Quote of the Day

“Today, polls show Americans are much more inclined to put up a Christmas tree and decorations or go to a party than to attend religious services, even though they tend to see Christmas as a religious holiday.

“Perhaps it’s a bit puritanical to insist that believers dump their cherished family traditions to march off to church on Christmas morning. But it’s also self-defeating to complain about keeping Christmas holy when churches close on Dec. 25.

When he preached at Christmas, Saint Augustine acknowledged the associations between the still-dominant pagan rites and Christianity’s Feast of the Nativity. But the bishop of Hippo said that such associations should spur the faithful to deeper observance, not to downplaying the holiday altogether or tailoring it to the prevailing culture: ‘So, brothers and sisters, let us keep this day as a festival—not, like the unbelievers, because of the sun up there in the sky, but because of the One who made that sun.’”