Posts Tagged ‘Christmas’
What wasn’t said about Jesus’ birth
27
Dec
It’s not part of the biblical narrative, but
apart from the Roman census, Herod’s persecution (historical data) when he placed Jesus in a manger wrapped in cloths and the coming of the “magi”, it can be clarified in the light of stories from the time.
It was Jewish custom to separate a newborn lamb for the Jewish Passover sacrifice, recalling the sacrifice that Abram would make with his son and that an angel interceded by offering a lamb, the fact that Jesus was wrapped in swaddling clothes also recalls a Jewish custom of the time to separate the lamb, wrap it in swaddling clothes and place it in a manger, with special care.
So this is already a preparation for Easter, since he was born and made small to be like earthly man, even though he was a God, an Emmanuel, the divine among us.
But remembering yesterday’s astronomical events, we also want to remember the “magi”, who may have been kings and not magi, because they had gifts of prophecy and were informed about a star “And when they saw the star, they rejoiced with great and intense joy” (Mt 2:10-11) and so they followed it and found the child in Bethlehem as the Jews had expected.
The star that announces a cosmic event that predicts the arrival of the “king of the universe” and not just the “god of the Jews” could be the passing of a comet, an event that was already known at the time, although it was mistaken for a “shooting star“, if It had to choose (see the previous post), I’d choose the nova, which is the birth of a star. In short, the famous “guiding star” could be one of these phenomena.
The image of the Adoration of the Magi, in a stone painting dating from the 3rd century AD (photo) shows only a star, without the typical cometary tail, so it could be any of the celestial phenomena that cause great brilliance.
It’s worth remembering that the kings who came to worship Jesus weren’t Jewish, and yet they had a sign and followed their vision (it wasn’t magic, of course) and worshipped him.
Christmas is still a universal celebration
24
Dec
Although of the 195 countries in the world,
there are 150 that officially celebrate it, in many of these where it is not official, like Uruguay for example, there are families and religious services that remember the date.
It is true that we are in a difficult time with threats of world wars, social and political crises clearly spread across the globe and many innocent people facing deprivation of freedom and justice, increasingly political and ideological, but as we pointed out in the previous post, it is still Christmas for those who desire and live true and eternal peace.
Those who still position themselves in climates of hatred and exclusion are not without evidence of this lack of peace within themselves, of people who have distanced themselves or been distanced by the force of some disaffection, but even among the excluded, those who don’t hold sorrows and grudges are at peace and can enjoy moments of peace and festivities, not festivities of abundance but of the joy and rest that peace brings us.
It is this feeling that I wish everyone I meet and live with during the year, and to those who don’t understand us we must still wish for peace, the peace that every human being needs.
There is no shortage of Herods who want innocent people to die, no shortage of Pharisees and zealots willing to do anything for a biased and unspiritual worldview, no shortage of those who think of Christmas as consumption and abundance, but there is also no shortage of true Christians who celebrate the birth of their Savior, even though he was deprived of an inn, found shelter in a humble manger and was worshipped there by shepherds and kings from the east.
So it’s always surprising that God is present among those who need a little joy, among humble people who are happy to have enough to live on and celebrate.
I hope that this spirit of a truly simple and humble Christmas brings peace to everyone, and I especially wish those who suffer the horrors of war a moment of happiness and peace.
MERRY CHRISTMAS !!!
Christmas and peace
23
Dec
In the midst of wars and hatreds, it is possible
to find peace ? and what peace we are talking about.
The roman´s pax was the rule of the Roman Empire over nations and territories, Kant’s eternal peace, although it has something to commend it when it talks about peace for all, in reality the idea was born out of the peace between the Byzantine Empire and the Sassanid Empire (see map), a treaty of indefinite duration, which concluded the Iberian War (527-531) between two imperial powers.
There was also a religious peace, called the Peace of Westphalia, where the agreement between Catholics and Lutherans took place, as there were kingdoms declaring war over religion.
The peace of Christmas, even if it is paganized, is that which the birth of Jesus promised to bring among men, of which he said: “Peace I leave with you, my peace I give to you. I do not give it as the world gives it. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid” (Jn 14:27).
Yes, we are promoters of wars in our midst, between family members, between work colleagues, we don’t accept opinions and worldviews that differ from our own, we may not use weapons, but by spreading hatred and exclusion we are seeking a peace that has nothing divine about it, it’s just “our peace”, and there is no shortage of oratory and speeches asking us to ignore the Other.
So what kind of peace should we be thinking about at Christmas? The vast majority of people probably haven’t even heard of the Iberian War, nor of one of the empires involved, the Sassanids.
We see a world in imperial wars, everyone wants to colonize or eliminate their neighbor.
So the “imperial” wars we are involved in, even if it’s as a “cheer”, in the distant future will be seen as a period of atrocities and unjustifiable disputes. Of course, today the arguments seem plausible, there is no shortage of narratives to justify so much death and hatred, but they will not be eternal and there is nothing divine about them, even if religious people get involved in these worldly disputes.
The peace of Christmas transcends all this, it must proclaim more than a truce, a laying down of arms, the end of hatreds and grudges, and this peace that Jesus came to bring to the world.
Christmas, hope and Emmanuel
20
Dec
All prefixes ending in el in the Jewish language
refer to God, Gabriel means “strength of God”, who was the angel who said to Mary: “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. Behold, you will conceive and bear a son, and you shall name him Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High…” (Lk 1:30-31), and Immanuel (Immanu’El) prophesied in the Old Testament and quoted in Matthew 1:23: “He will be called Immanuel which means, God with us”.
This is the name of hope for Christians, and despite the dark times: economic, social and political crisis, there is a horizon ahead where we can see a clearing, a new level of civilization beyond the current difficulties.
The presence and the fact that God has come to dwell among men is not just a historical and religious significance, it means that he has introduced and grafted onto human experience a new way of living, of looking at our fellow human beings (the dignity of the previous post) and of establishing peace among us.
The peace that gives us hope is different from the pax romana or the eternal peace of philosophy: “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. I do not give it as the world gives it. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid” (Jn 14:27), so we need the presence of Jesus to have this peace.
The civilizational milestone of 1 AD to 33 AD (the dates need to be corrected, as there is a lag in the Roman calendar), is a mark that begins a new stage in human life, where the civilization of love and harmony between people has already been announced.
The more a culture of love, hope and peace advances, the closer we are to the promised civilization, more than just a promised land, a land that can and must be extended to all of humanity, also longed for by thinkers such as Edgar Morin in his book “Fatherland”, a civilization and an earthly citizenship where everyone can live together and have hope.
Christmas is a truce, but it is also a sign of hope that peace will be established among men and that the divine will finally dwell fully among us: Maranatá (Maran in Aramaic is “Lord”, and ta is “come”).
Christmas and human dignity
19
Dec
It’s important that so many people and 
organizations think of people in situations of social vulnerability this holiday season. For those who are hungry or thirsty, nothing is more urgent than a plate of food and some water, but that’s not all.
The human dignity that has been lost in some way by people in situations of vulnerability: abandonment, cruelty or some kind of injustice, must be recovered in steps that go further than some leftovers from our tables.
There are truly religious institutions and sentiments among those who take seriously this commitment to recovering the dignity of these people, but we must remember that many even receive salaries and benefits for this promotion and forget about the dignity of these people, as absurd as it may seem, there is a welfare policy and sentiment that does not see the recovery of the dignity of these people.
A book written by Bertold Brecht “Romance of the three twenties” (Brecht, 1976) tells of an organization that distributed beggars throughout Germany in order to raise funds and trade with those who should have social protection and don’t (photo). The author’s aim was ideological.
The author’s aim was ideological, to show that there is a trade in poverty, but this thought can be extended to a broader sense, not just to help, but to restore the dignity that all people have, to give them back their citizenship and life.
Christmas recalls the birth of Jesus in Bethlehem, where he couldn’t find a home, so the thought of the Savior’s birth is inalienable, thinking of the dignity of those who don’t have the warmth of a home. Remembering these people is a typical Christmas sentiment, but we need to go further than just a plate of food and a treat, we need to think of the dignity of these people and remind them that they are citizens and have human and civil rights.
We need to overcome the demagoguery of those who only think of helping those in vulnerable situations as “promotion”: alcoholism, drugs, homelessness or some kind of illness without the necessary public assistance.
Welfare also has this limit: it doesn’t see the human being beyond the vulnerable situation, it’s just a palliative that doesn’t restore sociability and dignity to vulnerable people.
May Christmas bring us hope for a society that does not abandon anyone, that goes beyond this festive season and sees the dignity of every person.
Brecht, B. Romance dos três vinténs (The Threepenny Novel). Brazil, Rio de Janeiro: Nova Fronteira, 1976.
Jesus baby, Mary and the mystery
18
Dec
If a divine being were born from a human
mother, just as a philosophical (and not theological) hypothesis, what should be the substrate of its nourishment and what relationship should it have with its mother?
The chapter Matrix in Gremio (on his mother’s lap) by the non-Christian philosopher (religion for him is just a culture)
for him is just a culture) responded using a text by Lotario di Segni (1160-1216) who would become Pope Innocent III), that the interruption of Mary’s menstruation during the pregnancy of the divine child caused him to eat differently.
The text by Innocent III analyzed by Sloterdijk, De miseria humanitae conditionis, states: “there is no doubt that Jesus, even in grêmio (meaning in his mother’s womb) must have been provided with a different dietary plan” (Sloterdijk, 2016, p. 55). (Sloterdijk, 2016, p. 557), and also re-reads Question 31 of Thomas Aquinas’ Summa Theologica, where this noogenesis also implies the connection of two hearts, we have already extensively analyzed Byung-Chull Han’s book on Heidegger: “Heidegger’s heart: on the concept of affective tonality in Martin Heidegger”.
The ontological analysis that starts from a vision of the heart, in the sense of affective tonality given by Byung-Chull Han, gives a different and humanized perspective not only to the philosophical condition, but also to theological analysis.
Most of the biblical and historical analyses of the question of Mary do not start from this theological principle; the hermeneutic is only fixed on the problem of the text and its theological interpretations and translations, In other words, there is no affection, no love.
Without understanding this relationship of love and affection that exists between Mary and her divine baby, any analysis, even if it has deep Marian relations, will be superficial, without considering her condition as mother and her relationship from conception with the divine baby is flawed and cold.
Mary was a mother, and it is clear that all the mystery that she kept in her sacred womb cannot be thought of either in terms of her condition as a mother – she is a true mother – or in terms of her divine condition, her “guild” (womb) is enveloped in a divine and mysterious aura, which is revealed in her adult life.
Any reductionism of this condition, based solely on analytical speculation, steals the scene and the profound mystery of this divine/human condition in the relationship with the baby (in the photo, a sculpture in the Cluny museum in Paris, dating from the 14th century).
SLOTERDIJK, P. (2016) Esferas I: bolhas. Brail, São Paulo: Estação Liberdade.
Christmas and Civilization
17
Dec
Turbulent times, a night of culture, thought and spirituality.
Asia and Oceania have always been resistant
to the process of Western colonization, Africa and Latin America have suffered from the process of colonization and their development has always been built with difficulties.
A biblical figure of Christmas is John the Baptist, the last and greatest prophet, because he announced the coming of Jesus, he had to “make smooth the paths of the Lord”.
He lived in the desert and ate insects and honey. He was an ascetic and was viewed with some suspicion by the religious of the time, but he was the announcement of what was to come, so he was an important part of the “advent”.
Where we can find today’s advent is certainly not in today’s “Roman empires”, their wars and injustices, nor is it in the false prophets and those who want an aura of divinity for themselves that they don’t have, filling their pockets and exploiting the people with easy words.
Peter Sloterdijk, a German philosopher who is not religious, calls the asceticism of today’s world an unspiritualized asceticism, a society of exercises, although it has a series of practices, now physics is also one of them, there is no content of ascension, and so it is not a true asceticism.
John the Baptist’s word was hard, his followers had a true but difficult asceticism, but they did prepare the proclamation of the good news, and there the roads were prepared, the hills lowered and the paths straightened.
So neither the wars nor the revolutions that are currently being proclaimed are paths to a new process of civilization; they are much more the denunciation of a time that must be overcome for a new civilization.
Christmas and Herod
16
Dec
The rumor that a Messiah and a Savior would be
born infuriated Herod, who ruled Judea under the Roman Empire. He ordered the killing of innocent children, persecuted rebels and lived on fury, lust and power; wars today resemble this character from the beginning of the Christian era.
Because of the conflicts over the colonization of the Jews, Herod’s interpretation and that of some religious people was that the Messiah would be a warrior, a “king” and for this reason he ordered them to look for the newborn and without finding him he ordered the killing of the newborns of that time.
The Jews demonstrated because of the high taxes, and after Jesus’ death in 70 AD the second temple was destroyed, according to the Heritage Daily website there is historical evidence that this happened (photo).
It’s no different today, they’re looking for political interpretations of Advent, which announces not only the fact that Jesus was born, but also his second coming (Parousia) and there’s no shortage of Herods who instigate wars and violence, big or small, and hatred is widespread in our time, but for true Christians and also religious people who celebrate Christmas in their own way, it will always be a time of true peace and the coming of Jesus.
In Eastern Europe, in the Gaza Strip and in many other parts of the world, the spirit of Herod lives on, hunting and killing innocents, justifying atrocities with sweetened narratives and even with words that inspire peace and help for needy populations, but they are just narratives.
The spirit of Love and Peace is resilient for those who really want a better world. There will always be warmth and harmony in the homes of those who live according to respect and will have more affection and affection than food, drink and luxurious exaggerations.
True Christmas celebrations will also seek more concrete words and actions of fraternity and will lead minds and hearts towards the resilient spirit of Christmas peace.
Between peace and satiety
13
Dec
The society of fatigue is one that seeks maximum
performance, maximum voluptuousness and maximum consumption. It does not lead to peace or happiness, but to stress, depression and, for a large part of the population, exclusion, hunger and misery.
And the peace and “satisfaction” that everyone seeks is not found in exaggerated attitudes of consumption and efficiency, but in that inner wisdom that seeks understanding, love and balance in actions and words, the true peace that every sane man seeks.
Athens was a model of wisdom and wealth, Sparta a model of military discipline and bravery.
A little-known event in history is the Peace of Nicias, an agreement between the Greek cities of Athens and Sparta in 421 BC, establishing a truce between the cities for 50 years, but in 414 BC the agreement was broken and the Peloponnesian War broke out.
Athens possessed the wealth of silver mines and Sparta was famous for its preparation for war. Any coincidence with today’s empires is no coincidence, Athens joined forces with the city of Argos, Sparta’s rival, but they lost the war, and in 405 BC King Pausanias of Sparta ordered the siege of Athens and the starving and exhausted population surrendered.
So models based solely on “wisdom” or “war” are both bankrupt, what is lacking is a spirit of true conciliation between peoples and tolerance between cultures.
The Macedonian and Roman empires also came to an end, so no matter how armed and prepared today’s nations and countries are, it won’t be through arms that they will be able to overcome their enemies.
Fortuna, the Roman goddess of chance, luck and destiny, was blindfolded (like modern justice), because she distributed human plans randomly, so you are happy at random.
Thus, models based solely on “wisdom” or “war” are both bankrupt; what is lacking is a spirit of true conciliation between peoples and tolerance between cultures.
The Macedonian and Roman empires also came to an end, so no matter how armed and prepared today’s nations and countries are, it won’t be through arms that they will achieve “well-being”.
The growth of a greater spirit of understanding and solidarity, which goes beyond the merely logical criteria of reason and wisdom, is the only way to create a climate of peace and satiety.
The fact that many people today seek satiety in drink, food, drugs and other escapes is because we have not yet entered a Civilization of Love, Peace and the solution of social crises.
About the movie Virgin Mary
12
Dec
The first important observation about the
film Virgin Mary, directed by D. J. Caruso (he was also the director of Love of Redemption) and scripted by Timothy Michael Hayes, is that it is not a theological biblical narrative and therefore cannot be seen as an apology for Mary, mother of Jesus (more than 11 million views already).
Virgin Mary portrays the faith and courage of Mary and Joseph, fleeing to Egypt to save the newborn Jesus in the persecution that King Herod, played by Anthony Hopkins, inflicts on all newborns when he learns that the Messiah promised to the Jewish people has been born.
The speculations about Mary’s childhood and attitudes cannot be seen in the light of the biblical narrative either, but it is important to note that she is not ignored and is venerated in the Bible, both by the angel Gabriel, and if anyone doubts Mary’s importance, just read chapter 1 of Luke, one of the longest, it is all about the birth of Jesus, but especially verses 42-43 (there are several translations) where her cousin Elizabeth greets her: “Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb. Where does this honor come from, that the mother of my Lord should come to me?”.
Having cleared up the problem of the biblical narrative where there is no doubt about Mary’s importance in salvation history, let’s move on to the secular criticisms of the film, curiously one of which is Joseph’s age, even though we find the narrative about him being old, it’s not clear either from a cultural point of view (what was old at the time would probably be old) or from a cultural point of view, although we find the narrative about being old, it’s not clear either from a cultural point of view (what was old at the time was probably between 30 and 40) or from a religious point of view, there is no biblical reference, it’s just a tradition.
The choice of Maria, actress Noa Cohen, has also been criticized for being Israeli, due to the current political climate, but the director clarified that the choice, among several interviews, was immediate and it should be noted that Noa’s darker skin tone was predominant at the time of Jesus.
The idea of deconstructing the biblical narrative because of the nationality of the characters goes far beyond the problem of today’s war, which is undoubtedly cruel because it affects people and not the political, religious or ideological issues that are involved – this was the stance of both the Roman Empire and the Pharisees, the false religionists of that time.
As it’s a fictional movie, the critics should focus on the actors’ performances, the costumes and the plot. I personally liked the movie, but I believe that the religious problems with Mary and the political ones can hinder the appreciation of an artistic work.
