C
larence E. Manion, dean of Notre Dame's College of Law, was appointed by President Eisenhower to help restore States powers that were usurped during FDR's administration.
Dean Clarence Manion, whose book
Keys to Peace (1951) sold millions of copies, wrote regarding CHRISTMAS DAY:
"The long march of measured time suddenly stopped.
It then did an about-face and started to march in another direction and to a different drum straight through the ensuing centuries of Christ and Christendom ....
... B.C. (before Christ) and A.D. (Anno Domini, the year of our Lord)
mark each one of the only reliable milestones along the path of world history..."
Clarence Manion continued:
"The end of the first time-chain, and the beginning of the second, came together
on the
night that Christ was born in Bethlehem.
The
first CHRISTMAS DAY thus stands as the Great Divide for the timing and recording of all people, things and events that have lived or taken place upon this earth ...
... It is the one place where an inquiring mind can go in either direction without stopping;
the one place on the long, long trail of time where
the magnetic needle of history stands vertical and points up."
As
Clarence Manion referenced "the timing and recording of all people, things and events that have lived or taken place upon this earth," let us review some of notable events.
On
CHRISTMAS DAY,
496 A.D, Clovis, King of the Francs, was baptized with 3,000 of his soldiers at Rheims, France by Saint Remigius.
The name Clovis evolved into Louis, which was the name of 22 French kings.
On
CHRISTMAS DAY, 597 A.D., 10,000 Anglo-Saxons were baptized in England on the banks of the Swale sea inlet between the isle of Sheppey and Kent by St. Augustine of Canterbury and his companion missionaries.
St. Augustine had also baptized
King Ethelbert of Kent.
On
CHRISTMAS DAY, 800 A.D., Charlemange was crowned Holy Roman Emperor in St. John Lateran Church, Rome, Italy.
His grandfather, Charles Martel, had stopped the Muslim invasion of France in 732 AD. In 846 A.D., 11,000 Muslims invaded Rome and desecrated the graves of St. Peter and St. Paul.
King Edmund of East Anglia (England), was crowned on
CHRISTMAS DAY in
855 A.D.
Otto II was crowned
Holy Roman Emperor on
CHRISTMAS DAY in
967 A.D. by Pope John XIII in Rome.
After his death, his son,
Otto III, was crowned King of Germany in Aachen on
CHRISTMAS DAY in
983 A.D.
On
CHRISTMAS DAY, 1000 A.D., St. Stephen was crowned
King of Hungary.
His pious son,
St. Emeric, whose name in Italian is
Amerigo, was the namesake of
Amerigo Vespucci, the explorer mapmaker after whom the continent of
America was named.
On
CHRISTMAS DAY, 1013 A.D., the Danish Viking
Sweyn Forkbeard was crowned
King of England.
On
CHRISTMAS DAY,
1025 A.D.,
Mieszko II Lambert was crowned
King of Poland.
On
CHRISTMAS DAY, 1046 A.D., Henry III of Germany and
his wife, Agnes, were crowned
Holy Roman Emperor and Empress by Pope Clement II.
On
CHRISTMAS DAY, 1066 A.D., William the Conqueror was crowned King of England at Westminster Abbey, London.
This same year a Muslim became "offended" at a Jewish administrator in Granada, Spain, and stirred Muslims to riot, killing nearly all of the 4,000 Jews in the city.
King Bolesław II the Generous, who built numerous churches and monasteries across Poland, was crowned on
CHRISTMAS DAY in
1076 A.D.
The Norman conqueror
Roger II, after driving out Muslim occupiers, was crowned
King of Sicily on
CHRISTMAS DAY in
1130 A.D.
Stephen of Blois was crowned
King of England on DECEMBER 26,
1135 A.D.
Eric V was crowned
King of Denmark on
CHRISTMAS DAY in
1259 A.D.
John II was crowned
King of Castile and Leon on
CHRISTMAS DAY in
1406 A.D.
President
John Quincy Adams stated in Newburyport, July 4, 1837:
"In the chain of human events, the
birthday of the nation is indissolubly linked with the
birthday of the Savior ...
It forms a leading event in the Progress of the Gospel dispensation ..."
Adams continued, asking:
"Is it not that the
Declaration of Independence first organized the social compact on the foundation of
the Redeemer's mission upon earth? ... That
it laid the cornerstone of human government upon the first precepts of Christianity
and gave to the world the first irrevocable pledge of the fulfillment of the prophecies announced directly from Heaven at
the birth of the Saviour and predicted by the greatest of the Hebrew prophets (Isaiah) 600 years before."
On
CHRISTMAS DAY, 1868 A.D., President Andrew Johnson issued a complete, unconditional pardon to all Confederate soldiers.
In 1869,
Mark Twain published
Innocents Abroad, telling of his visit to the
Church of the Nativity in the Holy Land:
"This spot where the very first 'Merry Christmas!' was uttered in all the world ..."
Twain continued:
"We called at ... the hollow place under a rock where Paul hid during his flight till his pursuers gave him up; and to the mausoleum of the five thousand Christians who were massacred in Damascus in 1861 by the Turks."
President
Herbert Hoover wrote in 1932:
"
Your CHRISTMAS Service held each year at the foot of a living tree which was alive at the time of
the birth of Christ ... should be continued as a further symbol of the unbroken chain of life leading back to this great moment in the spiritual life of mankind."
On CHRISTMAS, DECEMBER 24, 1946, President Truman stated:
"Our ... hopes of future years turn to
a little town in the hills of Judea where on a winter's night two thousand years ago the prophecy of Isaiah was fulfilled.
Shepherds keeping the watch by night over their flock heard the glad tidings of great joy from
the angels of the Lord singing, 'Glory to God in the Highest and on Earth, peace, good will toward men.'
... The message of Bethlehem best sums up our hopes tonight.
If we as a nation, and the other nations of the world, will accept it, the star of faith will guide us into the place of peace as it did the shepherds on that
day of Christ's birth long ago."
President
Dwight Eisenhower remarked in 1960:
"Through the ages men have felt the uplift of
the spirit of CHRISTMAS.
We commemorate
the birth of the Christ Child by ... giving expression to our gratitude for
the great things that His coming has brought about in the world."
President John F. Kennedy stated December 17, 1962:
"
CHRISTMAS ... is the most sacred and hopeful day in our civilization."
President
Jimmy Carter commented in 1977:
"
CHRISTMAS has a special meaning for those of us who are Christians, those of us who believe in Christ, those of us who know that almost 2,000 years ago,
the Son of Peace was born."
President
Ronald Reagan stated in 1983:
"CHRISTMAS is a time...to open our hearts to ... millions forbidden the freedom to worship a God who so loved the world that He gave us
the birth of the Christ Child so that we might learn to love.
... The message of Jesus is one of hope and joy. I know there are those who recognize
CHRISTMAS DAY as the birthday of a wise teacher ... then there are others of us
who believe that he was the Son of God, that he was divine."
President Donald Trump stated in his 2017 Christmas message:
"We're thrilled to think of the people across the nation and all across the continent whose spirits are lifted by the miracle of Christmas. For Christians, this is a Holy season - the celebration of the birth of
our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ."
As
Dean Clarence Manion wrote: "The first CHRISTMAS DAY ... where the magnetic needle of history stands vertical and points up,"
President Truman similarly stated on CHRISTMAS, 1949:
"The first Christmas had its beginning in the coming of a Little Child ... Through that child love ... the love of the Holy Family could be shared by the whole human family ...
I have been reading again in our family Bible some of the passages which foretold this night. It was that grand old seer Isaiah who prophesied in the Old Testament the sublime event which found
fulfillment almost 2,000 years ago.
Just as Isaiah foresaw the coming of Christ, so another battler for the Lord, St. Paul, summed up the law and the prophets in a glorification of love which he exalts even above both faith and hope..."
Truman ended:
"We miss the spirit of Christmas if we consider the Incarnation a far-off event unrelated to our present problems. We miss the purpose of Christ's birth if we do not accept it as
a living link which
joins us together in spirit as children of the ever-living and true God.
In love alone--the love of God and the love of man--will be found the solution of all the ills which afflict the world today ... With increasing purpose, emerges the great message of Christianity ...
In the spirit of the Christ Child--as little children with joy in our hearts and peace in our souls--
let us, as a nation, dedicate ourselves anew to the love of our fellowmen ... the message of
the Child of Bethlehem, the real meaning of Christmas."
John 3:16-18:
"For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whoever believes on him should not perish but have everlasting life.
For God sent not the Son into the world to condemn the world,
but that the world through him might be saved."
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