Holy Day Vs Holiday

I wonder why the world is crazy over Christmas. Do they really know what they are celebrating about? Do they know the significance behind the whole celebration? And it was an eye opener for me to realize that even Christians did not really know what Christmas was all about when I attended the Christmas Day Mass in Penang.

My jaw dropped when this particular song was sung during the Eucharistic Celebration; and I wondered whether the choir really knew the meaning of the song. The song sang about Christmas as a holiday, a time for mistletoe and wine, a time for merry making, a time to dream about Santa and the gifts on the tree…

Now leave the world aside, what does Christmas mean to us Christians? Singing that song was not wrong but singing it during a Eucharistic Celebration and during the Holy Communion was totally unacceptable.

Can you imagine when we are receiving Jesus into our hearts during Communion but at that same time we are dreaming of Santa Claus and the gifts on the tree. Can you imagine celebrating the Mass with the Bread and Wine, yet our minds are busy thinking of merry making, the mistletoe and the party wine?

It is time for us to make distinctions between:

1) Bread and Wine versus mistletoe and wine

2) Praying versus partying

3) Giving versus gifts

4) Holy Day versus holiday

5) Jesus the Christ versus Santa Claus

Christmas is not about partying, merry making, getting drunk, exchanging gifts, shopping, or Santa Claus. Christmas is a day of remembrance of the birthday boy who was born unto us about two thousand years ago. Christmas is about Jesus, the Son of God coming into our world and our life, being born in great poverty, in the indecent state of a stable filled with foul stench of animals. There was no snow, no glittering lights, no roast turkey, no wine, no mistletoe, no gifts, and definitely no Santa Claus… Christmas is about Jesus coming to die. There is no greater love like this than to give up one’s life for another person. Until we Christians understand what Christmas is all about, we continue to reinforce that Christmas is just another holiday.

Christmas is a celebration of God’s love for the world, a celebration of our sharing in the divinity of Christ who humbled himself to share in our humanity, a celebration of a God who dies for us so that we may live. This is Christmas.

(Company Christmas Dinner 2009)