We keep the MASS in Christmas!
Posted on 12/24/2011 4:34:44 AM PST by Cronos
Every few years Christmas is on a Sunday and suddenly believers face a dilemma: Stay home hanging stockings and opening gifts, or upend those cherished domestic traditions and go to Sunday church services. That is, if their church is even open.
Nearly 10% of Protestant churches will be closed on Christmas Sunday this year, according to LifeWay Research, and most pastors who are opening up say they expect far fewer people than on other Sundays. Other reports suggest that churches across the board are scaling down their services in anticipation of fewer worshipers.
"We have to face the reality of families who don't want to struggle to get kids dressed and come to church," Brad Jernberg of Dallas's Cliff Temple Baptist Church told the Associated Baptist Press. Similarly, Beth Car Baptist Church in Halifax, Va., is planning a short service featuring bluegrass riffs on Christmas music. "I'll do a brief sermon, and then we're going home," said Pastor Mike Parnell.
..St. Augustine of Hippo said that such associations should spur the faithful to deeper observance, not to downplaying the holiday altogether or tailoring it to the prevailing culture: "So, brothers and sisters, let us keep this day as a festival—not, like the unbelievers, because of the sun up there in the sky, but because of the One who made that sun."
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
Are people going to celebrate Jesus' birthday by giving each other gifts instead of focusing on Him?
My husband and I and our children will be at church worshipping.
Not Jesus’ birthday. It’s the festival when we celebrate his Birth. He was probably born in the Spring when shepherds would have been in the fields.
Church tonight and tomorrow.
you can rest assured that each and every RC Church will be open on Christmas.
...and they will be FULL.
Current temp in Bethlehem is 64F.
It’s true we don’t really know exactly when He was born, but sheep graze outdoors year round.
We will be in church both tonight and tomorrow. That’s the plan anyway. Our family Christmas commences at noon today with 16 members here. I’m already tired....
I am out of town with my family for the Holiday.... I’m looking for a Midnight Mass as we speak.
Well, this is kind of sad to read. I am a Seventh day Adventist and when Christmas is on the Sabbath, there is no place I’d rather be than in Church and church is usually packed.
But God has his people in every church and I suppose those who will be in church tomorrow, well, they are probably among them. I love Christmas.
Easter is my favorite. ;-)
Amen to that.......!
I will take this to my opportunity to practice charity and keep my thoughts to myself . . . . However, I have duty as a Christian to admonish the sinner and remind them that December 25th is a Sunday, and thus the Lord’s Day. Shame on these ‘pastors’.
Well our church cancelled Christmas Day services (and there are 3 services on Sunday.) Instead, on Saturday night they’re going to try to accommodate everyone for a single service...how will they do that on Christmas Eve, some big production outside. The logistics of doing such a thing (remote parking, erecting a stage, seating for thousands, boggles the mind.)
I just don’t know why they didn’t go ahead w/the Saturday night service as we usually have inside (it might have been packed, but we have overflow areas.) And then have just one service on Sunday if they expect fewer people.
So that leaves members of our family looking for a church to attend on Sunday. My dad’s church is also closing, so that’s out. Quite frustrating.
My take...it’s not the problem of fewer people on Sunday, it’s that the pastors want to spend Christmas at home. Most weeks the rest of the congregation works a five or six day work week, then show up every Sunday to volunteer as Sunday School teachers, or parking attendants, etc. Our pastors consider Sunday to be one of their “work” days, so they take every Monday off. Color me cynical, but that’s how I see it.
Here is the actual headline from the source:
Research: Pastors plan to host Christmas services despite busyness of Christmas Day
Virtually all pastors will have service on Christmas Eve and/or Christmas day. The overwhelming, overwhelming majority (at least 91% out of a sample of 1000 pastors) will have Christmas day service. Hardly a story, especially if if doesn’t affect your own ability to worship as you see fit.
But by all means, oh holier-than-thous, let’s go ahead and tsk tsk the others. It will make you feel superior. Merry Christmas.
He also reminded us that we will see lots of new faces - ones we probably haven't seen since Easter Sunday. Funny.
Merry Christmas everyone, celebrating the birth of our savior.
We are having 6 services today and only one tomorrow.
We’ll be at one tonight and also the one tomorrow, but we don’t company or little ones so makes it easier.
My dad was a fundamentalist Methodist minister (the last one north of the Mason-Dixon, I believe), and i have to admit that as a little kid, I hated it when Christmas fell on Sunday. The whole Santa Claus thing was pretty much out the window as we all rushed off to Sunday school!
But, having said that, the entire month of December was a sheer delight at church — with Christmas pageants, Christmas parties (every group had its own), live Christmas nativity scenes, Christmas caroling, and, of course, the Christmas services where Dad got the chance to preach the message of Salvation to packed houses.
I look back on all of that with fond memories now — but, I still hated Christmas falling on a Sunday!
I think Paul said something about days in Romans 14:5.....
When we spend our time tsk tsking over other Christians' choices, we really are not so holy.
We are going to church this afternoon. the last time Christmas was on Sunday, our church was nearly empty. We were new to the area and I was flabbergasted! I expected it to be full.
Ok, I must be losing it. Christmas is a church day period. Regardless what day it falls on. If it falls on Sunday I would think churches would be fuller since that week would only have one church day. Why would people NOT go to church for Christmas ???
Hmmmm... let's see. Nearly 10% means less than 10%, meaning less than 10% of the churches will be closed. They COULD have reported that OVER 90% of the churches would be open. But that wouldn't make good news, would it?
Spur Cross Cowboy Church will be having services on Sunday at 9:30am at the white church at Pioneer Living History Museum north of Phoenix at Pioneer Rood off of I-17 (shameless plug). There was never a question about it.
We had our Old Fashioned Cowboy Christmas last night to a packed house with standing room only. Since I’m the music director and my band was providing the music, I didn’t get to talk to anyone, but the report has been including Christ is a Christmas celebration is extremely popular. One woman told my husband she was 70 and she thought what we did last night was the best Christmas ever.
Merry Christmas!!!!
My church will have 7 services between Thursday and Saturday @ 3 locations.
I will not be a member of a church that is closed on a Sunday just because it is Christmas Day.
I find it pretty humorous that people can get so self-righteous towards others because they choose to worship differently on one day of a year. I bet there are a lot of people that might actually grow in their faith by shutting the church doors occasionally and practicing that “where two or more are gathered, He is there among them” just a little bit away from their church buildings. Shame on some of you who condemn others who believe that giving a gift of themselves to their families one morning a year is such a sacrilege while working tirelessly and faithfully the rest of the year for the Kingdom.
See my 13. The source reported the glass as being at least 91% full. The blogger flipped it and the holy rollers swallowed it.
www.masstimes.org
I’ll go to a church when I find one that isn’t about being a business and isn’t full of Sunday hypocrites. The last time I found one was in the South where I am not.
That "one day of the year" just happens to be Christmas.
Yours is simply a lame attempt at rationalizing the blowing off of going to Church because Christmas falls on a Sunday and happens to inconvenience your fun in the worship of materialism. You'd probably be cooking up another lame excuse to blow off attending Church on Sunday if Christmas fell on a Saturday.
"Not forsaking our assembly, as some are accustomed; but comforting one another, and so much the more as you see the day approaching." Hebrews 10:25
"Shame on some of you..."
Save some of that loathing for yourself, kid. I'd like to witness the defense you attempt to mount for your spiritual sloth during your particular judgment. "But God, I HAD presents to open!"
"And we charge you, brethren, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you withdraw yourselves from every brother walking disorderly, and not according to the tradition which they have received of us." 2 Thessalonians 3:6
In the Catholic Church, it doesn’t matter what day Christmas falls on. It is a Holy day of Obligation and we are compelled to attend Mass. In fact, it is one of the two days out of the year when many who have fallen away do attend, the other being Easter. Last year, when Christmas was on a Saturday, Mass at my church was heavily attended, and then the next day, being a Sunday, when you would have thought many would not attend two days in a row, the church was packed to capacity, SRO. Even the priest was amazed at the great number.
One of the lessons of Christianity is not to be judgmental. This is probably the hardest teaching of Jesus to follow, but I strive to do this. So I attend church for my own beliefs and ignore those around me.
Merry Christmas to you.
God bless all of you. And come to Mass!
Which Christmas Mass are you attending? [Catholic/Orthodox Caucus]
**He also reminded us that we will see lots of new faces - ones we probably haven’t seen since Easter Sunday. Funny.**
I think if priests word this right at the beginning of Mass, many of these C and E Catholics will be reminded that the new translations are so true to the former Latin — and welcome them back.
Have you talked with him about doing this? I haven’t yet, my priest was sick and I was out of it because of having a fractured tooth extracted.
So come to Mass at the local Catholic Church this Sunday and still keep it a family day!
Good judgment on your part. Merry Christmas.
“Christmas,” the birth of Tammuz, has nothing to do with my Lord, Jesus Christ.
Rosh Hashanna, the ancient feast prophesying the birth of Christ, is the Biblical celebration of his birth; why would a Christian want to replace that with the birthdate of a pagan false god? (invented by a false ‘church’)
Merry Christmas to you and yours Salvation.
La Esposa wants to skip tomorrow. I do not.
Question 46: What was the estate of Christ's humiliation?Answer: The estate of Christ's humiliation was that low condition, wherein he for our sakes, emptying himself of his glory, took upon him the form of a servant, in his conception and birth, life, death, and after his death, until his resurrection.
Question 47: How did Christ humble himself in his conception and birth?
Answer: Christ humbled himself in his conception and birth, in that, being from all eternity the Son of God, in the bosom of the Father, he was pleased in the fulness of time to become the son of man, made of a woman of low estate, and to be born of her; with divers circumstances of more than ordinary abasement.
Yes, Westminster makes for dry reading.
Celebrate the incarnation.
It’s true we don’t really know exactly when He was born, but sheep graze outdoors year round.? “And there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night. (Luke 2:8). “November through early March is “winter” in Israel! The weather gets cold, especially at night. Often it rains or even snows! “Jesus was probably not born in the winter, because “shepherds were watching their flocks by night”. Shepherds only watch their flocks by night when it is comfortable outside. The census “could hardly have been in the winter season, for such a time would surely NOT have been chosen by the authorities for a public enrollment, which necessitated the population’s traveling from all parts to their natal districts, bitter cold, snow storms and rain -making journeys both unsafe and unpleasant.”
Blah, blah. Tammuz, the Sumerian deity was forgotten before the Neo-Babylonian empire collapsed. And the feast was
1. celebrated according the old Sumerian calendar which does not gel with ours (you can compare a lunar based with a solar base but the days change each year) and
2. in general a summer feast.
Do read up before shooting false facts all the time
true, hence one ignore's a remark like in the post by Editor-surveyor: “Christmas,” the birth of Tammuz,
Forget about it I guess
Merry Christmas all! Hallelujah!
There’s also the little detail of “no room at the inn”. I doubt that the time window for the census was so narrow that everybody went to register at the same time. It’s far more likely that Mary and Joseph went to Bethlehem at a time when Jerusalem and all the surrounding villages were overcrowded with pilgrims. What would you think if I suggest that maybe Jesus was born in late Fall, during Sukkoth (Tabernacles)? It would not only explain the “no room at the inn” business, but would fulfill the prophecy that God will dwell (tabernacle) with His people in the 21st chapter of Revelation (with final fulfillment during the Millennium).
Got to remember that that Israel’s/the Holy Land’s weather, is a lot more temperate, because Israel’s is in the same paraell as is southern CA, USA, weather wise.
Remember that Rosh Hashanna is part of the “old covenant”. The birth of Jesus is celibrated as the birth of the “new covenant”.
Please see post number 48, thank-you!
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