The Origin of Christmas

Christmas (Mass on Christ’s Day) is of fairly recent origin. The origins of Christmas stem from both the pagan and Roman cultures. The Romans actually celebrated two holidays in the month of December. The first was Saturnalia, which was a two-week festival honoring their god of agriculture Saturn. On December 25th, they celebrated the birth of Mithra, their sun god. Both celebrations were loud parties.

Also in December, in which the darkest day of the year falls, the pagan cultures lit bonfires and candles to keep the darkness at bay. The Romans also incorporated this tradition into their own celebrations.

As Christianity spread across Europe, the Christian clergy were not able to curb the pagan customs and celebrations. Since no one knew Jesus’s date of birth, they adapted the pagan sacramental into a celebration of His birthday.

The significance of Christmas is known to men, all over the world. Though it is true that Christams is celebrated as the day of the Birth of Christ into this world, yet it also symbolizes a very deeply significant truth of the spiritual life. Jesus Christ is the very personification of Divinity. He was born at a time when ignorance, superstition, greed, hatred and hypocrisy prevailed upon the land. Purity was forgotten and morality was neglected. In the midst of these conditions, Christ was born and He worked a transformation in the lives of people. He gave a new and a spiritual turn to the lives of man. There came a change upon the land. People started upon a new way of life/ thus a new era dawned for the world.