December 24, 2023 | Celebrating Christmas in Unmerry Times

[The following was written by my good friend James Trabulse.  A devout Catholic, Jim regularly attends a Latin mass. He is also a gifted trader who brings rigorous science and outside-the-box thinking to nearly everything he does, including playing golf, staying healthy, cooking savory dinners and training Olympic-caliber athletes. RA ]

Merry Christmas, and may the Lord’s blessings be on your house.

When we first said ‘Merry Christmas!’ in A.D. Zero, the baby slumbered in an animal-feeder in Bethlehem, 90 miles south of Nazareth — hardly a pleasant affair, with no one there save Mary and Joseph. As we sing in the Roman Rite at the Intrit: Puer natus est pro nobis, is this the fulfillment of Isiah when he prophesied: For a child has been born to us, a son given to us, and the authority is upon his shoulder, and the wondrous adviser, the mighty God, the everlasting Father, called his name, ‘the prince of peace.’ 

We said ‘Merry Christmas!’, to the derision of the Romans for 254 years. They outlawed us, put us in with hungry lions in the great Colosseum, along with a cheering crowd and Caesar’s thumbs turned down.

Taming the Visigoths

And when we said ‘Merry Christmas!’ to bring the good news to the Goths and Visigoths, they burned us and ran us through. Five-hundred years later, they were saying ‘Merry Christmas!’ in German, one of their own being Saint Nicolas!

And ‘Merry Christmas!’ in Tunis and Algiers was met with the Star and Crescent and beheadings; but we said ‘Merry Christmas! The Child of eternal hope is here!’

And then, ‘Merry Christmas!’ in Ye Olde England under the Puritans was met with hangings, exile and nothing merry at all; but we continued the greeting long after Elizabeth and Cromwell were dead and buried.

A ‘Merry Christmas!’ greeting was reason for arrest under the atheists of the Soviets and Chairman Mao. In the U.S., our dear home and patria, we are supposed to remember that someone, anyone, may be offended by ‘Merry Christmas!’  And so, in the finest tradition of American public-relations, we are told by our woke interlocutors to be sensitive and say, ‘Seasons Greetings!’ And to buy presents for everyone at marked-up prices while giving to organized charities.

 A Spiritual Awakening

Watching this cascade of centuries of failed opposition to ‘Merry Christmas!’ I, once a sharp-tongued enemy of any Christmas, merry or otherwise, have also seen His star over Jerusalem and wanted to know (along with the Magi), where to find the King of the Jews.

Imagine that!  I, a devoted skeptic, experiencing a spiritual awakening during a time of competing ideologies, an upending of all tradition and custom, an infestation of church and state with nonsense. How is that possible?

So, here we are, exercising our true freedom to appreciate and follow the Living God, born as a child in poverty to a people chosen to receive the Law, the Prophets and the Messiah!

So, dear friends, Merry Christmas to you, your family and friends. I hope to meet each of you someday in a place where a simple cheerful greeting will not stir up sour opposition. It is a beautiful sentiment, no? Merry, merry Christmas!

Rick Ackerman December 24th, 2023

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