The Real Meaning of ‘Christmas’
In the Christmas season we celebrate the joy of Jesus’ birth. It is the story of the Son of God coming to be with us in the midst of our sin and sorrow, in order to bring us his salvation—the ultimate healing.
As we thank God for sending his Son, born in a manger about 2,000 years ago, let us pray for those who are suffering and let us also pray for our Lord’s return in glory when all tears of sorrow will be wiped away and all this world’s wrongs will be made right.
Our appreciation of the Christian meaning of Christmas is enhanced by understanding the origin of the word Christmas. It is the contraction of the words Christ’s mass, which is derived from the Middle English Christemasse and the Old English Cristes mæsse.
The suffix –mas is from maesse, which means “festival,” “feast day” or “mass.” Maesse is derived from the common Latin word messa, which means “dismissal” and is taken from the formal Latin word missa, the feminine past participle of mittere, meaning “to let go” or “to send.”
Over time, missa came to signify the Eucharistic service—a practice that continues in Catholic churches, probably because the concluding words of the service are “ite, missa est” meaning, “go, the mass is over,” or “the prayer has been sent.”
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