The Day the (Christmas) Music Died

OK. Quick rant about the abysmal lack of traditional Christmas music, even on our local Catholic radio station. You'd think it was bad enough that all major retailers have censored themselves from saying "Merry Christmas," printing it in their ads and playing religious carols in their stores. As a tightwad, I would have said not to buy CD's of Christmas music since it is so ubiquitous from Thanksgiving on. But I must be mistaken, because I have yet to hear more than one verse of two songs, and that from TBN, forcing me to watch their over-the-top lounge act out of sheer desperation.

So I am suddenly struck with the desire to hear all the old favorites, especially the most religious (e.g. most "offensive") ones, and I guess I'll have to go out and buy music CD's to do it. And I'll probably have to buy them at the Catholic bookstore, since major retail stores have probably censored or watered down their "holiday" music collections to include only instrumental arrangements of traditional carols, Bing Crosby standards, or compilations from Garth Brooks and Mariah Carey. And since I can't remember more than one verse of any of these carols, I'll have to go and get a book with the words in it. Sheesh.

Come to think of it, the secular world isn't too shy to milk the Catholic ethos for all it's worth, especially when it suits their purpose to distort and misrepresent the Catholic faith. I mean, how many cheesy pseudo-scholarly shows have we been forced to watch about "the historical Jesus"? They show their intrepid interviewers talking to Protestants in bare-bones churches, but the imagery of the show is all Catholic--images of the Blessed Virgin, the Pope, stained glass windows, and icons of the baby Jesus--and that's the "sexy" that sells the show.

With one shining exception.

I happened to catch an airing of "The Sound of Music" last Friday night. I'd forgotten that Maria starts out as "Sister Maria," a postulant at the local abbey. How refreshing it was to see nuns that weren't portrayed as frigid victims or subversive feminists, who were happy to be serving Christ. How refreshing it was to see the crucifix, the Church's ever-present reminder that it is Christ, and Him crucified, through whom we have our salvation. How wonderful that it is these same heroic nuns who encourage Maria to find her true vocation and who help her new family escape the Nazis.

I think the reason the world is so bent on censoring Christmas is that it's the last Catholic holiday. I mean, you have all these evangelicals with their campaigns to "put Christ back in Christmas," but they miss the fact that it's a MASS to celebrate the birth of Christ. In the Catholic Church, Christmas is not one day, but a season that lasts from Advent to Candlemas (Feb. 2). I read an excellent blog post on how, since the time of Martin Luther, one after another of the liturgical feasts that used to be celebrated as public holidays (holy days) have been subverted and secularized over the years, mostly by--surprise surprise--OTHER CHRISTIANS who saw these "Popish" celebrations as undermining their theological agendas.

The world loves the candles and the trees and the decorations and the presents, but forgets that this wealth of symbology and imagery is grounded in a thoroughly Catholic worldview that sees the material and the spiritual as one sacramental whole infused with God's grace. Both the secular view of Christmas (that glorifies only the material), and the Protestant view (that seeks to retain only the spiritual) have missed the boat. And until Christmas is properly understood once again in context, both groups will continue to have that hollow is-this-all-there-is feeling once the presents are unwrapped and the coffee pot's empty.

So crank up the Christmas carols, turn off the TV, and have a very happy, Catholic, holy day!