Advent nonetheless is a season of devout and joyful expectation. Its joyful mood is based on the Birth (Christmas) and Manifestation (Epiphany) of Jesus the Saviour of the world.
Christmas Crib
Luke shows the lowliness of Jesus by locating his birth place in a manger of a cave (cf. Lk 2,1-7). To imitate the physical environment, Francis (Assisi) introduced the Christmas Crib. For the first time (1223) he organised his Friars and celebrated Christmas midnight Mass in a cave at Greccio, using animals to re-enact the first Christmas scene.
Francis asked the faithful to set up manger scenes at home as part of Christmas celebration. The manger offers a visual reminder that Christ was born into homelessness and poverty. It helps individual, family and community prayer and meditation.
Christmas Carols
They are part of the sounds of Christmastide which embrace everything from folk carols to hymns with a more biblical orientation. Familiar and beloved carols constitute a sacramental in the deepest sense of the word. They both signify and effect the presence of Christ in the world, as they are heard not only as church hymnody but even as mall music. Today the English, German, Polish, Slovak, Ukrainian, French, Italian, Hispanic and African-American Christmas songs offer a unique form of inculturation of the Christian message.
Carols of our own generation express a particularly moving consciousness of sin. While every generation has prayed for peace on earth, good will to all, those who analyse twentieth-century Christmas poetry must be struck by the social nature of the redemption we pray for. Corruption, crimes, greed, wars and poverty are among the many things that have convinced us of our powerlessness to redeem ourselves.
Christmas Tree
Introduced by St. Boniface, an English missionary priest in Germany, the Christmas Tree should be evergreen, not losing its leaves. Meant to replace the Tree of death in Garden of Eden whose fruit caused the fall of man, the Christmas one is the Tree of Life. Being evergreen it symbolises eternal life offered by Christ’s death to men of good will. Decorated with the combination of various shades of light and different fruits (parcels of gifts), Christmas shoot from the stump of Jesse (Is 11,1) shows Jesus with divine gifts.
By Fr. Prosper Abotsi
