January 1, 2005

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  2004 YEARS AGO TODAY

  
  

   

  
  

  "The Circumcision" -Andrea Mantegna

  
  

  January 1, 01

  
  

  As Christ wished to fulfil the law and to show His descent according to the flesh from Abraham. He, though not bound by the law, was circumcised on the eighth day (Luke, ii, 21), and received the sublime name expressive of His office, Jesus, i.e. Saviour.

  
  

  "The Christ, in order to fulfil all justice, was required to endure this humiliation, and bear in His body the stigma of the sins which He had taken upon Himself" (Fouard, A Life of Jesus, tr., I, 54). The circumcision took place, not in the Temple, but in some private house, where the Holy Family had found a rather late hospitality. The public ceremony in the synagogue, which is now the usage, was introduced later.

  
  

  Christmas was celebrated on 25 December, even in the early centuries, at least by the Western Church, whence the date was soon adopted in the East also. Saint Chrysostom credits the West with the tradition, and St. Augustine speaks of it as well and long estabblished. Consequently the Circumcision fell on the first of January.

  
  

     In the ages of paganism, however, the solemnization of the feast was almost impossible, on account of the orgies connected with the Saturnalian festivities, which were celebrated at the same time. Even in our own day the secular features of the opening of the New Year interfere with the religious observance of the Circumcision, and tend to make a mere holiday of that which should have the sacred character of a Holy Day.

  
  

  Up until the 18^th Century there were a number of churches that exhibited Christ's foreskin (as being the only part of Jesus Christ to have remained on earth) alongside relics of other saints 

  
  

   -http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/03779a.htm

  
  

  -http://www.circlist.com/rites/bris.html

  
  

   

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