Posted on 12/22/2007 4:23:22 PM PST by NYer
Fifty years ago C.S. Lewis published an ironic little essay called, "Xmas and Christmas: A Lost Chapter from Herodotus."
In it, he reverses the letters of his home country, "Britain." Then he writes about the strange winter customs of a barbarian nation called Niatirb.
It's worth reading, as we get deeper into Advent. I'll share with you just one passage.
"In the middle of winter when fogs and rains most abound, (the Niatirbians) have a great festival called Exmas, and for 50 days they prepare for it (in the manner which is called,) in their barbarian speech, the Exmas Rush.What Lewis wrote about in Britain half a century ago is increasingly true about our own country today. We're already half way through Advent. What have we done to really live it?
"When the day of the festival comes, most of the citizens, being exhausted from the (frenzies of the) Rush, lie in bed till noon. But in the evening they eat five times as much as on other days, and crowning themselves with crowns of paper, they become intoxicated. And on the day after Exmas, they are very grave, being internally disordered by the supper and the drinking and the reckoning of how much they have spent on gifts and on the wine.
"(Now a) few among the Niatirbians have also a festival, separate and to themselves, called Crissmas, which is on the same day as Exmas. And those who keep Crissmas, doing the opposite to the majority of Niatirbians, rise early on that day with shining faces and go before sunrise to certain temples where they partake of a sacred feast.
"But (as for) what Hecataeus says, that Exmas and Crissmas are the same, (this) is not credible. It is not likely that men, even being barbarians, should suffer so many and so great things (as those involved in the Exmas Rush), in honor of a god they do not believe in."
The world has an ingenious ability to attach itself to what Christians believe; tame it; subvert it — and then turn it against the very people who continue to believe. Too many Americans don't really celebrate Christmas. They may think they do, but they don't. They celebrate Exmas.
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The world has an ingenious ability to attach itself to what Christians believe; tame it; subvert it — and then turn it against the very people who continue to believe. |
We need to understand that in many ways America is no longer a Christian culture. Of course, that can change. Many good Catholics and other Christians still live in it. But if people really understood and acted on the meaning of Advent, the world would be a different place.
Advent means "coming." What's coming in the reality of Christmas is an invasion. The world needs the invasion but doesn't want it. It's an invasion of human flesh and all creation by the Son of God; by the holiness of the Creator Himself.
All of us in the Church were baptized to be part of that good invasion. The doubts, the failures, the mistakes of the past don't matter. Only our choices now matter. How will we live our Christian faith from this day forward? How will we make our Catholic witness an icon of Christ's Advent?
For our own sake, and the sake of the people we love, we need to pray that our yearning for God will truly reflect God's yearning for us. And when it does, then the world will be a different place.
Most Reverend Charles J. Chaput, O.F.M. Cap. "CS Lewis on 'Xmas and Christmas'." Denver Catholic Register (December 8, 2005).
This article reprinted with permission from Archbishop Charles J. Chaput.
Advent ping!
BTTT!
I’ve long said that X (chi) is the first Greek letter in the word Christ. There’s nothing wrong with it.
He is deliberately sitting down and writing as though he were Herodotus of Halicarnasus, that indefatigable and somewhat gossipy and speculative traveller -- who always had an opinion, even if he didn't have his facts quite straight. Lewis had a great gift for putting himself at the writing desk of others (e.g. Screwtape), and he has hit the exact tone of The Histories.
You’re right of course, but if it’s meant to stand as an abbreviation for Christ it must have a P (Rho) superimposed on it.
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