I stopped this afternoon inside the Basilica of Santa Maria in Cosmedin to pray before the relics of the martyred Roman priest Saint Valentine. With the large number of tourists who stop inside the church after looking at the "mouth of truth" which is in the portico of the church, the brief time at prayer was filled with many distractions (that's one of the "down sides" of living in Rome: the tourists may decrease in number, but they never go away).
At any rate, a thought occurred to me on my way home: Christianity is often derided by secularists for having "baptized" pagan festivals to make them Christian holy days, as if this somehow lessened the sacred days, made them unimportant, or even made them false (notwithstanding the veracity of the claims).
Curiously, the same principle does not seem to be applied to the secularists themselves (which really shouldn't surprise us since so much of modern secularism is really illogical). How many Christian holy days have been all but taken over - or simply surrendered by Christians - by the secularists?
A fight continues about Christmas, but let's face: that battle was lost to consumerism and materialism years ago. The same has nearly happened with Easter. St. Patrick's Day has been handed over to the gluttons to enjoy their drunken revelry. The real meaning of Halloween has been all but forgotten and seems almost beyond retrieving. Likewise, the origin of Saint Valentine's Day has almost been lost.
Now, if Christians are told by the secularists that they shouldn't celebrate Christmas or Easter because they are actually pagan holidays, shouldn't the secularists themselves they shouldn't be seeking to take over these other days because they are distinctly Christian in origin?
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