An interesting article about the need for symbols, and how the human spirit will seek them out no matter how hard we try to deny the Spirit of God.
It's a good read as we reflect on this day of days, Groundhog Day. Which has become a replacement for what was once a very important day on the Christian calendar: Candlemas, or more precisely the Feast of the Presentation, as well as the Feast of the Purification of the Blessed Virgin Mary.
Once upon a time, the calendar of the Christian West and the calendar of the Church were more or less one and the same. I'm not being starry-eyed about the past and I'm the first to say there were obviously problems with that close relationship. Sometimes, however, I think Christians allowed the problems to guide us into the wrong solutions.
One of those wrong solutions was to continually concede the high ground to Godlessness and secularism as those two waged constant war on the Gospel. The results of which can easily be seen by a quick glance at our modern age.
I'm not saying where Groundhogs are, there Christ cannot be. Or that silly old traditions are incompatible with Christian Truth (since there was a time when such folklore lived side by side the world of the Church's making). But let's face it, how many people are discussing rodents today, and how many are discussing Christ? Score one for the world.
I don't mind Candlemas so much as what has happened to Easter (mostly forgotten & now perceived as a 2nd-rate holiday decidedly less than Super Bowl Sunday) and Christmas (now overshadowed by what Homestar et al. call Decemberween). Speaking of weens, the Hallow one has really exploded, with people putting out more and more elaborate decorations up to a month before the big night, to say nothing of the (often inappropriate) costumes.
ReplyDeleteThose are certainly the more eggregios cases, and I've noted the swing in Halloween from what it was even when I was a lad compared to today. But I'm convinced that our big losses now are the result of many small losses over the years. I think you can only concede the high ground so many times before the cumulative effect is loss of an entire region. I have a feeling that's what we're seeing now (I've said the same about Christians embracing the BCE/CE of non-Christian dating on academic papers and articles as well).
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DeleteYep. The dating had its roots in Jewish scholars who refused to reference Jesus. In the 70s and 80s it became fashionable for secular scholars to start embracing the method. The shock came when, by the 90s, Christians were beginning to do the same thing. In fact, by the mid-90s, you began having Christians use the secular designation within Christian circles. I often think on that as an early defeat that laid the groundwork for bigger defeats to follow.
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