The truth about Christmas

Jesus Christ was not born on December 25. In fact, he was not even born in winter. How could he have survived winter in a stable? His nativity is observed on December 25th because that was when the Mithraic religion celebrated the Day of the Birth of the Unconquered Sun. Mithraism was the great rival of Christianity in the late Roman Empire and it was easier for Christianity to replace rather than abolish well-established pagan feasts. That is how the first Christmas came about – as the substitute for the Mithraic Feast of the Birth of the Unconquered Sun.

There are contradictions on even the way we commemorate the life of Jesus. We celebrate His Nativity on a fixed date – December 25. But we commemorate His death on a movable feast – Good Friday and it actually means Holy Friday. We used to celebrate the Epiphany on the Twelfth Night after Christmas. Now we commemorate it on the first Sunday of January that does not fall the New Year. So when we hold it on a January 2nd, we actually have 13 days after Christmas.

By the way, one of the most popular Christmas songs is the Twelve Days of Christmas which refers to the 12 days after Christmas. In the Philippines, what we celebrate more than the 12 days after Christmas are the nine days before Christmas when we hold nine pre-dawn Masses popularly called simbang gabi. We have a nice Filipino Christmas song called Ang Pasko Ay Sumapit. We wish that one of our many talented song writers would write a Christmas song on the Nine Days before Christmas. That would be truly Pinoy, a Christmas song about our Simbang Gabi.

Part of our Christmas celebration is the Feast of the Holy Innocents. Herod was king when Christ was born. He was fanatically determined to stamp out any threat to his throne. When he was informed by the three Magi who had come to worship the infant Jesus that a new king had just been born, he decided to kill every male child less than two years of age in Bethlehem. God warned Saint Joseph of Herod's plan and so he and the Virgin Mary fled to Egypt. Herod killed all the Holy Innocents in Bethlehem. They were actually the very first Christian martyrs and they not only died for Christ but in the place of Christ. Modern researchers claim that at that time, there could only have been a maximum of two dozen male children in Bethlehem. Herod was so savage that he later even had his own son murdered. Augustus Caesar has been quoted as saying: ‘Better to be Herod's pig than Herod's son.’

Our street children are the equivalent of today's Holy Innocents. They are not being murdered, but many are starving to death. We urge Manila Mayor Lito Atienza and Makati Mayor Jejomar Binay to initiate the move of making Holy Innocents Day a day dedicated to our street children. It is good to give Biblical events a contemporary interpretation. No child should be neglected in our times. The street children are not as holy or as innocent as the children Herod had murdered, but they have been neglected, if not totally abandoned by their families and it is up to the government to help them become good and productive citizens. Kapamilya is what they are.