Does Christianity have any true Holy Days left?
 

I didn't want to hijack the "Is Santa really good for the kids?" thread in the Sigma Gamma Rho forum anymore than I think I already have, but the thread has got me pondering some questions. While I am not a religious woman I just don't think Christianity has any pure holy days, where other major religions do.

A lot of Christian holidays/holy days/religious celebrations are mixed with many pagan traditions. Also, a lot of these days have turned into Hallmark holidays and are nothing more than ways to make money.

What are everyone's thoughts on this? Does Christianity have any pure holy days left?

Keep it civil everyone.

Yes. You don't have to commercialize Christmas or Easter. You can observe them in a religiously pure manner.

Only the days that are holy (whose true meaning is "set apart") for you. The days we tend to call Holy Days are pagan holidays "christianized" during the spread of Christianity.

I think that there are a couple Old Testament Holy Days that can legitimately celebrated by Christians, ie: The Feast of Tabernacles ("ye shall keep it until the end of the age").

Good Friday is a day off from work and school in Canada and that's religious. Of course, at least half the population doesn't bother to go to church and just take the day off to sleep. Otherwise, I don't think I can think of anything else other than Christian days that one doesn't get off.

Orthodox Christmas and Easter are still religious, IMHO.

Yes! But if I didn't get presents I would be mad. But I am a BAD Catholic.

But how many people actually DO this? Even the most religious families I know buy into the material side of Christmas as well. And let's not get started on the pagan part of it. In order to celebrate a Christmas tradition that had nothing to do with paganism, you would have to get rid of the Christmas tree, the gift-giving, and the mistletoe to start with -- oh, and you would be celebrating Jesus's birth sometime in the spring.

I think a lot more people do it than advertise.

I also think it's a little ridiculous to judge whether someone is "truly" observing a Holy Day when you yourself aren't religious.

I was interested in your last sentence, Jesus's birth being sometime in the spring. Do you mind my asking your thoughts on that?

According to my brother (who makes me feel like a pagan at times!), any census of the Jews would have more probably been taken at the time between Rosh Hoshannah to the Feast of Tabernacles, probably closer to the Feast of Tabernacles. These are all in the September or October months. That's why I was curious about the spring timing.

Oh, and my brother & his wife do not have a tree, mistletoe, etc, etc - but they do the gifts. I won't even go into the other parts of paganism they avoid. They would have enjoyed the company of Cotton Mather & his merry band!

I don't think that there is anything wrong with Christmas trees with presents and Santa Claus and Easter with bunnies and eggs. I think that you can have a religious holiday and enjoy the fun/commercial aspect of it as long as the fun/commercial isn't the entire celebration and the reason for the Holy Day is remembered.


I think that the Catholic Holy Days of Obligation are still true holy days for people who practice the faith. Holy Days of Obligation include:
Sundays
January 1, the solemnity of Mary, Mother of God;
Thursday of the Sixth Week of Easter, the solemnity of the Ascension;
August 15, the solemnity of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary;
November 1, the solemnity of All Saints;
December 8, the solemnity of the Immaculate Conception;
December 25, the solemnity of the Nativity of Our Lord Jesus Christ.

You know what's interesting? The chapel at my high school has two huge ever green trees that lights up during a scene in our annual Nativity performances.

I would also add Ash Wednesday and Palm Sunday for Catholics.

There are other days within the church calendar that may not be considered High Holy days but that are still very important days of the year:

Pentecost
Ascension
Epiphany
Transfiguration

Now, I realize those aren't the same as Catholic Days of Obligation or Jewish High Holy days, but they are still important, at least in my denomination.

I agree with Cream. You can have the fun side as long as that doesn't overshadow the true reason for celebration.

For our denominations Reformation Sunday is a big one. Though you posted the others I was thinking of.

Well December 25th was taked directly from the worship of Mithras, an old zorastrian God.

In fact a lot of Christian Ritual may have been taken from the worship of Mithras, given that he predated the Christ Figure by 500 years or more.

http://www.taivaansusi.net/historia/mithraism.html

Maybe you are all actually Mithras worshippers and just don't know it? Names change . . .

I had Reformation up there but then figured noone else would know what it is, so I took it off.

You know you want your own personal copy of Luther for Christmas. Even Family Video has it!

There are different schools of thought re: Christianity vs. Mithraism.

www.tektonics.org/copycat/mithra.html

You mean remembering their original meaning, without any monotheism?

What makes you think I don't already have one and invited everyone over for a potluck with hotdish and jello?

Epiphany (which you mentioned) is a pretty big deal in the church I grew up in. We actually put the creche out at the start of Advent with only the animals, and add the other figures in as they arrive. We may be horrible though, because we do presents again at Epiphany.

We also did Jesus' birthday cake. Each week in advent we add another ingredient and talk about the symbolism of it. Then we have cake after church on Christmas (which is after the Christmas Eve candlelight service so it is technically his birthday when we are done).

Palm Sunday is HUGE. We march around the outside of the church with our palm fronds in a procession. Pentecost is also big as we wear red, and is the time for confirmation.

My family always celebrates Christmas big-time, and we celebrate it as the Birth of Christ. We give gifts to represent God's Gift of His son.
Also, the entire calender and history is based on Christ (example, A.D. = In the year of our Lord).
I'm a big fan of Easter and Palm Sunday too.

Isn't Zorastrainism a monothesistic religion? So don't they have just one "God"?

Besides, allusions to Mithraism are great - but strcitly speaking the Christmas tradition draws more on Anglo-Saxan and Germanic tradtions more than anything... because afterall Christmas isn't the time to be bathed in the blood of a sacrificed bull suspended over the congregation ;)

Yeah xians took that idea too. Where do you think of the idea of praying before you eat comes from? Animal sacrifice was used as the feast. Human sacrifice on the other hand helped the crops grow. Which is why the prince kills the king .

Yes, but if you've picked up a history book lately, you'll notice that the terms B.C and A.D are longer used.

The terms now used are B.C.E - Before the common era

and

C.E - Common era

I picked up a history book this week. Sure didn't say that.

The commercialization of religious holidays and ritualized gift exchanges don't take away from personal spirituality, in my opinion.

While Christianity has absorbed many pagan religions and has developed different branches, all of those things happened 100s of years ago. I think it is safe to say Christianity has many true holy days, and that it isn't for unreligious people to make generalizations that just because Macy's popularized Santa Claus, that Christians (and other religious denominations) can't have a close, personal relationship with God or celebrate feast days and major religious celebrations.

Sure. People can have a close and personal relationship with whomever . . . I think people just see a certain . . . hypocrisy in an over focus on the commercial aspects of the event.

For example, if a girl gets engaged and its all about the Ring, and then subsequently all about the wedding . . there is a certain "missing the point" aspect to her thought process.

Great point, James. Just don't marry a girl like that ;)

Really? My art history book uses B.C.E and C.E. It's really for the sake of political correctness. A lot of newer books will use those terms.

That might be just about the best decription of the hypocrisy in many holidays that I've ever seen!

But you didn't hear me say that...

I dont see Christmas as much as a Holy time but rather a "fuck you- we want our religion to be in your face!!!" time for Christians.
Sad, really.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,141920,00.html

A Christian that uses "F- you, we want our religion in your face" isn't really practicing a "holy" day.


I really do think we've gotten off track on this thread. Does ANYONE really, really set any one day apart to solely worship Jesus Christ?

I admit that I don't. I go to Christmas Eve services, and we thank the Lord prior to opening any gifts or eating or whatever, but do I really spend the entire day in worship to Christ? No. And with the true definition of "holy" being "set apart", I don't think many others do, either.

I have to confess . .. I generally thank the people that bought me the gifts and made the food instead. . . but thats just me. :p

Ah but what is "solely" worshipping Christ imply? Does that mean going to the Christmas Eve and Day Masses and spending the rest of the day at home reading the bible or praying? Or does it mean going to Mass and then opening your house and your heart to family and friends, and celebrating the friendship and love? I think the last would be more in character with what the Bible says of ol'JC.

That's like saying Halloween is the "in your face" time for non-christians to christians. LOL

Its not Christians that make it an "in your face" time, but RETAILERS! Seriously people, if retailers could make money off of Ramadan or The Day of The Dead, please believe that they would. Why? Because its not just Christians or religious people spending money during the holidays - its EVERYBODY (religious and non-religious alike).

On another note...

I totally agree with you. Aside from nuns and monks, I don't think anyone (myself included) spends the entire day in visible prayer/devotion. However, I do know that in every way, shape or form, everything that we do should worship Christ -whether it be in the manner in which to treat/talk to others, in servitude to others, our faithfulness on the jobs (i.e. i should be working instead of on GC ), or even by spending time studying His word. This type of worship is no less valuable. :)

OK, this is written from my personal belief. I am a Catholic and a convinced man of faith, so please read this as it is intended, which is my point of view and my belief.

Aw c'mon guys, give me a break! If one believes that Jesus is in fact our Saviour and that in its early stages Christianity co-opted other holiday observances to assist people in understanding their new faith, what is the problem? I could care less WHEN the actual birth of Christ occured. I care THAT it occured. If we use a convenient day such as 25 DEC, so what? If it celebrated someone else but we now use that date to celebrate the birth of Jesus, then great. I believe that the object of the enterprise is to explain the message of Christ so that people can more easily accept it. We are not celebrating pagan rites, we are celebrating the birth of Christ. On halloween we are celebrating all hallows eve where we pray for all those who have died. And yes, growing up we did pray for all souls and the next day we prayed in thanksgiving for all who were in Heaven. Even as a small kid I clearly remember the Nuns explaining the meaning of All souls day and all saints day and how the halloween celebration came from earlier beliefs and superstitions which were simply absorbed to give a reference point to help early converts to grasp what we Catholics held to be the true meaning. If co-opting an earlier feast day to help illustrate the meaning of Christ's message was useful in making the message easier to grasp and understand then I think that is a first class idea. Consider the Cathedral of Chartres in France. Early missionaries learned that a local belief held that a virgin goddess would have a son who would be a great redeamer. This belief was centered on a "sacred spring".
So, the missionaries built a church which eventually became the Cathedral over the site of the spring and told all the locals, listen up guys, your story is close but no cigar. Here is the real story ...
so the people found that it was easy to accept Jesus the Redeamer Son of the Virgin Mary. They were not celebrating an earlier pagan belief, they were explaining how the true story of Christ could be seen as the fulfillment of an earlier but flawed or incomplete belief. From the point of view of a Catholic and a man of convinced faith, anything that helps people accept the gift of salvation merited by Christ for all of us makes good sense to me.
Further to the issue of "pure" holy days, it seems to me that observance of the religious aspects of certain set-aside days does not preclude enjoyment of these days. I seriously doubt that God counts the number of minutes we spend observing such a day. I expect that He is pleased that we honor Him in a special way, not by how long we sit around doing it. I further believe that He is pleased that his children have an opportunity to rest and relax and participate in recreational activities. Giving gifts for Christmas seems like a great way to honor the birth of Christ by emulating the gifts of the Three Kings. (Yeah, whole 'nother story there). What a great time to practice charity as well. If one keeps focused on the utility of co-opting these days to help people receive the message of Christ then surely this must be seen as good and positive. To object to ways to spread the message of Christ seems to me to be the opposite of good and actually negative.

Honeychile,
As to spending the whole day worshiping Jesus, I figure that professing Christianity involves committment on several levels. To oversimplify, you have to talk the talk and then it sort of flows naturally you have to walk the walk. To me that means I have to realize that our Saviour paid the bill for all of us and we need only to accept His gift. Now, accepting His gift means to me that I must come to know that He is my Saviour and then arrange my life so that I do my best to live His message. As many times as I stumble I need to say sorry and try again, just a bit harder. In so doing I apply at the start of each day the ancient prayer "Ad majorem Dei gloriam". This is to dedicate all my works of that day to "The Greater Glory of God". In that way I offer my whole experience of the day as a prayer. Its also a very nice way of reminding myself that if all that I do is offered, then it would be a good idea to keep my actions in the right direction. So, by honest application of the meaning of "AMDG" then every day is a day spent glorifying God.

Jesus died to end all sin. He took or tried to take everyone's karma on himself, which was very nice of him. But his act cancels out all sin. Its all instantly forgiven. Whether you beleieve or not. Jesus died to pay for your soul, so go get your money's worth. He wants you to have a good time. And stop wearing crosses. If the second coming ever happens, do you think Jesus would want to see that? Show him a picture of some kids you adopted or something, or maybe some of those Harvey Birdman cartoons. Just not a cross. That's kind of mean. I don't really know if this will start a debate, but its times like these I thank god I'm an atheist.

Re: Does Christianity have any true Holy Days left?
 

Don't forget Mardi Gras, the kickoff to Lent...BWA HA HA HA....

Yes, really. I go to a Jesuit university so if you can't handle seeing a crucifix in every room, you don't go there, and thus BC and AD don't offend people. My boyfriend graduated from a public university as a history major and he said they never had that in books either.

and Joel, those are two isolated incidents. The entire staff at my retail store is Christian, and we have been instructed to say "Happy Holidays" to our customers. If somebody wishes us a Merry Christmas, of course we'll say that back, but if they don't, this way they aren't offended. Nobody wants to hear about the Baby J when purchasing beautiful stilettos.

and Dekeguy, those were great posts. :)

I was watching GMA this morning and they had a segment about removing Christmas from Christmas. It was an annoying attempt to be politically correct only it offends most people. Instead of singing "We wish you a Merry Christmas," children sang "We wish you a swinging holiday." It was just annoying and ridiculous.

I saw that too. I was thinking why didn't they just sing "neutral" songs like Jingle Bells or Winter Wonderland. LOL

This reminds me of something that happened in my city. Our city sponsored this festival called Winterfest, complete with Christmas tree. In an attempt to not offend, they called it "the community tree". LOL. People, both religious and non-religious, flooded the mayor's office with complaints on that. A few days later, the mayor apologized saying that from this point on, it will be called a Christmas tree.