(Sacred Heart Church)

     Last Sunday, this article appeared in the church bulletin of the Sacred Heart Church in Columbus where we attend Sunday Mass. I found it interesting so I copied it here. It was written by Fr. John J. Dietzen.

          "Strange as it seems, we have no idea of the date of Christ's birth. The Gospels are no help. From information given especially in the Gospel of Luke, scholars generally believe that Christ was born between the years 8 and 6 BC. Though our present calendar was supposedly based on the year of Christ's birth as year 1, the science of historial scholarship was not sophisticated enough for them to come to a precise determination, thus the difference of 6-8 years.

          Numerous theories have been put forward to explain December 25 as Christmas Day. The most likely one, however, is that the birth of Christ was assigned to the date of the winter solstice. This date is December 21 in our calendar, but December 25 in the Julian calendar which predated our own, & January 6 in the Egyptian calendar. This latter date is still followed by some Eastern Rite Christian churches.

          The solstice, when days begin to lengthen in the northern hemisphere, was referred to by pagans as the "Birthday of the Unconquered Sun." During the third century, the Emperor Aurelian proclaimed December 25 as a special day dedicated to the sun-god, whose cult wa very strong in Rome at that time. Even before this time, Christian writers already had begun to refer to Jesus as the Sun of Justice. It seemed quite logical, therefore, that as Christianity began to dominate the religious scene in the Roman Empire, the date of the newborn sun should be chose as the birth date of Christ. "

     Merry Christmas everyone. May the Light of the Sun of Justice shine upon the Earth this Christmas.