WHY WE CELEBRATE DECEMBER 25th.

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume XVI, Issue 11, 24 December 1925, Page 11

WHY WE CELEBRATE DECEMBER 25th.

TyrO BODY knows whether December 25th is the exact date on winch Christ was born, or what people first celebrated that date. it may have been in April, or in October, but unlikely in December, judging by some of tlie attendant circumstances. j But if heathenism was to understood and conquered, some of its established institutional and festive ways must be adopted and reformed and filled with a new meaning in accord with the new thought and hope then beginning strangely to move the hearts of men. And this was the very thing that happened. After the triumph of Christianity the prejudice of the early Christians against the celebration of birthdays as heathenish died out. Some time between 337 and 352 Pope Julius directed Saint Cyril to ascertain the correct date of the Nativity. He reported that the western churches obI served it on December 25, although I other churches kept the day in January, April, May, March, and September. Pope Julius was so satisfied with Saint Cyril’s report that he set December 25th as Christmas Day. and our observance of that date has come down to us from that decision The observance of the festival of the Nativity was from the beginning called Christmas or Christ Mass, because a special mass was celebrated on that day. The pure glow of the spiritual festival dissipated the dark clouds of licentious and wicked ceremonies that marked the notorious Roman Saturnalia ; but the Christian observance, while exterminating the evils of the heathen festival which it displaced, permitted many ol the pleasing and innocent features to remain. Among these are customs which survive at the present day-the decorating with evergreens holly and laurel: the burning of the vule log and the singing of” Christmas carols, which are the evolution of the ancient hymns of praise to Saturn and Bacchus and other heather gods.