Christmas<\/em>.<\/p>\nIt became Christmas as the Romans became Christian and took on a new meaning, a meaning we still recognize today – the celebration of the birth of our Savior Jesus Christ.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Whether people\u00a0celebrate Christmas as a Christian holiday or\u00a0a secular holiday, many of the external signs of the holiday are the same.\u00a0\u00a0Both celebrate\u00a0by decorating, exchanging gifts and parties.\u00a0 The exchanging of gifts is done as an expression of love.\u00a0 For us\u00a0who celebrate the day as Christians, the expression of love is rooted in the expression of love God shows us by sending\u00a0His Son to redeem us.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Christmas celebrations often include a meal.\u00a0 Sharing a meal is a sign of fellowship.\u00a0\u00a0As Christians, we remember that Jesus frequently shared meals with his disciples.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The final meal he celebrated with his disciples was the Last Supper and the first celebration of the Eucharist.\u00a0 Recognizing the importance of the Eucharist, fundamental to our celebration of Christmas as Catholics is Christmas Mass.<\/p>\n
At Christmas Mass, depending on the Mass you attend, there are various options for the readings.\u00a0 The readings will include prophecies from Isaiah of the coming messiah and the gospel will speak of the birth of Jesus or his eternal beginning.<\/p>\n
The point to be focused on is that today Jesus has come into the world.\u00a0 He did not come in trumpet fanfare and a royal entrance.\u00a0 Rather, he came as one of us, born of a human mother, and has experienced the world as we have.\u00a0 So, we have a God who knows what it is like to be human.\u00a0 We have a God who fulfills his promises to us, and we have a God who loves us so much as to send his only Son to redeem us.<\/p>\n
It centers on the\u00a0birth of Jesus lying in a manger.\u00a0 When we picture the manger scene, we see a little baby and we see the face of God.<\/p>\n
Merry Christmas,<\/p>\n
Fr. Jeff<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Today is a day to rejoice for For today in the city of David a savior has been born for you who is Christ and Lord (Luke 2:11 – from Mass at Midnight Readings). Many people celebrate Christmas as a holiday without really knowing and appreciating\u00a0its origins as Christmas.\u00a0 There was a Roman holiday on …<\/p>\n
Continue reading ‘It’s Christmas!’ »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[62],"tags":[129],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pMTPk-6o","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/396"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=396"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/396\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":397,"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/396\/revisions\/397"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=396"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=396"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=396"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}