This past Friday evening I had the chance to join hundreds of people from the Juneau community for the annual Gallery Walk in downtown. This event serves as another great Juneau tradition that brings out the great sense of joy and community — all of which is heightened as the celebration of Christmas is right around the corner. I have found that the slow journey through the crowded streets of downtown during Gallery Walk is an experience filled with greetings, joy and personal encounters.
In my Catholic tradition the birth of Jesus is cause for a heightened level of celebration. After four weeks of preparation during the season of Advent, our Christmas celebration begins on Christmas Eve. You might think that one church service on Christmas would be more than sufficient to express our joy at the birth of the Savior, but that is not the case. The joyful celebration of the birth of our Savior is so important to us that it is extended over three Holy Masses: at mid-night, dawn, and during the day on Christmas. Each of these has its own distinctive prayers and readings from sacred Scripture, related to the Nativity of our Lord Jesus and our personal encounter with him.
And as if that wasn’t enough, we continue to celebrate Christmas for eight more days in an octave that concludes on New Year’s Day. Then on January 6th (or the Sunday closest to that date) we celebrate Epiphany, the feast of the Three Kings who brought their gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh to the Christ child. Our celebration of the Christmas season concludes a week later with the commemoration of the Baptism of Jesus in the River Jordan.
The various beloved customs and traditions of the Christmas season have their origin in the joy of the Christian community at the great event of the incarnation of Jesus Christ, when the Word of God became flesh and dwelled among the human race. Here in the northern hemisphere even nature itself participates in our celebration of the coming of the Son of Justice and the Prince of Peace as the onset of the winter solstice, the shortest and the darkest day the year, heralds the slow lengthening of the days and the coming of the light.
Also close to the solstice this year are the eight days and nights of the Jewish feast of Hanukkah, the Festival of Lights. This beautiful and joyful festival commemorates how a one day supply of oil miraculously burned for eight days when the temple in Jerusalem was rededicated after being desecrated by a persecuting foreign ruler. And as with the Christmas celebration, the eight days of Hanukkah have their own special songs, foods and customs.
During this special season of joy and celebration, I think we need to be particularly aware of our friends, family and neighbors for whom this season is a sad and difficult time of the year. I am thinking of all of those in our community who have lost friends and loved ones during the year to illness or accident. Or who long for the presence of a husband or wife, mother or father, brother or sister who is absent from home because of separation or divorce, deployment overseas or incarceration. For all those in the grip of sorrow or sadness, this festive season underscores the absence of the person they love from their lives.
It is important to remember and be attentive to those in our community who are grieving during this holiday season. In the darkness of loss and separation, each one of us can be the light of understanding, consolation, and kindness. Each of us can help in our own way to dispel the heavy weight of sorrow for those who grieve by our compassionate presence and willingness to listen.
Within the context of Christmas and the Holiday season, this time of the year is filled with social gatherings, the celebration of traditions, the sending of Christmas greetings and the offering of gifts to others. From my perspective, I believe that many in our community would thrive if we made the effort to bring the gifts of faith, hope, and love into the hearts of those people most in need. While these gifts may be difficult to wrap, they are the ones that are most lasting and meaningful.
• Burns is the Roman Catholic Bishop of the Diocese of Juneau and Southeast Alaska.
Comments (56)
Add commentChristmas
It is a pity that the celebrations of Christ's birth is NOT the birth of Jesus. History tells us that Jesus was born sometime in Spring time. NOT on December 25!
@bilb
you are a rare sort of idiot.
Does this story sound familiar to you?
"The angel Gabriel appears to Mary and Joseph with the news that Mary, a virgin, is pregnant and will give birth to Jesus. Before the birth Joseph and Mary travel from Nazareth to Bethlehem, Joseph's home town, for a census and to be taxed. There, on 25th December AD 0, accompanied by an ox and an ass, Mary gives birth to Jesus. Lacking suitable facilities the new parents use the animals' manger (feeding trough) as a crib for their newborn child. A host of angels appears to shepherds watching over their flocks in fields nearby and directs them to the site of the birth. Meanwhile, a star appears in the sky. This star leads the three kings, Gaspar, Melchior, and Balthazar to the site. Mounted on camels they follow the star, taking with them there gifts: gold, frankincense and myrrh. On the way the three kings let Herod the Great, King of Judea, know the purpose of their journey. Now aware that a King of Israel has been born, Herod orders the murder of all male children under the age of two. Having been warned of this by the angel Gabriel, Joseph and Mary escape to Egypt with their baby, until it is safe to return to Nazareth." (reprinted from: Christian Deceptions: Case Study: The Nativity Story)
Go ahead and look Juneauites, this story does not appear in any bible. It is a confabulation. Each sentence, one by one, can be refuted as being either contradictory with other parts of the bible or not existing at all. It's another simple case of Lying for Jesus.
But the sentence in this article that really made me roll my eyes was this doozy: "...even nature participates in our celebration..."
Ask yourself which is more likely: seasonal weather patterns impersonally suspended the laws of their own physics to honor yet another deity or, men with funny hats and swords, usurped regional cultural practices such as the Winter solstice and re-branded it with a promise of heavenly crowns to increase their own power and influence in society?
Axial tilt is the reason for the season.
Merry Christmas,
Mike
What? you mean it's not really
About how much commercialism we can stuff into the month preceding? Or what the final tally is for the retail stores?
Whoever wrote this article is an obvious un-American.
Grendal
What? You cannot face the truth, and CHristmas is taken from a pagan holiday to celebrate the ending of Winter, the Winter equinox.. I believe it was Consitene that made Christmas in Dec. to get the pagans to change to Christianity. You are the idiot to call yourself Christian and celebrate a pagan holiday
Bill is correct - the pagan
Bill is correct - the pagan holiday is Saturnalia.....
@bilb
I KNOW you are a good man-- an extraordinary idiot, but still, you are thru the door. Look at Luke 2:8.
Mike Dziuba: Get right with the Man. You know He's going to come around.
Grendal
Again you are the idiot to believe in the false birthday of Jesus
It is ONLY because of the Catholic Church that the birth of Jesus is celebrated in Dec. and not on the true date that he was born.
Grendel, when people want me to drink religious Kool-Aid
it reminds me of one of the tricks alcoholics use to feel normal. They justify their addiction by saying, "look, everyone else is drinking, I must be ok."
No thank you. Keep your menacing drug of choice private and keep it away from children too.
Merry Christmas,
Mike
that's rich.......
....a religious person, religion being probably the number one reason for intolerance of others on the PLANET, preaching to Mike to be tolerant...........
And calling Bill an idiot.
And calling Bill an idiot. Was truly rich... WWJD? What indeed.
Good Read
I'm not religious and often disagree with things Mr. Burns says, but this was an enjoyable read with a very positive message, especially the last several paragraphs.
Thank you and Merry Christmas, Mr. Burns.
Response/humanbeing and an ironic choice of word "unbelievable"
This is a public letter written for a public forum. It is not the diocese's publication, the Southeast Passage. I am part of the public. A healthy public forum tolerates a range of ideas. I am aware that faith-communities, as a defining characteristic, do not tolerate a range of ideas.
If there is anything I said in response to what I try to show as being outright errors feel free to point that out.
On the other hand if what I say makes you uncomfortable, and it appears that it does, just engage the ignore option. I can attest that it works.
Mike
humanbeing
I do believe it is you and grendal that are the idiots! If we are going to celebrate the birth of Christ, why not do it closer to the day that he was born? Not on a pagan holiday that was trumped by the early Catholic church to get more followers. The whole story of Christmas is just that a story. 1 Christ was NOT born in a manger. In that period of time people kept their livestock in the house on the first floor. That is where Jesus was born. 2 we tell our children not lie, and yet we give them false information about the birth of Christ, and also lie to them about Santa Clause
humanbeing.......
.....you've been watching too much Bill O'Reilly.
Christianity, the belief in Jesus, and the tenants required in order to get into 'heaven' - absolutely a religion!
Doesn't anyone read Webster any more?
Religion:
1: the service and worship of God or the supernatural (2): commitment or devotion to religious faith or observance
2: a personal set or institutionalized system of religious attitudes, beliefs, and practices
I'm curious, humanbeing......
......why would someone profess to believe in God and Jesus, but insist they are not 'religious'?
Is there some perceived shame on your part in being recognized as part of the rest of the group (worldwide) that ALSO believe in God and Jesus? And what's the difference in the belief itself, or being labeled as being part of the group that believes? Its' the same thing.
You believe in Jesus, his teachings and practice or observe Christmas, Easter, etc., correct?
hb~
You're incorrect here. You believe in a Deity, you believe that Deity is Christ crucified and resurrected, and you believe in the forgiveness sins through faith in the sacrifice. Those are religious ideas, based on a set of religious texts and a religious interpretation of those texts and of your personal experience. I can read those same texts and not see them in the same light; the texts haven't changed, but my framework differs from yours.
Judging by the dictionary definitions discussed above, the first entries in both the primary and secondary definitions support that:
1. The service or worship of God
2. A personal set of religious beliefs or attitudes
You've stated that you personally follow Christ by reading a religious text and a form of meditative prayer. There's absolutely nothing wrong with that, but it is definitely religion and you are a religious person. No problem!
That being said, I think your distinction between a dynamic mysticism and a rigid, legalistic approach to those beliefs is totally valid and definitely worthwhile; I like mystics and generally dislike legalism, unless it is scientific rigor. If I were in your shoes, I'd not want to be associated with quite a number of churches either.
Fromdust....
...thanks, you said it better than I did. Sometimes I wonder if we are all reading the same definitions!
No arguing with a zealot.
No arguing with a zealot.
If you say something is true because it is written in a book
That's religion.
Mike
Nope. It's not so because I said it, rather
the evidence supports it.
Mike
Human, the funny thing is I
Human, the funny thing is I didnt even identify who I was describing as a zealot, yet you defined yourself as such and took offense...
So Mike
does that make science a religion?
I'ma 49er - nope
no supernatural being.
Wow - that was something.......
Well, thanks kids. Even with all the shouting, it was interesting. It fascinates me that first we have religious folks turning themselves into anti-logic pretzels to try to explain how religion is fact, and now we have religious people trying to say they aren’t really religious. It must be exhausting! I get the whole being angry at churches and the “organized” part of religion – clearly these institutions have done a LOT of damage over the centuries, and continue today to warp any positive messages there might be in the Bible in favor of exclusionism and the desire to control the behavior of non-believers. But to let that anger overshadow to such an extent that you try to say you believe in a supernatural being, but aren’t religious is really amazing.
I know humanbeing has gone for the evening, but she’s right, I was struggling with how to respond. How, after all, do you respond to someone who says, “I know that if I drop something it falls down, and I believe that every time I drop something it will fall – but I don’t believe in gravity.” It’s just silly. I should not have used the word "shame" - not really accurate, but was trying to figure out why someone who clearly meets all of the criteria except the church part feels so strongly about the label.
What else do you call someone who a) believes in and ‘serves’ (by the act of believing and following the teachings of) a supernatural being (presuming we can agree that someone who rises from the dead is ‘supernatural’).and b) is committed to a personal set of beliefs and practices based on faith in a supernatural being.
Humanbeing said “religion” is, “... Man trying to put understanding into reading God's words...usually called Doctrine!”
But isn't she also putting understanding into the words she reads in the bible? And isn’t it likely that in most things, i.e. ‘let he who is without sin cast the first stone.’ – she comes to the same or similar conclusions as most of the faithful? You also believe that belief in Jesus is essential (a tenant, or rule) to getting into heaven/have everlasting life. So does everyone else who follows the religion of Christianity. It's one of the cornerstones, perhaps THE cornerstone.
The one thing I still don’t get is why it would be so important for someone who is clearly, ahem, spiritual – to deny they belong to Christianity, arguably the largest religion on the planet. I get that she hates CHURCH, that much is clear. Just say you don't believe in church then. But that doesn't mean you aren't religious. It’s like saying I believe the sky is blue, and I hate buildings, so don’t tell me I believe the sky is blue!
Complexity theory!
You're absolutely right, SG. :-)
I think there are several significant dynamics that underlie the desire to claim Christian status but distance oneself from organized religion and churches in general.
The first is the attempt to maintain a fluid individuality, which I think is a good thing, on the whole. By defining oneself as part of a group, we can lose individuality and the sense of a personal process - if everyone else has done it, how does it remain fresh and new for us? So in this instance, HB is able to be part of a group but different from the majority of its members. That's fine too, especially since there are plenty of things about the church to criticize and with which it's not very nice to be affiliated.
Other folks are different and absolutely relish the identification with a group, and it is precisely from that association that they define themselves.
The second thing is a more subtle claim to truth. "Everyone else is just following a man-made religion, but we are participating in a fundmentally true process that is different from everyone else". This is where you are correct, SG, because the tenets of what distinguishes them from "other" religions are precisely religious tenets. "Religious" is a subset of "Spiritual", but in this instance, HB has already decided a large number of issues regarding the Divine: 1) That the Divine exists; 2) That Jesus was/is Divine; 3) The the collection of texts we call The Bible is a product of Divine function. While the case could be made that #1 could be classified as Spiritual but not Religious, that would hold only so long as the participant has come to the conclusion regarding Divine existence within the confines of the equivalent of a spiritual Skinner's Box. The instant that #2 and #3 are claimed, it is a product of the Christian religion. While people who met Jesus when he was alive can have a personal relationship with, nobody living today can do so WITHOUT first making the RELIGIOUS claim that Jesus is not dead but still alive and in fact Divine. That claim is a religious claim that separates them from other religious claims from other traditions.
-cont.-
Swimmergirl
I personally have alway thought that religion is a learned behavior, and spiritually is what is. Some of you profess not to be religious, because you don't belong to a church. As long as you believe that Bible is the word of God, and everything in it is true; then you are religious because you were taught to believe it. The Bible is made up of stories handed down from one person to another, and finally written. It is mans attempt at trying to explain the universe. Yes there has to be some force greater than us out there, but is truly NOT the entity that people say and believe in from the Bible. s to what happens to us when we die, no one knows
-cont-
The positive thing about such a claim is that it is an attempt to be alive, dynamic, and aware of something profound, not stuck in dead rote. The functions of the church do not provide what they feel is vital or real, and so they reject them, which is a valid and needed form of self-expression. I think it's slightly misplaced, though - accepting the mantle of "religious" is not automatically the same as being "wrong" or "arbitrary", which what I think is feared here.
I wonder how HB would classify Rumi or the Ba'al Shem Tov - religious or spiritual or maybe simply wrong? The only primary tenet of Islam is to say once in your life with complete conviction "There is no God but Allah and Muhammad is his prophet", and the Ba'al Shem Tov felt that there was no need for set times of prayer or observance as all moments were to be considered holy.
The other issue is the idea that only members of the group can clearly understand the experience and therefore only group members can apply labels; this is where HB said I lacked the "subjective" experience that would qualify me to make a judgment.
Now, had someone asked me 30 years ago about my religion, I would have given the EXACT SAME REPLY as HB did that began this thread. (I have no idea when people began using the phrase "personal relationship with Jesus", because it does not occur in the Bible, but it's quite the cool thing to say among high school and college Christian groups.) So at that point, I was within the group. However, I began to study Hebrew and Greek, text criticism and biblical exegesis, and ended up in seminary, at which point I could no longer hold to those former tenets while maintaining any degree of intellectual honesty. So now I am outside the group, and groups are generally far more hostile to apostasy than to those who have always been unbelievers. And most likely HB would claim that my membership within the group (my faith) was never truly real, otherwise I never would have discarded it, and therefore I am still unable to declare his (her?) stance a fundamentally religious one.
Now you're just a glutton for punishment
with a penchant for profundity and far more time than I have for posting here... ;-)
I know!
Verbosity...thy name is... um... me...
:-p