Prod. By BLACKCATHOLIC – 2: Have y’all ever noticed how Christmas is followed by a lot of death? (From “His Birth, Our Cross” for Laudare)

December 26, 2018 0 By BLACKCATHOLIC

Prod. by BLACKCATHOLIC series synopsis: I write for other Catholic platforms too. When I have articles published elsewhere I will have some of them previewed here and will provide a link to the full article on the original site of the post.

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Take a look at the above featured picture of what follows Christmas day – a stream of martyrs. I think this fact is important to consider, and it’s not just a liturgical coincidence.

Last year when I was changing out the tabernacle veil from white to red at church after Christmas Mass, I had the thought of “man we just brought out the white after having all that purple for Advent; now we’re already switching it out again.” Then, I thought about the feast days coming in right after and noticed how as soon as Christ is born we start celebrating some pretty bloody deaths. The stoning of the first martyr and deacon. A bunch of babies being murdered by Herod. A faithful man of the Church being taken out by assassins. The Church set the calendar up like this, so I started to consider what was on her mind. The results of my pondering came out in an article that I wrote for Laudare Outreach earlier this year weeks after Christmas. A preview of it is below:

“What I noticed was this: Christmas, perhaps the most joyful time of the year, sure is followed by a lot of death. Don’t follow me? Just take a look at the feast days that are right after Christmas day.
December 26 – St. Stephen, the first martyr
December 28 – Holy Innocents, martyrs
December 29 – St. Thomas Becket, bishop and martyr (optional memorial)
The liturgical calendar doesn’t play around. As soon as we get through celebrating the birth of the One who gives true life to a world that is dead in sin we are plunged head-long into feast days of blood.”

[. . .]

“He showed by His life that the best way to live the Way, the Truth, and the Life is to die. Jesus had a mission from the very moment of His Incarnation, and that mission was the dreadful destiny of the Cross. By His life, death, and resurrection He redeemed mankind; thus, His birth is inseparably connected to His death. His life is indivisible from His Cross.”

The rest of it is here.