Question: I noticed that there are four different Eucharistic Prayers that the priest can choose from in the Mass. Where did they come from and how can we know which one you will choose for Mass?
 
Answer: You may have noticed, like the questioner, that there are different options that the priest can choose from in the Mass. The central prayer of the Mass, called the Eucharistic Prayer, where the bread and wine are offered to the Lord and become, through the prayer of the priest and the power of the Holy Spirit, the Body and Blood of Christ, has four main options, with five other options that are chosen less often. Let’s look at the history of the main four prayers. 
     Eucharistic Prayer I, called the Roman Canon was the only option in the Roman Church for most of our history. Very early in the history of the Church the prayers of the Mass differed from place to place, and we have evidence of what these prayers were like in the writings of the early Christians. These prayers typically followed similar patterns but differed in the exact wording. They began to be standardized in the first few centuries of the Church. Some of these ancient prayers, including the Roman Canon, are still used today. Some scholars have suggested that parts of the Roman Canon may go back to St. Peter himself. Pope St. Gregory the Great, around the year 600 A.D., collected the prayers of the Mass all in one book, and it was this form of the Roman Canon that was used in the Church until 1970. In the revisions of the Mass after Vatican II there were a few changes made to the Roman Canon, but it was left mostly intact. The Roman Canon has been used in the Roman Catholic Church for at least 1600 years, and parts of it go back even further.
     In the 1960’s a desire began to grow in some parts of the Church for more options in the Eucharistic Prayers, mainly out of a desire for variety. Throughout this time hundreds of unauthorized Eucharistic Prayers were written and distributed in various languages, especially Dutch, French, and German. The committee that was given the task of revising the Mass composed three new Eucharistic Prayers in the 1960’s. They were approved by Pope Paul VI in 1968 and they were issued in 1970. Those are the current Eucharistic Prayers II, III, and IV.
     The three new Eucharistic Prayers are different lengths, on purpose, with II being the shortest, III in the middle, and IV the longest, although IV is still a bit shorter than the Roman Canon. Eucharistic Prayer II is based on the Anaphora of Hippolytus (an anaphora is a Eucharistic Prayer), from The Apostolic Tradition by St. Hippolytus of Rome around 215 A.D. It isn’t a direct translation of that prayer, but it was clearly inspired by it, so this prayer also has a long history in the Roman Church. 
     Eucharistic Prayers III and IV are based on Eucharistic Prayers written by Fr. Vagaggini, OSB, in the summer of 1966. They aren’t based on any specific ancient prayers, but rather on Fr. Vagaggini’s and other scholar’s study of ancient anaphoras and modern ideas about theology and liturgy. Fr. Vagaggini had a special devotion to the Holy Spirit which can be seen in Eucharistic Prayer III. Eucharistic Prayer IV, on the other hand, is a summary of salvation history.
     The GIRM, or General Instruction of the Roman Missal, contains the rules on how to celebrate Mass, and it has the force of law. It tells us that the Roman Canon can be used for any Mass, and that it is especially suited for higher solemnities, feasts of the apostles and saints mentioned in it, and on Sundays. I almost always use it on Sundays and Holy Days of Obligation and sometimes on other Solemnities and Feasts. Eucharistic Prayer II is suited for weekdays, but it is the one used most often by most priests. Eucharistic Prayer III is suited for Sundays and feast days of saints. I rarely use it on Sundays, but I will often use it for Feast Days that fall on weekdays. Eucharistic Prayer IV can only be used with its own Preface, so it can’t be used during Advent, Christmas, Lent, or Easter, or on most feast days. I will often use it once or twice a year during Ordinary Time in the summer.
     The other Eucharistic Prayers in the Roman Missal are meant for special occasions. I’ve personally never used them. Four options are enough for me.