Catholics! Keep Your Trees Up!

Catholic Answers ^ | December 30, 2014 | Christopher Check

[NYer]

New Year’s Day promises two certainties: college football bowl games and Christmas trees on the curb. To Catholics, of course, January 1 is the Solemnity of Mary, Mother of God. It's a Holy Day of Obligation, and the final day of the Octave of Christmas.

The Church, however, is so generous with joy. She does not end our celebration of the Incarnation with the conclusion of the Octave of Christmas. She extends it to Epiphany. Twelfth Night, as our English-speaking brethren call it, is an event Catholics in America should celebrate with more enthusiasm (think: roaring bonfires, grilled meat, lots of singing, red wine, brown ale) and might very well do if it were observed here on the Liturgical Calendar on January 6 as it is England, Australia, and Canada, to say nothing of Vatican City.

But the celebrating doesn’t stop there! After Epiphany, the revelry continues until the Baptism of the Lord, the first Sunday after January 6 (usually). This year, Catholics may very well wish to keep their decorations up through January 11. And if you want to be really traditional, you can celebrate what the faithful called “Christmastide” before the liturgical reforms that followed the Second Vatican Council. In the old rite, or what we today call the Extraordinary Form, Christmastide lasted for 40 days to correspond with the 40 days of Lent, and the 40 days from Easter to Ascension Thursday.  

A 40-day party? Gloria in Excelsis! (And people say Trad Cats are a dour bunch.)

Christmastide ended on February 2, the Purification of the Blessed Virgin Mary, also called Candlemas Day. On this day, the faithful take candles that they will use throughout the year in their homes to Mass to have them blessed.

Here is how the brilliant Benedictine Abbot Dom Prosper Guéranger helps us understand the totality of the mystery of Christmastide:

We apply the name of Christmas to the 40 days, which begin with the Nativity of Our Lord, December 25, and end with the Purification of the Blessed Virgin Mary, February 2. It is a period, which forms a distinct portion of the Liturgical Year, as distinct, by its own special spirit, from every other, as are Advent, Lent, Easter or Pentecost. One same Mystery is celebrated and kept in view the whole 40 days. Neither the Feasts of the Saints, which so abound during this Season; nor the time of Septuagesima, with its mournful Purple, which often begins before Christmastide is over, seem able to distract our Holy Mother the Church from the immense joy with which She received the glad tidings from the Angels (Luke 2:10) on that glorious Night for which the world had been longing for 4000 years. The custom of celebrating the Solemnity of Our Savior's Nativity by a Feast of 40 days' duration is founded on the Holy Gospel itself; for it tells us that the Blessed Virgin Mary, after spending 40 days in the contemplation of the Divine Fruit of Her glorious Maternity, went to the Temple, there to fulfill, in most perfect humility, the ceremonies which the Law demanded of the daughters of Israel when they became mothers. The Feast of Mary's Purification is, therefore, part of that of Jesus' Birth; and the custom of keeping this holy and glorious period of 40 days as one continued Festival has every appearance of being a very ancient one, at least in the Roman Church.

The feast in the new rite is called the Presentation of the Lord—same joyful event, different emphasis, but if you really want to be a “sign of contradiction” (get it?) do as they did in ages past! Keep your tree and your decorations up until Candlemas!

[Arthur McGowan]

I didn’t say that all Protestants are Catholic-haters. I said that I have been reading a lot of posts by Catholic-haters on FR.

Your response is about as apposite as this:

“Muslims blew up my house and carried off my wife and daughters!”

“Not all Muslims are terrorists and rapists.”

[RckyRaCoCo]

Yep, put ours up kind of late this year, Dec. 22 I think.

Serbian from my mothers side, with my Grandmother coming from the old country...my mom(born in America in '29 to her 43 year old mother)said they celebrated both traditional holidays growing up.

...well, as much as children brought up during a "real" depression could "celebrate" anything during those times.

Grandmother was orphaned at a very young age. Her and her brother were the only 2 out of the whole family that survived whatever the pandemic was that swept across eastern Europe late 1800's/early 1900's. They were taken in/raised by 2 different neighbors.

Through War(4 son's in WWII, 2 in the Battle of the Bulge, 2 in the Pacific), The Great Depression, pandemics, coming to a new country where she didn't speak the language, chronic health problems that eventually claimed her life, etc....she still kept her faith, and loved America.

...try to jive that with today's generation, where if their Ipad skips during a Jon Stewart brown-shirt training video, or their cellphone battery dies while text messaging their same-sex "partner" about a pro-baby killer rally somewhere...they throw in the towel on the country and call themselves atheists.

[NYer]

Because when Jesus died he nailed all of our sins to the cross. That is what ensures our salvation.

Scripture teaches that one’s final salvation depends on the state of the soul at death. As Jesus himself tells us, "He who endures to the end will be saved" (Matt. 24:13; cf. 25:31–46). One who dies in the state of friendship with God (the state of grace) will go to heaven. The one who dies in a state of enmity and rebellion against God (the state of mortal sin) will go to hell.

Outside of faith there is nothing we can do to ensure our salvation. It's all been done by Him.

Paul, writing at the end of his life, "I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. Henceforth there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, will award to me on that Day" (2 Tim. 4:7-8). But earlier in life, even Paul did not claim an infallible assurance, either of his present justification or of his remaining in grace in the future. Concerning his present state, he wrote, "I am not aware of anything against myself, but I am not thereby justified [Gk., dedikaiomai]. It is the Lord who judges me" (1 Cor. 4:4). Concerning his remaining life, Paul was frank in admitting that even he could fall away: "I pummel my body and subdue it, lest after preaching to others I myself should be disqualified" (1 Cor. 9:27). Of course, for a spiritual giant such as Paul, it would be quite unexpected and out of character for him to fall from God’s grace. Nevertheless, he points out that, however much confidence in his own salvation he may be warranted in feeling, even he cannot be infallibly sure either of his own present state or of his future course.

The same is true of us. We can, if our lives display a pattern of perseverance and spiritual fruit, have not only a confidence in our present state of grace but also of our future perseverance with God. Yet we cannot have an infallible certitude of our own salvation.

There is the possibility of self-deception (cf. Matt. 7:22-23). As Jeremiah expressed it, "The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately corrupt; who can understand it?" (Jer. 17:9). There is also the possibility of falling from grace through mortal sin, and even of falling away from the faith entirely, for as Jesus told us, there are those who "believe for a while and in time of temptation fall away" (Luke 8:13). It is in the light of these warnings and admonitions that we must understand Scripture’s positive statements concerning our ability to know and have confidence in our salvation. Assurance we may have; infallible certitude we may not.

[ealgeone]

Assurance we may have; infallible certitude we may not.

1 John 5:13

These things I have written to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, in order that you may know that you have eternal life.

you may know is in the perfect tense in Greek. it denotes an action that occurred in the past, but with ongoing impact in the present.

you have is in the present tense generally depicting a continuous action .

Based on the Greek we have infallible certitude.

If not, the life of the Christian is not much better than that of the muslim or any other works based religion. How much is enough? How many good works do you have to do to "keep" your salvation?

That kind of doubt is not how Christ wants His children to live.

[ealgeone]

I didn’t say that all Protestants are Catholic-haters. I said that I have been reading a lot of posts by Catholic-haters on FR.

Sooooo......anyone who disagrees and points out the false teachings of the rcc is a "hater?"

Man, ya'll have some thin skin.

[FourtySeven]

Christians are doing “like them,” a heathen practice, whether they worship the tree or not.

Precisely the opposite actually. "Doing like them" is worshipping false gods. It can't be just doing things similarly as they do or else the use of pagan names of the week is sinful or even mathematics is sinful since I'm sure even pagans believe 1+1=2.

Of course it's silly to say that, and that's the point. It's just as silly to say cutting down a tree and putting some decorations on it is sinful just because pagans did that too. A Christmas tree is a decoration. If decorations are sinful then that means anything you put up in your house as decoration from nice curtains to pictures to anything other than utilitarian Spartan accoutrements is sinful.

There's no end to the sin once we believe Christmas decorations are sinful. There's no way anyone can justify their own decoration for any purpose. Simple flowers arranged in a beautiful way become sinful.

[samiam1972]

I’ve got you beat! Mine came down on the 26th. I need all the help I can get to get my house back in order. Since we all have to get back to work and homeschool, I can’t postpone the clean up. I’ve seen this article all over the place. I do not need a tree in my living room to keep the Christmas season going. I’m going to write an article next year that talks about getting that fresh start, a new beginning, just like the birth of Christ, by cleaning up the decorations and moving on to lean and mean. Back to the basics. That sort of thing. Thank goodness I have a year to work on this article! Ha!

[sasportas]

My comments were not so much for you or your fellow Papists, I realize it is hard for you folks to believe this, but there really are people in this world who are sincere truth seekers. Your post is typical of those whose interest is only in defending an institution known the world over for its accommodation of paganism.

[Arthur McGowan]

Me: I didn’t say that all Protestants are Catholic-haters. I said that I have been reading a lot of posts by Catholic-haters on FR.

You: Sooooo......anyone who disagrees and points out the false teachings of the rcc is a “hater?”

---

I see. Your technique is to read something, then say “Sooooo...” and then follow it immediately with the OPPOSITE of what was just said.

No, I didn’t say that ANYONE who disagrees is a hater. I said that I have been reading posts on FR by haters.

But your technique of “argumentation” is this:

I say that I have seen some black horses.

Your response is: “Soooooo...all horses are black?”

Then you congratulate yourself for “trapping” me in a stupid statement.

What does it say about your intellectual honesty that you use this technique consistently to make rational discussion impossible?

[ealgeone]

What determines what is a hater?

I've noticed any disagreement with catholicism is labeled as hate by some. What say you?

[AbnSarge]

I would say that intelligent, polite and reasoned inquiry and discussion is fine. Constant shrill attacks by a select group (10 come to mind) are not discussion, but attacks.

If you are interested in what makes Catholics tick, fine. We are different, and God reaches in different ways. If you are jumping in every thread to attack, that is not fine.

[Arthur McGowan]

People who use formally invalid syllogisms.

People who refuse to answer Yes-or-No questions, but instead respond with another question, or an “in other words” that has nothing to do with anything.

People who refuse to acknowledge that a formally valid syllogism IS formally valid, because they don’t like the conclusion it leads to.

I suppose if I had to boil down what causes me to conclude someone is a “hater” it’s this: When I see a pattern of intellectual dishonesty. By which I mean a pattern of self-contradiction, formally invalid argumentation, and “sand-in-the-eyes.” Example: The Pope says that contraception is a sin. Response: “The Pope said that all Protestant women are prostitutes!”

I have had several people refuse to answer this question:

Is the following syllogism formally valid?

Emily is the mother of Sam.
Sam is a fireman.
Emily is the mother of a fireman.

One person said that by refusing to answer Yes or No, he was simply “refusing to follow you down that rabbit hole.”

Anyone who could say that is intellectually dishonest, and the motive for such intellectual dishonesty can be ONLY hatred for truth.

[Yosemitest]

"... that the statement is erroneous."

Just for clarification, WHAT WAS the statement in error?

My point was, ... THEY'RE NOT INTERESTED IN CORRECTING ANY OF THEIR ERRONEOUS STATEMENTS.
But the specific statement I was talking about is

'This "Christmas Tree is pagan" is garbage.'

The so-called "Christmas Tree" IS PAGAN !
And I have linked MANY SOURCES that have OVERWHELMINGLY PROVEN THAT.

[BlueDragon]

"Recently, there’s been a rash of them denying the Incarnation...

Around about here a person could make a tasteless Cynthia McKinney joke..?

Yet among Christians --- what resistance there is to using the title "mother of God" has nothing to do with denying the Incarnation, while it has everything to do with avoiding extra-biblical, potentially misleading terms for Mary (yes, that Mary, the virgin Mary, mother of the Incarnated Christ).

So what now? What next?

Will I be accused of Arianism?

That wouldn't work, would it?

Ah, but a Nestorian!

Quick -- check under the Christmas trees (just to be sure) for to have heard FRomans around here some years ago tell it, there was seemingly a Nestorian behind every bush (and tree)

The Prophet said, The hour [of judgment] will not come until the Muslims fight the Jews and kill them. [It will not come] until the Jew hides behind rocks and trees. [It will not come] until the rocks or the trees say O Muslim! O servant of God! There is a Jew behind me. Come and kill him. Except for the gharqad, which is a tree of the Jews.

Some additional info about Muslim hatred & brainwashing of their own people;
http://www.catholiceducation.org/en/education/catholic-contributions/what-saudi-students-learn.html

[Arthur McGowan]

I don’t care much one way or the other how enthusiastic or unenthusiastic anyone is about the title “Mother of God.”

What I cannot respect is anyone who rejects the title on the grounds that “Mary cannot be the origin of the eternal Godhead,” for the simple reason that 1) No one, ever, was idiotic enough to believe that she was, 2) the title never, never, ever carried that meaning.

The title “Mother of God,” or “Theotokos,” always meant precisely one thing: Mary is the mother of Jesus Christ, who is ONE person.

Objections to the title based on meanings it has NEVER carried are not intellectually honest.

[RegulatorCountry]

Keep your Christmas trees up? The Christmas trees that were brought to America by German Protestants in the early 18th century? By all means, keep them up until Old Christmas, January 6. They’re quite beautiful, aren’t they?

[Yosemitest]

NO! Just because they are FARMED TREES ... doesn't mean they couldn't be grown to maturity to be used for the purposes God intended man to use them for.
So again I refer to another source about Christ and the incorrectly labeled "Christmas Tree":

The Dangerous Power of Lies

One of Satan’s names is Destroyer (Rev. 9:11). Nimrod/Saturn/Molech/Baal, like Satan, is the fire god who destroys and devours little children.

The real Jesus Christ was never in and never will be in Christmas!
He cannot be put back into where He has never been.
But the “god of this world,” Satan (II Cor. 4:4), has always been in Christmas.
He is its author!

The true God commands that we must “worship Him in spirit and in truth” (John 4:23-24).
This does not mesh with the great Christmas and Santa Claus lies that all children so willingly believe.

I Timothy 4:2 warns of those “speaking lies in hypocrisy; having their conscience seared with a hot iron.”
Parents can “burn” their own children, to the point of searing them, with the Christmas deception and lie!

There is no “safety in numbers” in this world for those who keep Christmas,
because Satan, who is called “the father of lies” and “a murderer from the beginning” (John 8:44), has “deceived the whole world” (Rev. 12:9)!
Turn to this verse and read it.
Then recognize that Christmas is certainly a testimony to that great deception.

But Christ refers to His Church as a “little flock” (Luke 12:32).
Many other verses show this.
This Church does not have the large numbers of the respected, established brands of the Christianity of this world.

“Another Jesus”

There is another problem with the idea of “putting Christ back in Christmas”—and it is big!
The “Jesus” that is the focus of this season is NOT the true Jesus Christ of the Bible!

Most have been taught that there is only one Jesus Christ.
But God’s Word speaks of a counterfeit, and this substitute Christ is identifiable in history.
The proof?
The apostle Paul warned of “another Jesus.”

Grasp what is at stake here!

First, consider Paul’s entire introduction as he sets the stage for the warning that follows: “But I fear, lest by any means, as the serpent [Satan] beguiled Eve through his subtilty, so your minds should be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ” (II Cor. 11:3).

Now for the actual warning in the next verse: “For if he that comes preaches ANOTHER JESUS, whom we have not preached, or if you receive another spirit, which you have not received, or another gospel, which you have not accepted, you might well bear with him” (II Cor. 11:4).
The Corinthians seemed to “bear with this” without much resistance.

Paul, under inspiration of the true Jesus Christ of the Bible, was moved to record the peril of unwittingly following “another Jesus.”
Consider.
Most have probably never remotely considered the idea of a false Jesus for even a moment—that there is such a thing as a wrong, different and “false Christ” (Matt. 24:23-24)—called “another Jesus.”
In the past, this “Jesus” has even corrupted the thinking of true Christians.
This much is plain.
But the “subtilty” of how this can happen, and how it has occurred in history, is so deceptive—so seductive—that even true Christians can unknowingly slip into worshipping this so-called Jesus.
This is what was happening to the Corinthians.

People can worship in ways that represent things that are far different than what they sincerely believe or intend.
Bible “believers” today can think that they are worshipping the true Savior when they are really worshipping a false savior—another Jesus!
The entirety of traditional Christianity is actually worshipping Nimrod/Saturn/Molech/Baal.
The modern mother/child “Mary/Jesus” emphasis, including the worshipful adoration of Mary by millions, is a parallel with Nimrod and his mother, Semiramis, that cannot be missed.

Here is the point of what is being explained.
Many speak of “putting Christ back into Christmas.”
This is heard every year from thousands of pulpits and elsewhere.
But the true Christ was never there!
Just as a person cannot go back into a room that he had never entered, Jesus Christ cannot be “put back” into an event that He has never been in, and that He in fact hates! (See Mark 7:7.)
The Jesus that these preachers and religionists have in mind is another Christ, one with another gospel, another spirit—the Christmas spirit!—bringing totally different doctrines and teachings.

Can you see the connection?

So REMEMBER:

What thing soever I COMMAND YOU,
observe to DO IT:
thou shalt NOT ADD THERETO,
NOR DIMINISH FROM IT .

[Yosemitest]

God took Israel out of Egypt—from slavery—out of the customs of the world around them and revealed His Law to them.
He does not want His people going back to the traditions, customs and ways from which He has called them.

When all of the interconnected traditions, filled with the symbolism of worshipping an ancient pagan, humanly devised god, are taught,
this is not worshipping the true Creator.

We Have NOT Known that Christmas is of Babylon

Jesus said twice, in Matthew 7:16 and Matthew 7:20, that “you shall know them by their fruits.”
Everything that people say or do, good or bad, has fruits.
The fruits of Christmas are terrible.
This season LEADS the entire year in adultery, loneliness, jealousy, drunkenness and drunk driving, family arguments (and worse), and accumulation of debt that often lasts until March.
This problem is so significant that almost all churches typically report that their incomes—how ironic—drop during this period as people “recover” from all their spending!

The Real “Christmas Spirit”

The prophet Isaiah was inspired to write, “Cry aloud, spare not, lift up your voice like a trumpet, and show My people their transgression” (Isaiah 58:1).
I have done this.
Now that you have read the plain truth about the true origin of Christmas, what will you do?

[BlueDragon]

The title “Mother of God,” or “Theotokos,” always meant precisely one thing: Mary is the mother of Jesus Christ, who is ONE person.

BALoney. It's been leveraged since Christological controversies of Ephesus and Council of Nicea to expand for "Mary" an ongoing role -- Mother of the Church, Mother of all Christians -- as if Mary was to be considered our "Heavenly mother" right alongside of the Heavenly Father. Just ask guys like Bernard of Clairvaux, who may have been well enough right about many things, but was near giddy about "Mary", and then DeMontfort who's writing concerning Mary included mention of herself having eternal qualities, having in some way existed from before the beginnings of the world, such as Christ has.

We can accept that God the Father is eternal -- having no beginning and no end (even if we may not be able to fully wrap our minds around the concept(s)). Are we to extend those same sort of considerations towards 'Mary'? OR -- is she a merely created being much as we ourselves are, in sense of fundamental existence?

Objections to the title based on meanings it has NEVER carried are not intellectually honest.

No. You have things absolutely backwards.

What is intellectually dishonest is to fail to recognize and confess that whenever certain aspects of Marionism itself are objected to -- the Mother of God terminology (rather than mother of the Incarnate Christ way of thinking or speaking) comes out as response, as surely as if one was to tap a small hammer to folded knee --- and get the knee-jerk reaction.

[Grateful2God]

Hello!

I said that I have been reading a lot of posts by Catholic-haters on FR.

I believe in dialogue, and stressing our commonality. There was a forum recently that could easily have been interpreted that way. Sometimes people forget that Jesus gave us two Greatest Commandments which summed up the original 10: love God; love your neighbor.

I believe there are people who are genuinely concerned with the spiritual welfare of others. They will post what they believe, in a way that is respectful and befitting one who calls themselves a follower of Christ. and at the end of the day, we can agree to disagree without hostility.

Sometimes good people can get carried away in the heat of discussion. I don't think these are necessarily haters, just maybe they're just in the moment, and don't mean to come off as they sometimes do.

Finally, yes, there are haters. I'm Catholic, I'm used to it on a variety of circumstances, but it never ceases to amaze me. After awhile, you get to know who they are by their posts. Sometimes I think those people would like to throw us to the lions! Thank God, they are the exception to the rule...

: ) God bless you!