{"id":1294,"date":"2010-12-25T16:57:21","date_gmt":"2010-12-25T21:57:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.gornahoor.net\/?p=1294"},"modified":"2022-12-25T12:30:11","modified_gmt":"2022-12-25T17:30:11","slug":"the-meaning-of-christmas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gornahoor.net\/?p=1294","title":{"rendered":"The Meaning of Christmas"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/12\/botticelli-roses-scotland.jpg\" title=\"Sandro Botticelli - Madonna of the Roses\" alt=\"Sandro Botticelli - Madonna of the Roses\" class=\"rightbox\" \/><\/p>\n<p>At this time of year, many voices arise to tell us the &#8220;true&#8221; meaning of Christmas. On the one hand, we are told that it is a reminder to be &#8220;nice&#8221; to one another. Then there are the &#8220;Marthas&#8221; of the world who tell us to do less &#8220;shopping&#8221;, apparently on the theory that it is immoral to want to give gifts to those we love.<\/p>\n<p>For us, the question is whether there can be something absolutely <em>new<\/em> born into the world, something higher that transcends the grim fatalism of space, time, matter, contingency. Whether the birth of a <strong>New Man<\/strong> is possible, likewise born of the <strong>Holy Spirit<\/strong> and <strong>Holy Virgin<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p>It is not a question of a new system, or a new religion, as though such abstractions have a life in themselves apart from the men and women who uphold them and are transformed by them. At Christmas, we are reminded of our real life, to be reintegrated in our consciousness, to seek to spiritually transform the world. And should we fail, we must try again.<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><span style=\"font-size:small\">With acknowledgment to a special person who pointed out Botticelli&#8217;s painting to me and inspired this thought (wherever you are).<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>At this time of year, many voices arise to tell us the &#8220;true&#8221; meaning of Christmas. On the one hand, we are told that it is a reminder to be &#8220;nice&#8221; to one another. Then there are the &#8220;Marthas&#8221; of the world who tell us to do less &#8220;shopping&#8221;, apparently &hellip; <span class=\"continue-reading\"><a href=\"https:\/\/gornahoor.net\/?p=1294\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1293,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39,53,4,1],"tags":[22,308,309,307],"class_list":["post-1294","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-catholicism","category-civilization","category-evola","category-news","tag-christmas","tag-madonna-of-the-roses","tag-new-man","tag-sandro-botticelli"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gornahoor.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1294","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gornahoor.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gornahoor.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gornahoor.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gornahoor.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1294"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/gornahoor.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1294\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17000,"href":"https:\/\/gornahoor.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1294\/revisions\/17000"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gornahoor.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1293"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gornahoor.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1294"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gornahoor.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1294"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gornahoor.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1294"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}