Christmas Eve Truth: Luther Did Not Invent The Christmas Tree And Adam And Eve Are Saints Today

Mandeville, LA – Today is Christmas Eve and Catholics will celebrate the Vigil of The Nativity of Our Lord. Today is also the feast day of Saint Adam and Saint Eve.

Adam and Eve Are Saints!? No, Way Mitter Chur….

Brother André Marie confirms Christmas Eve as the feast day of Saints Adam and Eve.

[Adam and Eve] may be called saints on their feast day, which is the vigil of Christmas, because we know from sound Catholic tradition that they repented of their great sin, lived lives of holiness and are now in Heaven. Adam is the father of the human race. Eve, his wife, was formed from Adam’s body. All of us have descended from these two. Adam was created in a state of paradisal innocence, with no human frailties or weaknesses. Adam sinned by disobeying the command of God not to eat a forbidden fruit. The whole human race inherited original sin because of Adam. Adam personally repented. Adam lived for 930 years. By his sorrow, his contrition, his pleading and his love, Adam finally won God’s full forgiveness for himself. Adam died and went to the Limbo of the Just, which is called “hell” in the Apostles’ Creed. This was not the hell of the damned. It was the place where the Just had to wait for the coming of Christ. Adam ascended into Heaven in body and in soul with Our Lord on Ascension Thursday, forty days after Easter.

Medieval Christians enjoyed performances on Christmas Eve called “Paradise Plays” that recounted how Adam and Eve lost their innocence by eating the fruit of the tree. Around the 12th century the custom began of celebrating this feast on December 24 with the Paradise Play, which became one of the most popular medieval mystery plays. The Paradise Play depicted the story of the creation of Adam and Eve, their sin and their banishment from Paradise. The play ended with the promise of the coming Savior and His incarnation. This drama anticipated the reversal of the Fall with the miraculous birth of the Christ Child from the stainless womb of the Immaculate Virgin Mary.

After the Protestant revolt, paradise plays vanished across Christendom but German Catholics did not abandon the Paradise tree. There, it became the custom to put up a “paradise tree” in the home to honor the first parents. This was a fir tree laden with apples, the symbol of Adam’s fall. They also decorated the tree with white wafers, representing the Eucharist, the symbol of man’s redemption and salvation. It became a 16th century custom in Germany to encircle the tree with candles because the Paradise Play was enacted inside a ring of candles.

Luther Invented Christian Revolution, Not Christmas Trees

Urban legend holds that the arch-heretic Martin Luther “invented the Christmas tree”, this is not true.

In fact, we find first mention of the Christmas tree as early as 1419 at the Freiburg Fraternity Baker’s Apprentices of the German Alsace. Bernd Brunner writes in his Inventing The Christmas Tree book:

[The apprentices] appears to have seen a tree decorated with apples, wafers, gingerbread, and tinsel in the local Hospital of the Holy Spirit.

Then there is the Latvian capitol of Riga that claims to be the oldest practitioner of town square Christmas trees as they claim in this video from their tourism board.

Brother André concludes on calling Christmas Eve the feast day of Saints Adam and Eve.

On Christmas eve, Adam and Eve may be called saints because we know from sound Catholic tradition that they repented of their great sin, lived lives of holiness and are now in Heaven.

Maybe It Was The Wisemen?

I offer that there is an even more ancient tradition that conjures up a semblance of what we call the Christmas tree and it comes from the gospels that tell us of the magi bringing myrrh to the Christ child. It is not well known what myrrh comes from the Commiphora Myrrha tree, a thorny yet leafy green tree. It is the sap from this tree that is used to make myrrh. The gospel only tells us that the myrrh was presented to the Incarnate word. But in the Canticles of King Solomon myrrh is mentioned as a collection of tree branches.

A bundle of myrrh is my beloved to me, he shall abide between my breasts.

Canticles is a book filled with prophecies of the coming savior and myrrh as a gift to the Christ is mentioned in it six times; thus the magi fulfill a prophecy in their gift. But what form was the myrrh given to the baby Christ? According to the visions of Blessed Anne Catherine Emmerich (hear this part of the vision in my movie The Nativity of Mary, here), it was given in the form of a little tree that was laid inside the Nativity Cave; the first Christmas tree.

He was very old and heavy and was not able to kneel down; but he stood bowing low and placed on the table a golden vessel containing a delicate green plant. It seemed to be rooted; it was a tiny green upright tree, very delicate, bearing curly foliage with little delicate white flowers. It was myrrh. His gift was myrrh.

Whatever the history of the Christmas tree it is clear its a vibrant part of the Catholic tradition of celebrating the Christ child’s birth.

TheKingDude

Host of the Mike Church Show on The Veritas Radio Network's CRUSADE Channel & Founder of the Veritas Radio Network. Formerly, of Sirius/XM's Patriot channel 125. The show began in March of 2003 exclusively on Sirius and remains "the longest running radio talk show in satellite radio history".

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