How long has January 1st been a Holy Day of Obligation? Is this just to keep people from having too much fun on New Years Eve, or is it a form of repentance for hangovers?

Yours sincerely, 

Barb O’Kue

This is not an easy question. 

First of all we need to know a little history. 

The church started worrying about holy days early on.  The ancient Romans celebrated the New Year on March 1st. Julius Caesar, who had a total jones for accurate calendars, definitively established January 1st as New Years, though it had been celebrated as such for a century before it became official. Since the Roman government was inaugurated on January 1st, the Catholic Council of Tours suppressed January 1st because it had just gotten too pagan (sound familiar?) so things tended to go back to March 1st. 

Finally, in 1582, the calendar of Pope Gregory reestablished January 1st as New Year’s Day. A lot of Protestants wouldn't have anything to do with something the pope was involved in, so they kept celebrating in March - especially in England. You still hear about old New Year’s Day in some country districts of England (which for some reason is March 25th).

Confused? I tell you all this to make the point that we are not celebrating the New Year on January 1st. So what are we celebrating? Surprise! The circumcision of Christ!!! Jesus was circumcised and named eight days after he was born as is the Jewish custom.

So was Jesus born in December 25th?  Who knows? 

St. Clement of Alexandria, around 200 AD in Egypt, just down the road from Bethlehem, gives three possible dates for the birth of the Messiah, two in spring and one in fall. November 18th seems to have been his personal favorite. There was however a long standing tradition that Jesus was born around January 6th, or perhaps at the winter solstice. Calendars in the ancient world were marvelously imprecise, unless you were a Mayan stargazer, a Chinese astronomer or Julius Caesar, who was a bit obsessive-compulsive. Calendars in the Greco Roman world had to be constantly corrected to make them coincide with the seasons of the year. 

So, the date that was January 6th one year might be changed to be December 2nd or January 12th or perhaps December 25th in some other year as the calendars were revised. So in the great roulette wheel of calendar history, December 25th was settled on, and not just because it coincided neatly with a pagan festival famous for orgies and office parties. 

Don't worry too much about it. Remember even we nuclear-clocked Americans celebrate George Washington's Birthday on a Monday no matter what date it actually falls on.

So having settled on December 25th as Jesus’ birthday, what the heck are we celebrating that obliges us to go to Church on January 1st? 

Now we celebrate the feast of Mary the Mother of God because — and I remember the change — Americans who currently run the world are too puritanical and squeamish to celebrate a circumcision. You have to explain things to children and to do that you need a release form and a court-appointed supervisor.

If you are Jewish — which Jesus and coincidentally his Mother are —a circumcision involves catering. It is called a Bris. This is the European-Jewish way to pronounce the word Berith, which means "covenant". So we celebrated Jesus entering into the Abrahamic covenant. We celebrate the fulfillment of God's promise to Abraham and his descendants in the person and in the very flesh of Jesus the Messiah. In the Mass, when we consecrate wine we say "This is ... the blood of the new covenant." We are saying this is the blood of the new and eternal bris!!!! It's really a very Jewish thing.

Being squeamish, goyische Americans, we now emphasize the Motherhood — Jewish motherhood mind you — of the Blessed Virgin Mary which the traditional prayers associated with January 1st have always done.

Rev. Know-It-All