TONIGHT AT MIDNIGHT

From the superb St Andrew Daily Missal (pre-Catastrophe edition):

"The central event in the history of the world is about to take place.  In accordance with Isaias' prophecy St John the Baptist is about to introduce the Messias to the world, and it is of the first importance to determine the historic moment when this took place.

Now in the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caeser, Pontius Pilate being governor of Judea, and Herod being tetrarch of Galilee, and Philip his brother tetrarch of Iturea and the country of Trachonitis, and Lysanias tetrarch of Avilina, under the high-priests Annas and Caiphas: the word of the Lord was made unto John, the son of Zachary, in the desert."

St John the Baptist

Let us note the exacitude with which this event is recorded.  One wonders how our historians, who are capable of deciphering the slightest details of the ancient world going back 6,000 years seem to have some difficulty with these particular details recorded by Luke, the physician.  Surely if the mental processes of Queen Cleopatra can be (they believe) deciphered by several nebulous suggestions by personages living in her time then the precision of the story of the birth of Jesus Christ, illuminated in such easily verifiable detail, can not be brushed aside as mere hearsay.  Unless, of course, you are employed by PBS and given millions by well-heeled foundations to produce the usual bilge that tends to show up like clockwork every Christmas and every Easter.  Ho hum.

Let us not be detained overmuch by these zealots.  For at midnight tonight we begin a joyous fesitval, which indeed commemorates the Central Event in all human history.

O come, Emmanuel.