WELL, this column took a 3-day Christmas break. The 3 days actually gave us time to savor the happiness brought by the peak of the holiday season. And while in the past two months, we were hit with a major whammy due to what happened to the woman of the house, still we managed to set aside the sadness brought about by the misfortune by allowing our friends’ and relatives’ happiness to rub in on us. But we still cannot help but dread the fact that the misfortune will still be very much in us and our family long after the 2024 Christmas season.
But as it was, the 3-day break was some kind of an ointment that soothes our aching being – at least temporarily. Now we are again back on this daily grind of writing opinions on certain social and political issues worth sharing with others hoping that they too, share our idea or that they may have their own and manifest it by way of reaction to what we write about.
Anyhow, we still have a long way to go as far as the real scope of the Christmas season is concerned. We mean what it should be for the Catholic Church and the Faithful.
Yes, last Tuesday dawn we attended a Misa de Gallo held in a chapel by the side of our house in the rural area in Tugbok District, Davao City. It was during that mass that we learned about the period with which the Catholic Church considers the Christmas Season. That is, from 6 o’clock in the late afternoon of the 24th of December up to the day that the baptism of Jesus Christ was officiated by St. John the Baptist.
According to youthful Priest Rev. Fr. Jamora, a scion of the famous family of optometrist owners of the Jamora Optometric Clinic in Davao City, only recently the priests of the Archdiocese of Davao were called by the Archbishop and were asked to do the best they could to “re-claim” the real period for the true time with which the Christmas Season is supposed to be celebrated. And that is the span of time between 6 o’clock in the afternoon of the 24th of December until the day of the baptism of the Lord Jesus is commemorated.
Unfortunately, according to the young Father Jamora, they were told by the archbishop that the Christmas season is effectively “revised” by the endeavor of the retail and wholesale businesses including the now more active online retail industries delivering purchased goods right at the door steps of the consumer-buyers.
According to Fr. Jamora business establishments like the giant malls, the proliferating small-time retailers and grocery stores as well as online retailers serving customers all over the nation, have subtly advanced and expanded the period of the Christmas season. And for the past many years, centuries even, the holiday season now starts as early as September and lasts towards the onset of the Valentine’s Day celebration.
It is this Christmas season of the business community that the Catholic Church now wants to “re-claim” saying that the season is that of the Church, and as such, should have been when it should be.
But will the Catholic Church succeed in its desire to “re-claim” and restore the Christmas Season to where it should have rightfully belonged and commemorated on the period when it is supposed to be, from December 24 at 6 in the evening up to the commemoration of the Lord’s baptism day?
Will the Church’s voiced reminders be enough to challenge the heavily-funded commercial inculcation in the people’s minds that the Christmas season is already on by the time the malls and other business establishments start airing Christmas-sounding music and strategically placing Christmas decors in their display sites?
Yes, how many people go to mass every day including Sundays? And how many times such reminders as advising the faithful on the true Christmas season coverage are mentioned quite elaborately in the Church? In fact, in the many years that we have been going to Church to hear mass although not regularly, has the officiating priest ever mentioned it? Only last Tuesday dawn that we heard for the very first time about that span of the Christmas season.
Again, will the Catholic Church succeed in such a gargantuan endeavor of imbibing in the people’s minds that the Christmas season belongs to the Church – that it is “ours”, according to the Archbishop, and not under the domain of the business world?
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Of course, there is no doubt that despite the true Christmas season commemoration is now up for clarification and desired for instilling in the minds of the Faithful, the fact remains that what seems to be carried as tradition is the one season created by the marketing geniuses of commercial establishments.
And what is espoused by the Church is apparently sucked into the vortex of everything commercial. So we are entertaining this notion that the Faithful already have decided that they’d rather live with it than be bothered thinking of ways to do an uncertain journey back to where, when, and what should the Christmas season be.
A rather late greeting of a Very Merry Christmas and advance Happy and Prosperous 2025 to all our readers, relatives, and friends alike.
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