In the first four days after Christmas, as we toss our trees
unceremoniously to the curb and turn our thoughts to neo-Pelagian
secular salvation in the form of New Year's resolutions, the Church
reminds us that the Child in the manger is the Man who died for us on
the Cross. He is the Son of Man in witness to whom Saint Stephen died,
and for whom Saint John the Evangelist suffered so greatly that his
feast is treated like that of a martyr though he died a natural death,
and in whose place the Holy Innocents were slaughtered, and for whose
sake St. Thomas Becket was martyred. In this very deliberate choice of
feasts, the Church reminds us that the birth of Jesus brought hope to
the world, but his death made that hope a reality.
Scott P. Richert: Advent a Casualty in the "War on Christmas", Crisis
Magazine, 27/12/2017.