12/24/2006
In honor of Christmas, 2006, here is a roundup of samples from previous VDARE.COM Christmases.
James Fulford, 2005 (and G. K. Chesterton) The Shop of Ghosts
By Fulford: "Did I ever tell you readers how I got this job? No? Well gather round, and I'll tell you."
GKC:
"Nearly all the best and most precious things in the universe you can get for a halfpenny. I make an exception, of course, of the sun, the moon, the earth, people, stars, thunderstorms, and such trifles. You can get them for nothing."
By Chilton Williamson, Christmas Meditation 2001: St Augustine and the National Question,
"This Christmas Eve, I will be attending mass at my parish church, St. Laurence O'Toole in Laramie, Wyoming."
"Our parish is one of those big enough to sustain Perpetual, round-the-clock, Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament, a practice encouraged in the Roman Catholic Church, believing as we do in the True Presence of Christ in the consecrated communion host. I generally visit on Friday mornings, between nine and ten. Remembering St. Theresa of Avila, who was unable to pray for sixteen years without a book in her hand, I make a habit of bringing something to read. For the past year it’s been Augustine of Hippo’s City of God."
Read the whole thing to see what St. Augustine had to say about the National Question. (This article sold an amazing number of copies of City of God through the very secular agency of Amazon.com).
By John Zmirak, Christmas Meditation 2002: Christ, The "Other", And Counterfeit Citizens, on why "prudent control of this and any nation’s borders…is actually commanded in the Gospel"
"Christmas marks the birth of a universal religion, which reaches across all racial and cultural boundaries, which transformed a noble tribal creed into a cosmopolitan Faith. Again and again, in inspired Scripture, Jesus commands compassion for the poor, mercy for sinners, and self-sacrifice on behalf of strangers — even enemies. He conditions eternal salvation upon one’s kindliness towards the hungry, the naked, the sick — the "least of my brothers."
"Perhaps His birthday is not the best time of year to discuss border control. One risks being cast as Ebenezer Scrooge, accused of consigning needy aliens to "prisons and workhouses" with a heartless chuckle.
"In Europe, the argument’s a little easier to make, as the influx of highly fertile Moslems threatens to fill the emptying cradle of Western Civilization. Dissipated Dutchmen and Italian cardinals alike can see the danger to Europe’s identity and liberty. As John Vinson has documented, in Immigration And Nation: A Biblical View, the Old Testament is replete with commands to the Israelites to preserve their land and faith from invasion or corruption by alien peoples and creeds. (Exodus does command us to "not to vex the stranger" (22:21). But if you look three lines up, it also says, "You shall not suffer a witch to live" (22:18). Churchmen have lit a number of fires over the centuries by applying such statements literally.)"
By John Zmirak: Christmas Meditation 2003: This Royal Night
"It’s common in certain circles nowadays to compare the Holy Family’s flight into Egypt, or their search for a "room at the inn," to the plight of illegal immigrants. Bunk (as usual). These were no economic refugees, slipping across a border in search of higher carpentry wages. Joseph and Mary were law-abiding and obedient — to Caesar, who ordered them to Bethlehem for a census, and to God, who commanded they flee the tyrant Herod."
By John Zmirak: The Virgin on the Border: A Christmas Meditation (2005)
"As I sit at my desk, on my right, I see a ten-foot banner of His mother, the image of Our Lady of Guadalupe. This might surprise some readers, since this icon is often invoked by Mexican nationalists. Indeed, the Catholic bishops of Arizona just chose her feast day (December 12) to issue their latest call for amnesty and leaky borders. [PDF]
"But Our Lady of Guadalupe does not belong to the militants of MeCha. She is the patron saint of all the Americas, watching over suburban Slavs and converted WASPs alike. Her appearance won millions of souls from a cannibalistic cult to the worship of Christ. Mexicans would not heed the Spanish missionaries, or the white-faced icons they'd hung, until the Virgin Mary herself appeared, seizing for her own use Tepeyac Hill, once the temple of the Aztec snake-goddess, looking like an Indian and wearing native Aztec dress.
"Christianity is universal — but it accepts and works through the particular: the baby in the crib, the family, the nation.
"So the paradox repeats itself: The son of a most particular people, the Jews, brings salvation to all the nations. The Jews are still the people of the Promise, and will endure until the end — similarly, tension will ever persist between the global and the local, between the human race in general and our own kin in particular."
Merry Christmas to all — and to all a good night.
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