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Christmas Isn’t Over On Boxing Day!
Let’s celebrate the WHOLE season!
In our culture, the retail industry starts the Christmas season on November 1st when they replace the pumpkins, witch-hats, and skeletons with Christmas trees, wreaths, Santa snow globes, and candy canes. In the Church, the Christmas season starts on Christmas Eve and ends with the feast of the Baptism of Jesus on the Sunday following the feast of Epiphany.
Christmas in the Liturgical Life of the Church
The liturgical season begins on Christmas Day, and the octave of Christmas concludes on January 1st with the solemnity of Mary, Mother of God. What better way to begin the year than by renewing our love for our heavenly mother? During this period of eight days, we honour St. Stephen, the first martyr after the resurrection, St. John the Evangelist, who reclined on Jesus’ breast during the Last Supper, and the Holy Innocents slaughtered by Herod.
On the Sunday between Christmas and the Solemnity of Mary, the Church invites us to celebrate the Holy Family. The 1st reading from Sirach 3:2–6 speaks of the benefits of honouring our parents. One of the alternatives for the gospel concerns the Holy Family’s flight to Egypt, avoiding the massacre, and their return to Nazareth after Herod’s death. The second alternative describes…