Countdown to Christmas

Today is the 1st day of December and you know what that means? Yes, instead of the countdown to the countdown of the 25 days of Christmas we can actually begin the countdown to Christmas. I think next year we should move Thanksgiving another week earlier which will give us an additional 7 days of the countdown to the countdown. If you are bothered by the obsessive commercialism of the "Shopping Season" the Church gives us the perfect antidote. Tomorrow is the beginning of Advent, a sort of "mini-Lent" if you will, that helps us to focus on the real meaning of Christmas which is of course the Nativity of our Lord whose birth is the mystery of the Incarnation, the dogma of the Word made flesh. It is tremendously important but often overlooked or not fully understood. It implies three separate beliefs: 1) The Divine Person of Jesus Christ; 2) The Human Nature of Jesus Christ; 3) The Hypostatic Union of the Human with the Divine Nature in the Divine Person of Jesus Christ. St. Athanasius wrote an excellent treatise on this topic, On the Incarnation of the Word, which you can read online at New Advent or purchase from a Catholic bookstore.