The Holy Innocents are the children mentioned in the gospel of Matthew, chapter 2:16-18.

Herod, perceiving that he was deluded by the wise men, was exceeding angry, and sent his soldiers to kill all male children ages two and under that were in Bethlehem and on the boarders, according to the time which he had diligently inquired of the wise men. Then was fulfilled the prophesy of Jeremiah: A voice in Rama was heard, of lamentation and great mourning; Rachel bewailed her children, and would not be comforted, because they were not.

The Greek Liturgy asserts that Herod killed 14,000 boys, the Syrians speak of 64,000, and many medieval authors speak of 144,000, according to Rev. 14:3. Modern writers reduce the number considerably, since Bethlehem was a rather small town. Knabenbauer brings it down to fifteen or twenty (Evang. S. Matt., I, 104), Bisping to ten or twelve (Evang. S. Matt.), and Kellner to about six (Christus and seine Apostel, Freiburg, 1908).

This cruel deed of Herod is not mentioned by the Jewish historian Flavius Josephus, although he relates quite a number of atrocities committed by the king during the last years of his reign. The number of these children was so small that this crime appeared insignificant amongst the other misdeeds of Herod. Macrobius relates that when Augustus heard that amongst the boys of two years and under Herod’s own son also had been massacred, he said: “It is better to be Herod’s hog, than his son” alluding to the Jewish law of not eating, and consequently not killing, swine. The Middle Ages gave faith to this story, and Abelard inserted it in his hymn for the feast of Holy Innocents.

It is impossible to determine the day or the year of the death of the Holy Innocents, since the chronology of the birth of Christ and the subsequent Biblical events is most uncertain. All we know is that the infants were slaughtered within two years following the apparition of the star to the Wise Men (Belser, in the Tubingen “Quartalschrift,” 1890, p. 361). The Church venerates these children as martyrs (flores martyrum); they are the first buds of the Church killed by the frost of persecution; they died not only for Christ, but in his stead (St. Aug., “Sermo 10us de sanctis”).

The Latin Church instituted the feast of the Holy Innocents at a date now unknown, not before the end of the fourth, and not later than the end of the fifth century.

The Roman Station of December 28 is at St. Paul’s Outside the Walls, because that church is believed to possess the bodies of several of the Holy Innocents. A portion of these relics was transferred by Sixtus V to Santa Maria Maggiore. The church of St. Justina at Padua, the cathedrals of Lisbon and Milan, and other churches also preserve bodies which they claim to be those of some of the Holy Innocents.

St. John, the son of Zebedee and brother of St. James the Great, was called to be an Apostle by our Lord in the first year of His public ministry. He became the “beloved disciple” and the only one of the Twelve who did not forsake the Savior in the hour of His Passion. He stood faithfully at the cross when Christ made him the guardian of His Mother.

 

His later life was passed chiefly in Jerusalem and at Ephesus. He founded many churches in Asia Minor, and he wrote many important works, including the fourth Gospel, three Epistles, and the Book of Revelation is also attributed to him. Brought to Rome, tradition relates that he was by order of Emperor Dometian cast into a cauldron of boiling oil but came forth unhurt, and was banished to the island of Pathmos for a year. He lived to an extreme old age, surviving all his fellow apostles, and died in Ephesus about the year 100.

 

St. John is called the Apostle of Charity, a virtue he had learned from his Divine Master, and which he constantly inculcated by word and example. The “beloved disciple” died at Ephesus, where a stately church was erected over his tomb. It was afterwards converted into a Mohammedan mosque.

 

John is credited with the authorship of three epistles and one Gospel, although many scholars believe that the final editing of the Gospel was done by others shortly after his death. He is also supposed by many to be the author of the book of Revelation, called the Apocalypse, although this identification is less certain.

Just after Christmas, the Catholic Church remembers its first martyr, and one of its first deacons, Saint Stephen. Roman Catholics celebrate his feast Dec. 26, while Eastern Catholics honor him one day later.

 

In the Acts of the Apostles, St. Luke praises St. Stephen as “a man full of faith and the Holy Spirit,” who “did great wonders and signs among the people” during the earliest days of the Church.

 

Luke’s history of the period also includes the moving scene of Stephen’s death – witnessed by St. Paul before his conversion – at the hands of those who refused to accept Jesus as the Jewish Messiah.

 

Stephen himself was a Jew who most likely came to believe in Jesus during the Lord’s ministry on earth. He may have been among the 70 disciples whom Christ sent out as missionaries, who preached the coming of God’s kingdom while traveling with almost no possessions.

 

This spirit of detachment from material things continued in the early Church, in which St. Luke says believers “had all things in common” and “would sell their possessions and goods and distribute the proceeds to all, as any had need.”

 

But such radical charity ran up against the cultural conflict between Jews and Gentiles, when a group of Greek widows felt neglected in their needs as compared to those of a Jewish background.

 

Stephen’s reputation for holiness led the Apostles to choose him, along with six other men, to assist them in an official and unique way as this dispute arose. Through the sacramental power given to them by Christ, the Apostles ordained the seven men as deacons, and set them to work helping the widows.

 

As a deacon, Stephen also preached about Christ as the fulfillment of the Old Testament law and prophets. Unable to refute his message, some members of local synagogues brought him before their religious authorities, charging him with seeking to destroy their traditions.

 

Stephen responded with a discourse recorded in the seventh chapter of the Acts of the Apostles. He described Israel’s resistance to God’s grace in the past, and accused the present religious authorities of “opposing the Holy Spirit” and rejecting the Messiah.

 

Before he was put to death, Stephen had a vision of Christ in glory. “Look,” he told the court, “I see the heavens opened and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God!”

 

The council, however, dragged the deacon away and stoned him to death.

 

“While they were stoning Stephen, he prayed, ‘Lord Jesus, receive my spirit,’” records St. Luke in Acts 7. “Then he knelt down and cried out in a loud voice, ‘Lord, do not hold this sin against them.’ When he had said this, he died.”

 

The first Christian martyrdom was overseen by a Pharisee named Saul – later Paul, and still later St. Paul – whose own experience of Christ would transform him into a believer, and later a martyr himself.

The word for Christmas in late Old English is Cristes Maesse, the Mass of Christ, first found in 1038, and Cristes-messe, in 1131; in Latin Dies Natalis.

Early Celebration

Christmas was not among the earliest festivals of the Church. Sts. Irenaeus and Tertullian omit it from their lists of feasts, and Origen, glancing perhaps at the discreditable imperial Natalitia, asserts that in the Scriptures sinners alone, not saints, celebrate their birthday. Arnobius can still ridicule the “birthdays” of the gods.

 

The first evidence of the feast is from Egypt. About A.D. 200, Clement of Alexandria says that certain Egyptian theologians “over curiously” assign, not the year alone, but the day of Christ’s birth, placing it on 25 Pachon (May 20) in the twenty-eighth year of Augustus. The December feast therefore reached Egypt between 427 and 433.

 

In Rome the earliest evidence is in the Philocalian Calendar, compiled in 354, which contains three important entries. In the civil calendar December 25 is marked “Natalis Invicti.” In the “Depositio Martyrum” a list of Roman or early and universally venerated martyrs, under December 25 is found “VIII kal. ian. natus Christus in Betleem Iudæ.”

 

De Santi (L’Orig. delle Fest. Nat., in Civiltæ Cattolica, 1907), following Erbes, argues that Rome took over the Eastern Epiphany, now with a definite Nativity colouring, and, with as increasing number of Eastern Churches, placed it on December 25. Later, both the East and West divided their feast, leaving Ephiphany on January 6, and Nativity on December 25, respectively, and placing Christmas on December 25 and Epiphany on January 6. The earlier hypothesis still seems preferable.

Origin of Date

Concerning the date of Christ’s birth the Gospels give no help; upon their data contradictory arguments are based. The census would have been impossible in winter: a whole population could not then be put in motion. Again, in winter it must have been; then only field labour was suspended, but Rome was not thus considerate. Authorities moreover differ as to whether shepherds could or would keep flocks exposed during the nights of the rainy season.

 

Natalis Invicti

The well-known solar feast, however, of Natalis Invicti, celebrated on December 25, has a strong claim on the responsibility for our December date. For the history of the solar cult, its position in the Roman Empire, and syncretism with Mithraism, see Cumont’s epoch-making “Textes et Monuments” etc., I, ii, 4, 6, p. 355. Mommsen (Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum, 12, p. 338) has collected the evidence for the feast, which reached its climax of popularity under Aurelian in 274. Filippo del Torre in 1700 first saw its importance. It is marked, as has been said, without addition in Philocalus’ Calendar. It would be impossible here even to outline the history of solar symbolism and language as applied to God, the Messiah, and Christ in Jewish or Chrisian canonical, patristic, or devotional works. Hymns and Christmas offices abound in instances; the texts are well arranged by Cumont.

 
Liturgy and Custom

The fixing of this date fixed those too of Circumcision and Presentation, of Expectation and, perhaps, Annunciation B.V.M., and of Nativity and Conception of the Baptist (cf. Thurston in Amer. Eccl. Rev., December, 1898). Till the tenth century Christmas counted, in papal reckoning, as the beginning of the ecclesiastical year, as it still does in Bulls. Boniface VIII (1294-1303) restored temporarily this usage, to which Germany held longest.

 

The Crib (creche) or Nativity Scene

Saint Francis of Assisi in 1223 originated the crib of today by laicizing a hitherto ecclesiastical custom, henceforward extra-liturgical and popular. The presence of ox and ass is due to a misinterpretation of Isaias 1:3, and Habakkuk 3:2 (“Itala” version), though they appear in the unique fourth-century “Nativity” discovered in the Saint Sebastian catacombs in 1877. The ass on which Balaam rode in the Reims mystery won for the feast the title Festum Asinorum (Ducange, op. cit., s.v. Festum).

Hymns and Carols

The degeneration of these plays in part occasioned the diffusion of noels, pastorali, and carols, to which was accorded, at times, a quasi-liturgical position. Prudentius, in the fourth century, is the first (and in that century alone) to hymn the Nativity, for the “Vox clara” (hymn for Lauds in Advent) and “Christe Redemptor” (Vespers and Matins of Christmas) cannot be assigned to Ambrose. “A solis ortu” is certainly, however, by Sedulius (fifth century). The earliest German Weihnachtslieder date from the eleventh and twelfth centuries, the earliest noels from the eleventh, the earliest carols from the thirteenth. The famous “Stabat Mater Speciosa” is attributed to Jacopone da Todi (1230-1306); “Adeste Fideles” is, at the earliest, of the seventeenth century. These essentially popular airs, and even words, must, however, have existed long before they were put down in writing.

In the first ages, during the night before every feast, a vigil was kept. In the evening the faithful assembled in the place or church where the feast was to be celebrated and prepared themselves by prayers, readings from Holy Writ (now the Offices of Vespers and Matins), and sometimes also by hearing a sermon. On such occasions, as on fast days in general, Mass also was celebrated in the evening, before the Vespers of the following day. Towards morning the people dispersed to the streets and houses near the church, to wait for the solemn services of the forenoon.

 

This vigil was a regular institution of Christian life and was defended and highly recommended by St. Augustine and St. Jerome (see Pleithner, “Aeltere Geschichte des Breviergebetes”, pp. 223 sq.). The morning intermission gave rise to grave abuses; the people caroused and danced in the streets and halls around the church (Durandus, “Rat. Div. off.”, VI, 7), and St. Jerome speaks of these improprieties (Epist. ad Ripuarium).

 

The Synod of Seligenstadt (1022) mentions vigils on the eves of Christmas, Epiphany, the feast of the Apostles, the Assumption of Mary, St. Laurence, and All Saints, besides the fast of two weeks before the Nativity of St. John. After the eleventh century the fast, Office, and Mass of the nocturnal vigil were transferred to the day before the feast, and even now [1909] the liturgy of the Holy Saturday (vigil of Easter) shows, in all its parts, that originally it was not kept on the morning of Saturday, but during Easter Night. The day before the feast was henceforth called vigil.

 

A similar celebration before the high feast exists also in the Orthodox (Greek) Church, and is called pannychis or hagrypnia. In the Occident only the older feasts have vigils, even the feasts of the first class introduced after the thirteenth century (Corpus Christi, the Sacred Heart) have no vigils, except the Immaculate Conception, which Pope Leo XIII (Nov. 30 1879) singled out for this distinction. The number of vigils in the Roman Calendar besides Holy Saturday is seventeen, viz., the eves of Christmas, the Epiphany, the Ascension, Pentecost, the Immaculate Conception, the Assumption, the eight feasts of the Apostles, St. John the Baptist, St. Laurence, and All Saints. Some dioceses and religiousorders have particular vigils, e.g. the Servites, on the Saturday next before the feast of the Seven Dolours of Our Lady; the Carmelites, on the eve of the feast of Mount Carmel. In the United States only four of theses vigils are feast days: the vigils of Christmas, Pentecost, the Assumption, and All Saints. 

The Scandinavian island nation of Iceland celebrates its national patron, St. Thorlak Thorhallsson, on Dec. 23.

Although Iceland’s national assembly declared him a saint in 1198, only five years after his death, this “unofficial” canonization did not become an official part of the Church’s liturgical calendar until Pope John Paul II confirmed him as the country’s patron in January 1984.

Thorlak was born in 1133, less than two centuries after German and Norwegian missionaries began the first effective evangelization of Iceland. The pagan nation’s conversion had involved a dramatic national struggle, as many Icelanders clung fiercely to their ancestral religion despite its customs of idol worship and infanticide.

The Catholic Church in Iceland had solidly established its presence by the time of Thorlak’s birth. However, it had fallen into some disarray, particularly due to local clergy disregarding the rule of clerical celibacy, selling church positions for personal gain, and engaging in other breaches of discipline.

Thorlak’s parents, barely able to earn a living as farmers, took note of their son’s talents and made sure he received extensive religious instruction from a local priest. His gifts must have attracted wider notice, since Thorlak received ordination as a deacon before the age of 15 and became a priest at age 18.

Afterward, he left Iceland for a period of time to study theology in France and possibly England. During this time he committed himself to living by the monastic rule of St. Augustine, an important part of the Western Church’s tradition. This rule committed a priest not only to celibacy, but also to a life in community without personal possessions, after the manner of the apostles in the Church’s earliest days.

Inspired by this vision of radical discipleship, he held fast to the discipline of clerical celibacy, even after returning to Iceland and being pressured to marry a wealthy widow. Instead, he ended up founding a monastery according to the Augustinian rule, which became renowned as a place of prayer and study.

Ten years after the founding of the monastery, the Norwegian Archbishop Augustine Erlendsson, another follower of the ancient Augustinian rule of life, called on Thorlak to become bishop of the Icelandic diocese of Skalholt. Although he was deeply attached to his monastic way of life, Thorlak recognized the pressing need for reform and guidance among the clergy.

As a bishop, he was deeply dedicated to implementing the reforms of the Western Church that Pope Gregory VII had begun during the past century, which envisioned not only a strict discipline of clerical celibacy, but also the independence of the Church against intrusion by secular authorities.

Thorlak also sought to improve public morality, and dared to confront even the most popular and powerful chieftain in Iceland, who was said to have had an extramarital affair with the bishop’s own sister. Understandably, he often longed to put aside these kinds of burdens and return to the monastic life.

Before he could do so, he died on December 23, 1193.

St. Thorlak was undoubtedly Iceland’s most popular native saint during the country’s Catholic period. Over 50 churches were dedicated to his memory before Iceland became officially Lutheran during the 16th century. 

Today, St. Thorlak’s former diocese of Skalholt is a part of the Diocese of Reykjavik, which was only established in its present form in 1968.

Although the Catholic Church no longer has a large presence in Iceland, celebration of St. Thorlak’s feast has persisted as a widespread national custom. Icelanders celebrate on Dec. 23 as the final day of preparation before Christmas, and have maintained the custom of gathering to eat cured fish.

Not much is known about the life of St. Chaeromon except that he was a bishop of Nilopolis in Egypt who was already advanced in age when Emperor Trajanus Decius began the intense persecution of Christians. 

Chaeromon and his companions fled to Arabia, and are believed to have been martyred there.

An important figure in the Catholic counter-reformation that responded to the 16th century spread of Protestantism, the priest and Doctor of the Church Saint Peter Canisius is remembered liturgically on Dec. 21.

His efforts as a preacher, author, and religious educator strengthened the Catholic faith in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, and parts of Central Europe during a period of doctrinal confusion.

Writing about St. Peter Canisius in 1897, Pope Leo XIII noted similarities between the late 19th century and the saint’s own lifetime, “a period when the spirit of revolution and looseness of doctrine resulted in a great loss of faith and decline in morals.”

More recently, in a 2011 general audience, Pope Benedict XVI taught that the Jesuit saint found success in ministry by living as “a personal witness of Jesus and an instrument at his disposal, bound to him closely by faith in his Gospel and in his Church.”

Peter Kanis – his name later Latinized to “Canisius” – was born in the Netherlands during May 1521. His father Jacob was a wealthy public official, but his mother Aegidia died soon after his birth. Peter began his university studies in Cologne around age 15, and obtained his master’s degree before he turned 20. His friends during this period included several men who held to the Catholic faith in opposition to the Protestant doctrines then gaining ground in Germany.

Despite his father’s preference that he should marry, Peter made a decision in 1540 to remain celibate. Three years later he entered the Society of Jesus under the influence of Blessed Peter Faber, one of the first companions of Saint Ignatius Loyola. He founded the first Jesuit house in Germany and became a priest in 1546.

Only one year after his ordination, Peter accompanied the Bishop of Augsburg to the Council of Trent as a theological adviser. He spent a portion of his time in Italy working directly with Saint Ignatius Loyola, before leaving for Bavaria where he would serve as a university professor as well as a catechist and preacher. This combination of academic and pastoral work continued at Vienna from 1552, allowing him to visit and assist many Austrian parishes which found themselves without a priest.

During the mid-1550s Peter’s evangelistic journeys took him to Prague, where he eventually founded a Jesuit school along with another in Bavaria, and later a third in Munich. The year 1555, in particular, was a landmark for Canisius: St. Ignatius promoted him to a leadership position within the order, which he held until 1569, and he published the first and longest version of his Catholic catechism. This work, and its two shorter adaptations, went through hundreds of printings and remained in use for centuries.

Involved in discussions with Protestants during 1557, Peter made a strong case for the Church by showing how the adherents of Protestantism could not agree with one another in matters of doctrine. Meanwhile, he maintained his commitment to religious instruction on the popular level – teaching children, giving retreats, and preaching carefully-crafted, doctrinally-rich sermons to large crowds.

Canisius’ service to the Council of Trent continued during the early 1560s, though mostly from a distance. He kept up a demanding schedule of preaching and establishing universities, while also working to ensure that the council’s decrees were received and followed in Germany after it concluded. His tireless efforts over the next two decades contributed to a major revival of German Catholicism.

A mystical experience in 1584 convinced Canisius that he should cease his travels and remain in Switzerland for the rest of his life. He spent his last years building up the Church in Fribourg through his preaching, teaching, and writing. Peter suffered a near-fatal stroke in 1591, but recovered and continued as an author for six years. The Dutch Jesuit saw writing as an essential form of apostolic work, a view supported by the continued use of his catechism long after his death on Dec. 21, 1597.

St. Peter Canisius was simultaneously canonized and declared a Doctor of the Church by Pope Pius XI in May of 1925. In a famous saying, the Jesuit priest revealed the secret behind the accomplishments of his energetic and fruitful life: “If you have too much to do, with God’s help you will find time to do it all.”

Saint Dominic was born in 1000 in Cañas, Navarre, Spain. He was born a peasant, and as a youth worked as a shepherd until he entered the Benedictine monastery in Navarre. When Dominic refused to hand over the monastery lands at the King of Navarre’s demands, he was forced to leave the house with two other monks.

He fled to Old Castile and was welcomed by the king. He then entered the monastery of San Sebastian in Silos, an almost dilapidated abbey with a mediocre physical and spiritual regimen. 

Within very little time, Dominic, who had been elected abbot, renewed the spirit of the monastery and rebuilt it’s structure, it’s finances, and it’s works of charity. Dominic was known for miracles of healing, which he obtained through prayer and for his work of ransoming Christian prisoners from the moors.

He died on December 10, 1073 in Silos, Spain.

Blessed Pope Urban V was born Guillaume de Grimoard at Grisac in Languedoc, 1310. He studied canon law and theology in Avignon and became a Benedictine monk. He was named abbot of his monastery in 1352, and served as a papal diplomat and was eventually sent as an ambassodor to various locations. He also served as a bishop around Italy and throughout Europe. He was elected pope in 1362 while on diplomatic business, even though he was not a cardinal. His reign was blessed by his peacekeeping activity between the French and Italian kings, the founding of many universities, his zeal for the crusades and his decision to return the papacy to Rome and end the Avignon exile of the popes. However, the breakout of war between England and France forced him to return to Avignon on a peacekeeping mission

He died on his return to Avignon, and his body, which had been buried at Avignon, was then transferred to Marseille according to his own wishes, and his tomb became the site of many miracles. He died on December 19, 1370. He always had a Benedictine spirit, and even wore his monk’s habit as Pope. His virtue and honesty were noted, especially in a Europe plagued by scandal and corruption.

It is said that as he lay dying he called the people to surround his deathbed, saying “the people must see how popes die.”