The Glorious Birth of Our Lord
By Fr. George El-Andari
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Christmas is a major holiday in the Maronite church and it is the second feast of our Lord after Easter, the feast of feasts or the great feast. Traditionally in the eastern Churches they called Christmas the winter Easter because it is a major feast which was preceded by a period of forty days of fasting and abstinence, a period of a nine-day novena that ended with a Church celebration of the Glorious Birth of our Lord, Christmas. Unlike Easter (the Resurrection) and Epiphany (the Baptism) that are the beginning of a season, Christmas is the end of a season in the liturgy. All the Sundays that precede Christmas in the Maronite Church are preparation for Christmas.
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History of Christmas
Before Christianity, December 25th of every year was a great popular holiday par excellence, and we all know that this holiday was basically the birthday of the invincible sun which fell specifically on the first day when the day began to lengthen and the night to shorten, and from here the church celebrates the birth of our Lord Jesus Christ because He is the true sun, He is the light of the world, He is as we say in the Creed (Light from Light, true God from true God), he is the light that enlightens every person who comes into this world, as Saint John says in his Gospel in the first chapter.
Historically the ritual scholars differ in their search for the origin of Christmas. Some thought that this is from a very deep theological idea centered around the appearance of our Lord Jesus Christ in the flesh. This idea indicates that Christmas is not linked or connected to any ancient pagan holiday. Therefore, this talk does not contradict the traditional pagan holiday celebration of the birthday of the sun, which occurred on December 25, because the fathers or researchers consider Christmas to be a natural maturation and development of the Church’s awareness of the event of the incarnation. In other words, after the Council of Nicaea and specifically after the Council of Ephesus in the year 431, they discovered that our Lord Jesus Christ is a true God in every sense of the word, and He is a man who was born in the flesh from our mother, the Virgin Mary, certainly by the power of the Holy Spirit. In order to talk about His birth in the flesh, they had to find a birthday for Him in every sense of the word.
On the other hand, some scholars say that this holiday is closely linked to an ancient pagan holiday and this connection is a historical connection because the first historical church reference that determines the date of Christmas on December 25 is the Roman calendar which dates back to the year 336. The church chose this date because the pagans celebrated this day, December 25th, as the feast of the birthday of the sun, and they considered the sun to be one of the gods they worshipped. Of course, for us Christians, Jesus Christ is the Truth, He is the Sun of the world, so, the Church confirmed that the birthday of our Lord Jesus Christ must replace the pagan feast and from here it baptized this feast, Christianized it, and made it the feast of the birth of our Lord Jesus Christ in the flesh. Therefore, the Church celebrated on this date the birth of Jesus with new spiritual Christian concepts, giving it a great spiritual dimension.
The Church of the West focused in turn on celebrating Christmas on December 25th, at the same time the Church of the East focused on the birthday of our Lord on January 6th the date that Jesus was baptized (Epiphany) in the Jordan River (the Copts and Armenians still celebrate Christmas on this date). Over time, the East and the West exchanged the two feasts, and we had two feasts that represent two dates of one truth, which is the appearance of our Lord Jesus Christ. The first date is when he was born in the flesh, and the second date is when he was baptized in the Jordan and we heard the voice of the Father saying: This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.
The Roman Church began to celebrate Christmas in the year 336 and The Eastern Byzantine Church distinguished between Christmas on December 25 exclusively and the feast of the Epiphany or the Baptism of our Lord Jesus Christ on January 6 in the year 380, that is, approximately 50 years later.
St. John Chrysostom says: “This day was revealed to us about nine years ago, and yet the fervor of your piety gives it the joy of ancient institutions. Therefore, it can be said without hesitation that this day is at the same time new and ancient, because it has moved to its hour alongside ancient feasts and has focused from now on an ancient tradition. It is like strong plants that, once planted in the ground, rise high and are filled with fruit. This is the day known in ancient times among the peoples of the West, but it has not entered ours.” He talked about how the Church was filled with the faithful people on December 25th to celebrate the birth of the Glorious Lord. He also talked about those who criticized this move and those who defended it: “Some of them criticize it because it is new and modern and that it was introduced in our days, and others see the opposite in it, that it is very old because the prophets had previously predicted the birth of Christ, and therefore it was celebrated a long time ago."
Sometimes similar to the pagan celebration of the birth of the Sun, the Church celebrated this feast with new spiritual Christian concepts, giving it a great spiritual dimension. For example, according to the testimony of Moses Barkefa who died in 903 and was the Bishop of Mosul and says in one of his writings: “Why do we light fires on the birthday of Christ? That is to abolish the custom of the pagans who worship the sun and idols that used to light fires on the twenty-fifth of December in honor of the sun, and because light on such a day overcomes darkness, so the day increases and the night decreases. As for us, we light fires to abolish the custom of these pagans and incite the believers to come to the holiday.”
According to my Maronite friend from a town in Maten, Lebanon, “on December the twenty fourth, before Midnight Mass, the priest of the parish, as many Maronite priests still go to every house in the town with the crowd carrying candles and singing Syriac Christmas hymns calling on families to light their candles and to follow them to the Church where they celebrate the birth of our glorious Lord, with what is called the Nativity Prostration which was done by the Magi at midnight liturgy.”
These are true testimonies and important support for us in our thinking that the birthday of our Lord Jesus Christ actually came to replace the birth of the sun among the pagans. The birth of Christ on this day indicates light overcomes darkness and the fires of the pagans cease to be present.
Fasting and Abstinence
This season is characterized by fasting and abstinence for a period of days as they were preparing in this fasting and abstinence to celebrate this feast.
In the Maronite Church abstinence refers to abstaining from all animal products: meat, dairy, eggs, fish, and shellfish. But abstinence from fish and shellfish is no longer required, since it was abolished by patriarch mar Youssef III al-Rizzi (1597 – 1608). Abstinence from wine and from all alcohols was also required.
Fasting requires that one does not consume any food nor any drink from midnight till noon.
According to Simeon of Thessaloniki, Fasting and abstinence is part of our preparation to celebrate the Glorious Birth of our Lord in the flesh and his dwelling among us. In the Eastern tradition, this fast begins on November 15th and ends 40 days later, on the 24th December, on Christmas Eve. After the Synod of Dai’at Mussa in 1598, the Maronite Church shortened the period of fasting so that it began on December 5th, the day following the feast of Saint Barbara. The length of this fast was further reduced to 12 days after the Lebanese Synod that was held the year 1736 which it starts on December 13.
Of course, the period of fasting and abstinence has become shorter with the days to 9 days with the Christmas Novena, to 3 days, and today they are satisfied with a few days of fasting and sometimes one day with the Christmas Day as a fasting day.
Christmas Novena
The Christmas Novena is a very important matter that we must understand and cherish while preparing for the Birth of the Lord. Certainly we all know that the Novena came from the word nine, meaning nine days and reference to the nine months in which our mother, the Virgin Mary, carried our Lord Jesus Christ before giving birth to him. Therefore, we begin to prepare ourselves for a period of nine days until the Glorious Birth of our Lord as she carried him in her womb for nine months. This prayer came as a result of the influence of the foreign Latin missionaries who came to us in the East, specifically in Lebanon. About 184 years ago, in the year 1940, the novena entered our Maronite rite. The Novena replaced a choir prayer that they used to pray in churches. For us this prayer was very rich in theological and scriptural prayers and very rich in all the things that put us in the spirit of Christmas, in the mystery of the incarnation and in the mystery of the redemption of our Lord Jesus Christ.
For nine days before Christmas, the novena gathered all the believers in the church. The prayers of the novena were translated from the Latin rite and prayed in the Maronite rite within the framework of the Syriac Maronite melody. In addition, hymns and prayers especially for Saint Ephram the Syrian are sung (God sent his only Son, Arsal Allah and Glory be to the Word, soobhana alkalimah), and at the end the Eucharistic Prostration that really bring to life the Syriac Antiochene heritage of the Maronite Church. Each day of the novena is an example of inspiration by poetry where the Syriac Fathers draws the faithful more deeply into the mystery of the Incarnation in participating in this great mystery through the Church and her sacraments.
According to our ancient manuscripts, specifically the manuscript numbered 66 dating back to the year 1555, which was written in Beit Shabab and published by Father Khalil Al-Hayek in an in-depth analytical study which was the subject of his doctoral thesis, he confirms the week of prayers in the Maronite Church preceding Christmas, which we call the Gregorian week. This week of preparation began on Monday after the Sunday of the announcement to Joseph, which we call today the relative Sunday, was called the Sunday preceding Christmas. The week can extend from eight to ten days, depending on when Christmas comes after the beginning of the week on Monday after the Sunday of the revelation to Joseph. As we said previously, this week was replaced by the Novena.
The Season’s Liturgy
In the Latin rite they call it the Advent season, in Eastern rites such as Syriac and Chaldean Churches, they call it the Annunciation Season or the Annunciation Weeks, whereas in the Maronite rite, we call it the “season of the glorious birth of the Lord” because in this season we await with joy, hope and expectation the dawn of salvation from Bethlehem.
The Maronite liturgical cycle begins with two Sundays of the consecration and the renewal of the Church, at the beginning of November of each year, though some years they are celebrated on one Sunday, that depends on the six Sundays that precede Christmas that confirm and determine for us if we want two Sundays or one Sunday for the consecration and the renewal of the Church. After that, the Maronite Church celebrates the “Season of the Glorious Birth of the lord” (Christmas) or the “Season of Announcements.” This season within the Maronite liturgical cycle aims to prepare the faithful to welcome the birth of our savior and is divided into the following weeks:
Before Christianity, December 25th of every year was a great popular holiday par excellence, and we all know that this holiday was basically the birthday of the invincible sun which fell specifically on the first day when the day began to lengthen and the night to shorten, and from here the church celebrates the birth of our Lord Jesus Christ because He is the true sun, He is the light of the world, He is as we say in the Creed (Light from Light, true God from true God), he is the light that enlightens every person who comes into this world, as Saint John says in his Gospel in the first chapter.
Historically the ritual scholars differ in their search for the origin of Christmas. Some thought that this is from a very deep theological idea centered around the appearance of our Lord Jesus Christ in the flesh. This idea indicates that Christmas is not linked or connected to any ancient pagan holiday. Therefore, this talk does not contradict the traditional pagan holiday celebration of the birthday of the sun, which occurred on December 25, because the fathers or researchers consider Christmas to be a natural maturation and development of the Church’s awareness of the event of the incarnation. In other words, after the Council of Nicaea and specifically after the Council of Ephesus in the year 431, they discovered that our Lord Jesus Christ is a true God in every sense of the word, and He is a man who was born in the flesh from our mother, the Virgin Mary, certainly by the power of the Holy Spirit. In order to talk about His birth in the flesh, they had to find a birthday for Him in every sense of the word.
On the other hand, some scholars say that this holiday is closely linked to an ancient pagan holiday and this connection is a historical connection because the first historical church reference that determines the date of Christmas on December 25 is the Roman calendar which dates back to the year 336. The church chose this date because the pagans celebrated this day, December 25th, as the feast of the birthday of the sun, and they considered the sun to be one of the gods they worshipped. Of course, for us Christians, Jesus Christ is the Truth, He is the Sun of the world, so, the Church confirmed that the birthday of our Lord Jesus Christ must replace the pagan feast and from here it baptized this feast, Christianized it, and made it the feast of the birth of our Lord Jesus Christ in the flesh. Therefore, the Church celebrated on this date the birth of Jesus with new spiritual Christian concepts, giving it a great spiritual dimension.
The Church of the West focused in turn on celebrating Christmas on December 25th, at the same time the Church of the East focused on the birthday of our Lord on January 6th the date that Jesus was baptized (Epiphany) in the Jordan River (the Copts and Armenians still celebrate Christmas on this date). Over time, the East and the West exchanged the two feasts, and we had two feasts that represent two dates of one truth, which is the appearance of our Lord Jesus Christ. The first date is when he was born in the flesh, and the second date is when he was baptized in the Jordan and we heard the voice of the Father saying: This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.
The Roman Church began to celebrate Christmas in the year 336 and The Eastern Byzantine Church distinguished between Christmas on December 25 exclusively and the feast of the Epiphany or the Baptism of our Lord Jesus Christ on January 6 in the year 380, that is, approximately 50 years later.
St. John Chrysostom says: “This day was revealed to us about nine years ago, and yet the fervor of your piety gives it the joy of ancient institutions. Therefore, it can be said without hesitation that this day is at the same time new and ancient, because it has moved to its hour alongside ancient feasts and has focused from now on an ancient tradition. It is like strong plants that, once planted in the ground, rise high and are filled with fruit. This is the day known in ancient times among the peoples of the West, but it has not entered ours.” He talked about how the Church was filled with the faithful people on December 25th to celebrate the birth of the Glorious Lord. He also talked about those who criticized this move and those who defended it: “Some of them criticize it because it is new and modern and that it was introduced in our days, and others see the opposite in it, that it is very old because the prophets had previously predicted the birth of Christ, and therefore it was celebrated a long time ago."
Sometimes similar to the pagan celebration of the birth of the Sun, the Church celebrated this feast with new spiritual Christian concepts, giving it a great spiritual dimension. For example, according to the testimony of Moses Barkefa who died in 903 and was the Bishop of Mosul and says in one of his writings: “Why do we light fires on the birthday of Christ? That is to abolish the custom of the pagans who worship the sun and idols that used to light fires on the twenty-fifth of December in honor of the sun, and because light on such a day overcomes darkness, so the day increases and the night decreases. As for us, we light fires to abolish the custom of these pagans and incite the believers to come to the holiday.”
According to my Maronite friend from a town in Maten, Lebanon, “on December the twenty fourth, before Midnight Mass, the priest of the parish, as many Maronite priests still go to every house in the town with the crowd carrying candles and singing Syriac Christmas hymns calling on families to light their candles and to follow them to the Church where they celebrate the birth of our glorious Lord, with what is called the Nativity Prostration which was done by the Magi at midnight liturgy.”
These are true testimonies and important support for us in our thinking that the birthday of our Lord Jesus Christ actually came to replace the birth of the sun among the pagans. The birth of Christ on this day indicates light overcomes darkness and the fires of the pagans cease to be present.
Fasting and Abstinence
This season is characterized by fasting and abstinence for a period of days as they were preparing in this fasting and abstinence to celebrate this feast.
In the Maronite Church abstinence refers to abstaining from all animal products: meat, dairy, eggs, fish, and shellfish. But abstinence from fish and shellfish is no longer required, since it was abolished by patriarch mar Youssef III al-Rizzi (1597 – 1608). Abstinence from wine and from all alcohols was also required.
Fasting requires that one does not consume any food nor any drink from midnight till noon.
According to Simeon of Thessaloniki, Fasting and abstinence is part of our preparation to celebrate the Glorious Birth of our Lord in the flesh and his dwelling among us. In the Eastern tradition, this fast begins on November 15th and ends 40 days later, on the 24th December, on Christmas Eve. After the Synod of Dai’at Mussa in 1598, the Maronite Church shortened the period of fasting so that it began on December 5th, the day following the feast of Saint Barbara. The length of this fast was further reduced to 12 days after the Lebanese Synod that was held the year 1736 which it starts on December 13.
Of course, the period of fasting and abstinence has become shorter with the days to 9 days with the Christmas Novena, to 3 days, and today they are satisfied with a few days of fasting and sometimes one day with the Christmas Day as a fasting day.
Christmas Novena
The Christmas Novena is a very important matter that we must understand and cherish while preparing for the Birth of the Lord. Certainly we all know that the Novena came from the word nine, meaning nine days and reference to the nine months in which our mother, the Virgin Mary, carried our Lord Jesus Christ before giving birth to him. Therefore, we begin to prepare ourselves for a period of nine days until the Glorious Birth of our Lord as she carried him in her womb for nine months. This prayer came as a result of the influence of the foreign Latin missionaries who came to us in the East, specifically in Lebanon. About 184 years ago, in the year 1940, the novena entered our Maronite rite. The Novena replaced a choir prayer that they used to pray in churches. For us this prayer was very rich in theological and scriptural prayers and very rich in all the things that put us in the spirit of Christmas, in the mystery of the incarnation and in the mystery of the redemption of our Lord Jesus Christ.
For nine days before Christmas, the novena gathered all the believers in the church. The prayers of the novena were translated from the Latin rite and prayed in the Maronite rite within the framework of the Syriac Maronite melody. In addition, hymns and prayers especially for Saint Ephram the Syrian are sung (God sent his only Son, Arsal Allah and Glory be to the Word, soobhana alkalimah), and at the end the Eucharistic Prostration that really bring to life the Syriac Antiochene heritage of the Maronite Church. Each day of the novena is an example of inspiration by poetry where the Syriac Fathers draws the faithful more deeply into the mystery of the Incarnation in participating in this great mystery through the Church and her sacraments.
According to our ancient manuscripts, specifically the manuscript numbered 66 dating back to the year 1555, which was written in Beit Shabab and published by Father Khalil Al-Hayek in an in-depth analytical study which was the subject of his doctoral thesis, he confirms the week of prayers in the Maronite Church preceding Christmas, which we call the Gregorian week. This week of preparation began on Monday after the Sunday of the announcement to Joseph, which we call today the relative Sunday, was called the Sunday preceding Christmas. The week can extend from eight to ten days, depending on when Christmas comes after the beginning of the week on Monday after the Sunday of the revelation to Joseph. As we said previously, this week was replaced by the Novena.
The Season’s Liturgy
In the Latin rite they call it the Advent season, in Eastern rites such as Syriac and Chaldean Churches, they call it the Annunciation Season or the Annunciation Weeks, whereas in the Maronite rite, we call it the “season of the glorious birth of the Lord” because in this season we await with joy, hope and expectation the dawn of salvation from Bethlehem.
The Maronite liturgical cycle begins with two Sundays of the consecration and the renewal of the Church, at the beginning of November of each year, though some years they are celebrated on one Sunday, that depends on the six Sundays that precede Christmas that confirm and determine for us if we want two Sundays or one Sunday for the consecration and the renewal of the Church. After that, the Maronite Church celebrates the “Season of the Glorious Birth of the lord” (Christmas) or the “Season of Announcements.” This season within the Maronite liturgical cycle aims to prepare the faithful to welcome the birth of our savior and is divided into the following weeks:
- The week of the Annunciation of Zechariah, the old priesthood falls silent so that the priesthood of Christ may take its place.
- The week of the Annunciation to our Mother the Virgin Mary, where the Church prepares to receive the Word of God just as the Virgin Mary received it with her obedience and faith.
- the week of the Visitation of our Mother the Virgin Mary to her relative Elizabeth, where the Old Testament, represented by John, the initiator of the New Testament, revives before withdrawing from the scene of events because it has ended.
- The week of the birth of John the Baptist, the son of divine grace and tenderness. Grace began to overflow before it descended fully in the person of Jesus Christ.
- The week of the Revelation to Joseph, which makes us surrender to the great mystery of salvation, rising from the sleep of our exile, doing what Heaven commands us.
- The week of the Genealogy, where we realize that Jesus, the Son of God, is also the Son of Man, the Son of History and Geography, so we join the march of peoples and fathers. Thus, we arrive at Christmas, where we sing with the angels: "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace and good will toward men."
