Eighth Day of Christmas: Beware of the Cutters

http://emmock.com/2011/01/01/bible-blog-335/

Welcome to January 1st. In the "Land of the Long Weekend" This is the day to recover from the NYE parties and celebrations. It's a day at the beach or home with a BBQ.

Back in the days before the Vatican Council  moved the goal posts Catholic Tradition celebrated this day as the Feast of the Circumcision of the Lord. 

Yes, it is the only Catholic feast for a medical procedure. As with all great Biblical accounts there is a picture gallery available on google. As with all great Catholic and Orthodox Celebrations there is a hymn or two for the feast.

Circumcision gets some pretty good press in the Scriptures as a popular practice and metaphor. By the time you have worked through the Hebrew Scriptures and made your way to some of Paul's letters you get to the most cutting of his statements:  "Beware of the cutters,"  (Ph.3:2). So there you have it, time to stop infant circumcision. If Paul was around today he would probably join one of the   Facebook pages to stop infant circumcision.

Circumcision has made its way into the public forum. SBS Insight hosted  a public forum. Two of my good friends appeared as guests Elwyn Moir and Sharon Orapeleng. By strange coincidence they were seated near each other for the recording.

Thanks to this feast we also have a great new word for scrabble: prepuce.The Holy Prepuce or the story of the foreskin relics is another contribution of Catholicism to the religious entertainment industry. It seems that we can also learn a bit from Michelangelo about this practice.

And so a new year is upon us. May you "make the cut" in whatever you do in 2024!!

May this new year bring you blessings of peace and happiness. May we work together to build a community of hope and justice in our neighbourhoods and on our planet.

Read each of the 12 Days of Christmas from here.