The Season of Christmas

December 25, 2011 - January 9, 2012

While the solemnity of the Birth of Our Savior in fact ranks after Easter and Pentecost, it remains the most popular celebration of the Church year, focused on our wonder at the sublime mystery of the Incarnation.

- Ceremonies of the Liturgical Year by Msgr. Peter J. Elliott. San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2002.

The season of Christmas begins each year on the evening of December 24 and continues through the feast of the Baptism of the Lord. The season features three major celebrations: Christmas; Mary, the Mother of God; and Epiphany.

Christmas is celebrated on December 25 every year and is a holy day of obligation regardless of what day of the week it falls on. This year is easy because it is on Sunday. It has four Masses associated with it: Vigil, Midnight, Dawn, and Day. Priests have the privilege of celebrating three Masses on this day, a favor granted on only one other day of the year: All Souls.

The celebration of Jesus' birth is too good to celebrate for just one day so the Church extends it for eight. The Octave of Christmas runs through January 1. Each day of the Octave also features the commemoration of different saints. On the 26th is Saint Stephen, the first martyr. On the 27th is Saint John, the beloved disciple and evangelist. He is followed by the Holy Innocents, the children of Bethlehem killed under Herod's orders on the 28th. Saint Thomas Becket is remembered on the 29th and Pope Saint Sylvester I on the 31st. In between is the feast of the Holy Family of Jesus, Mary, and Joseph on the 30th.

The last day of the Octave, January 1, is Mary, the Mother of God which is ordinarily a holy day of obligation but it falls on a Sunday this year anyway. This day celebrates Mary's role as Jesus' mother and the part she played in the history of our salvation. Since it's the eighth day after Jesus' birth, it is also recalled that Jesus was circumcised as it is prescribed for this day in Jewish law.

Not only is January 1 the beginning of the calendar year, it is also commemorated as the World Day of Prayer for Peace. This year marks the 45th annual observance. Pope Benedict XVI has chosen "Educating the youth for justice and peace" as this year's theme.

On the twelfth day of Christmas, January 6, the Church celebrates the Epiphany, commemorating the visit of the Magi or wise astrologers from the East. It marks the revelation of Jesus to non-Jews, the Gentiles. In the United States, we transfer the Epiphany to the Sunday after January 1, so this year we'll celebrate it on January 8.

Two popular traditions associated with Epiphany are the blessing of chalk to be used in home blessings and the Proclamation of the Date of Easter along with all the major feast days of the coming year.

Three special saints are celebrated in the week before Epiphany. On the fourth is Saint Elizabeth Ann Seton who started the Daughters of Charity in the United States and opened the first free Catholic school in the relatively new country. She is followed by Saint John Neumann an early bishop of Philadelphia. On the sixth is Saint Andre Bessette, the holy doorkeeper who had a reputation for healing the sick in Montreal. His devotion to Saint Joseph led to the building of the great oratory in his honor.

The season ends on Monday, January 9 with the feast of the Baptism of the Lord. We fast forward thirty years of Jesus' life to the beginning of his public ministry and transition to the season of Ordinary Time. We also mark National Vocation Awareness Week when we pray and reflect as a nation on the many callings within the Church.