Feast day: December 25
The Nativity of the Lord
Christmas — the birth of Jesus Christ in Bethlehem, God made man, laid in a manger and proclaimed by angels first to shepherds, the central feast of the Incarnation.
Christmas, the Nativity of the Lord, celebrates the birth of Jesus Christ at Bethlehem — God become man, the eternal Word taking flesh and entering his own creation as a helpless child. With Easter it is the greatest feast of the Christian year, the celebration of the central mystery of the faith: that in this child, born in poverty and laid in a manger, the infinite God drew near to humanity to share its life and to save it.
The Gospels tell how Mary and Joseph, compelled by a Roman census to travel to Bethlehem, found no room at the inn, so that the Savior of the world was born in a stable and cradled in a feeding-trough. The first to hear the news were not kings but shepherds, to whom angels appeared in the night with the announcement, 'I bring you good news of great joy: today is born to you a Savior, who is Christ the Lord' — and the heavens rang with 'Glory to God in the highest.'
From at least the fourth century the West kept the feast on December 25; the date was likely chosen to baptize the pagan celebrations of the winter solstice, turning the festival of the unconquered sun into the feast of the true 'Sun of Justice' rising in the darkness. Christmas is given three Masses — at midnight, at dawn, and during the day — and an octave of eight days, that the joy may not be hurried.
Many beloved customs surround it, but one came straight from a saint: in 1223 St. Francis of Assisi arranged a living crib at Greccio, with a real manger, ox, and ass, to make the poverty and tenderness of Bethlehem real to the people — the origin of the Christmas crèche kept in homes and churches the world over. At its heart the feast proclaims that God so loved the world that he came to dwell among us.
The Church's joy at the Word made flesh is so great that Christmas, like Easter, has its own octave — eight days kept as a single feast of light.
“I bring you good news of great joy: today in the city of David a Savior has been born to you, who is Christ the Lord.”
— The Nativity of the Lord
Source: newadvent.org/cathen/03724b.htm
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