Keep Christ in Christmas or
Keep X in Xmas? Pet Peeve..
First, I am a 4th Degree Knight. This is not about their campaign to Keep Christ in Christmas, but about some well meaning people that just happen to be clueless. Driving through an area famous for their light, so poor miss guided soul had a serious of signs and lights costing him a small fortune saying the keep Christ in Christmas and stop the use of X. So his point was the take out the X in Xmas.
First time I saw this I had some religious woman with me so I just said my piece and moved on to more lights. I went back and knocked on the door later. Unfortunately, I have confirmed for this man the Catholics are not Christians.
I tried to explain the Chi Rho or image at top of post was the first two letters of the Greek work Khristos or Christ and is a symbol for Christ back to the earliest days. I explained the in the seminary most of us wrote X for Christ and Xtn for Christian. The more I talked the more he glazed over.
The response finally was, have you accepted Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior? I thought that the correct answer should be yes, so that is how I answered. He shock is head and said “another of those dang fundamentalists”. I realized that I’d made a huge assumption and asked why he said that.
To make a long story short, I claimed my faith and his response was, “oh, well that is just as bad”! I knew I was not going to make anymore headway, and gave him the Google info I had for him in just case he wasn’t home and left.
In Short,
We do need to keep Christ in Christmas and X is one of our Symbols for Christ. It isn’t that we have X’ed out Christ which I guess is what this man had believed. I really want to create a bumper sticker for him this year, you guessed it Keep X in Xmas. I also a Chi Rho super imposed on it. As we keep Christ as the focus of our Holiday, we also have to fight the dumbing down of society. Maybe if we all try to nudge a bit and challenge, we can do it.
Merry Xmas!!
Not for 4 weeks
God bless you Father Pat. You are a joy to watch in action.
Thanks Deacon. I learn from the best, you included!
I have heard so many wonderful things about you. Perhaps you can answer the question below and find a solution that will help these young adults find healing and acceptance and courage to return to the church.
“What’s the Word?”
This was the question my children asked when they were little after Mass. They wanted to know the word when the Priest says “Just say the Word and my soul shall be healed.”
I was envious that they saw life in such a simplistic way, there was a magical word out there that would make their lives perfect and they wanted to know what it was.
They would ask the Priest and teachers and the answer would usually be “it is symbolic.”
As the years passed my children continued to attend Mass and stayed involved in our church. They loved the church, but often questioned the practices. Not with intent to challenge, but instead out of curiosity. “With knowledge comes understanding,” I had always taught them. But sadly, many saw their questions as subversive and disrespectful. They were teased and ostracized because of their curiosity.
I was fortunate to have a wonderful group of friends who were strong in their faith; who loved, supported and accepted my girls without question. But, sadly, the cruelty of the few was stronger then the love of the many. One evening my daughter was asked to leave the church group she belonged to and told she was no longer welcome there. She begged and pleaded for months for them to allow her to return, but in their opinion her fate was sealed.
To all those Christians who form a circle with their backs to the world, and shun Gods children whose only crime is questioning the churches beliefs, you are losing a great opportunity to heal and bring a person into the faith, when we turn people away from the church we are killing a soul, and to murder a soul and to cause a person to turn away from God is the greatest sin of all in my opinion.
To this day I struggle with faith and going to church, I still am surrounded by the same wonderful friends who love,and accept my family and children without question, but the unjust actions of the few can be deafening. I still believe in God and The Church but when my children were hurt it broke my heart more deeply then any damage that could have ever been done to me directly.
During this Christmas season families of all faiths are getting ready to go crowd the churches with their family beside them, I am getting ready to go with my husband, my grown children are staying home not willing to enter any church.
I wish today more then anything that I could find for them the magical “Word” that they had searched for as children that would allow all our souls to be healed and have their trust in faith and God renewed.
The answer is a blog in itself and it will be one. The simple answer is the Jesus is the Word made flesh. The spoken word was reverenced in the ancient world. They wouldn’t even say the name of God. In respect we have dropped it too. The Word of God brings things into being because that word is in fact part of the Divine. There is no symbolism. The centurion was acknowledging the power and divinity of Jesus saying that just his spoken word could heal. We ask for that same healing as we prepare to receive Jesus into our very selves. The Pope is constantly telling us to get people back to Church and back to communion. Thanks for comment. There will be more later!
Thank you. I will look forward to the blog, and hope to see you in church in the future