Christmas

The Catholic Christmas season is the second great festal cycle of the liturgical year, beginning with the Vigil of the Nativity on December 24 and concluding with the Feast of the Baptism of the Lord. In contrast to the popular conception of Christmas as a single day, the Roman Calendar treats Christmas as an extended liturgical season of approximately twenty days, structured around the Nativity, the Octave of Christmas, the Solemnity of Mary Mother of God, the Epiphany of the Lord, and the Baptism of the Lord.¹

The shape of the Christmas season

The season is marked liturgically by three things: white or gold vestments throughout, the singing of the Gloria at every Mass, and a high concentration of solemnities and feasts in the days immediately following the Nativity. The General Norms for the Liturgical Year describe Christmas as a "second only to the yearly celebration of the Easter mystery" in the Church's liturgical year, and the proper celebrations of the season reflect that ranking.²

The principal celebrations of the Christmas season are:

• The Nativity of the Lord (December 25): a solemnity. Three Masses are provided in the missal: the Mass at Midnight, the Mass at Dawn, and the Mass during the Day, each with proper readings.
• The Holy Family (the Sunday within the Octave of Christmas, or December 30 in years when Christmas falls on a Sunday): a feast.
• The Solemnity of Mary, Mother of God (January 1): a holy day of obligation in the United States. The eighth day of the Octave of Christmas.
• The Epiphany of the Lord (January 6, transferred to the nearest Sunday in some regions including the United States): a solemnity.
• The Baptism of the Lord (the Sunday after the Epiphany): a feast that closes the Christmas season and inaugurates the first stretch of Ordinary Time.

The three Masses of Christmas Day

The provision of three distinct Mass formularies for Christmas Day is one of the most ancient features of the Roman liturgy, attested in the Sacramentarium Gelasianum of the seventh century and in older sources. The three Masses ascribe to three distinct moments and theological emphases:

• The Mass at Midnight ("Midnight Mass") proclaims the Nativity in time. The Gospel is the infancy narrative of Saint Luke (Luke 2:1-14), and the prophecy of Isaiah 9:1-6 ("a child is born to us") is heard at the first reading.
• The Mass at Dawn focuses on the visit of the shepherds (Luke 2:15-20). Liturgically, it situates the believer in the dawning of the redemption.
• The Mass during the Day turns from the historical Nativity at Bethlehem to the theological Incarnation, reading the Prologue of the Gospel of Saint John (John 1:1-18): "And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us."³

The provision of three Masses for one solemnity, with progressive theological development, is unique in the Roman Calendar.

The Octave of Christmas

The eight days from December 25 through January 1 form the Octave of Christmas, in which each day is celebrated with the rank of a solemnity. Several feasts of the calendar fall within the octave:

• December 26: Saint Stephen, the Protomartyr (feast).
• December 27: Saint John the Apostle and Evangelist (feast).
• December 28: The Holy Innocents, Martyrs (feast).
• December 29-31: weekdays of the octave (memorials of saints if observed).
• January 1: Mary, Mother of God (solemnity, holy day of obligation in the United States).

The juxtaposition of the joyful Nativity with the martyrdom of Saint Stephen, the Holy Innocents, and the witness of Saint John on three of the immediately following days is a deliberate liturgical reminder that the coming of Christ provokes the witness, and sometimes the blood, of those who follow him.⁴

The Epiphany of the Lord

The Solemnity of the Epiphany commemorates the manifestation of Christ to the Gentiles in the persons of the Magi (Matthew 2:1-12). In the universal calendar Epiphany is celebrated on January 6; in the United States, Canada, and several other regions, it is transferred to the Sunday between January 2 and January 8.

In the older Roman tradition Epiphany also encompassed the Baptism of the Lord and the Wedding at Cana (the latter retained in the second Luminous Mystery of the rosary). In the current calendar these are separated: the Baptism of the Lord receives its own feast on the Sunday after Epiphany, and the Wedding at Cana is read in Ordinary Time (Year C).

The Solemnity of Mary, Mother of God

January 1, the eighth day of the Octave of Christmas, is the Solemnity of Mary, Mother of God. The title Theotokos (God-bearer) was solemnly defined at the Council of Ephesus in 431 against the heresy of Nestorius, who had proposed to call Mary the Mother of Christ but not the Mother of God. The Council, presided over by Saint Cyril of Alexandria, defined that the one who was born of Mary is one Person who is fully God and fully man, and that consequently Mary is rightly called the Mother of God.⁵

The placement of the solemnity on January 1 unites the Marian title with the closing day of the Octave of the Nativity, the eighth day on which the infant Jesus was circumcised and named (Luke 2:21).

Christmas in the lay Catholic life

The lay Catholic celebration of Christmas extends well beyond December 25. The traditional "Twelve Days of Christmas" run from December 25 through January 5 (the eve of Epiphany), and the full Christmas season runs further still, to the Baptism of the Lord. During this stretch the Catholic home customarily retains the creche, the Christmas tree, and the festal decorations, with the Christ child placed in the manger on the night of the Nativity and the figures of the Magi advanced toward the creche progressively until they arrive on the Epiphany.

For the foundational prayers of the season, see the Angelus (which commemorates the Annunciation) and the Hail Holy Queen. For the Marian focus of the Octave, see the biography of Mary, the Mother of God.

Sources

Footnotes

1. General Norms for the Liturgical Year and the Calendar, nn. 32-38. ↩

2. General Norms, n. 32. ↩

3. Roman Missal, third typical edition (2002), Proper of the Time, the Nativity of the Lord, three Masses. ↩

4. Catechism of the Catholic Church, paragraph 525, on the Nativity of Christ as the foundation of the Christmas mystery. ↩

5. Council of Ephesus (431), the Formula of Union (433), and the dogmatic definition of Mary as Theotokos. See also CCC, paragraphs 466 to 469. ↩