December 8, a day of religious festivals all over the world

by Tina Kells | December 8, 2008 at 11:29 am

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I am always uplifted by this time of year because it reminds me of just how much all the religions of the world have in common. Almost every major religion has some sort of winter festival taking place between November and January.

Most people in North America know the big 3 of North American holidays; Christmas, Hanukkah, and Kwanza but there are so many other similarly important winter festivals celebrated all over the world.

Today, December 8, 2008, Catholics around the world are celebrating the festival of the Immaculate Conception to remember the conception of the Holy Mother, Jesus’ mother Mary.

There is often confusion among non-Catholics about what the Immaculate Conception really is; many people think it refers to the conception of Jesus Christ, but it does not. The Immaculate Conception refers to the moment when God created Mary, not the moment when Mary became pregnant with Jesus.

A feast called the Conception of Mary arose in the Eastern Church in the seventh century (prior to the Great Schism of 1054). It looked to the West in the eighth century. In the eighth century it became a feast of the Roman Catholic Church. It is the only one of Mary's feasts that came to the Western Church not by way of Rome, but instead spread from the Byzantine area to Naples, and then to Normandy during their period of dominance over southern Italy. From there it spread into England, France, Germany, and eventually Rome.[1]

Prior to Pope Pius IX's definition of the Immaculate Conception as Church dogma in 1854, most missals referred to it as the Feast of the Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary. The festal texts of this period focused more on the action of her conception than on the theological question of her preservation from original sin. A missal published in England in 1806 indicates the same collect for the feast of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary was used for this feast as well.[2]

It is a public holiday in Argentina, Austria, Nicaragua, Chile, Spain, Portugal, Italy, Malta, Peru, and Paraguay. In some countries, though December 8 is not a public holiday, their respective Episcopal Conference however declared this day as a Holy Day of Obligation, as it is in the United States, the Philippines and Ireland.

December 8th is also celebrated as mother's day in Panama in honor of this holiday and is therefore a national holiday.

The University of Dayton celebrates Christmas on Campus every Dec. 8 in conjunction with the Feast of the Immaculate Conception.

December 8th is a major feast day on the Catholic calendar, in fact in Panama the holy holiday of the Immaculate Conception is a co-observance with that country’s secular holiday of Mother’s day, but Catholics are not alone in having an important observance today.

Every December 8th Buddhists celebrate Bodhi; an observance in recognition of the day that Buddha reached enlightenment.

Bodhi Day (Japanese: 成道会 or "Jōdō-e"), traditionally December 8th, is the Buddhist holiday that commemorates the day that the historical Buddha, Shakyamuni or Siddhartha Gautauma, experienced enlightenment, also known as Bodhi in Sanskrit or Pali. According to tradition, Siddhartha had recently forsaken years of extreme ascetic practices and decided to sit under a Pipul tree and simply meditate until he found the root of suffering, and how to liberate one's self from it.

Traditions vary on what happened. Some say he made a great vow to nirvana and Earth to find the root of suffering, or die trying. In other traditions, while meditating he was harassed and tempted by the Hindu god Mara, Lord of Illusion. Other traditions simply state that he entered deeper and deeper states of meditation, confronting the nature of the self.

Regardless, all traditions agree that as the Morning Star rose in the sky in the early morning, Siddhartha finally found the answers he sought and became Enlightened, and experienced Nirvana. Having done so, Siddhartha now became a Buddha or "Awakened One".

Muslims are also celebrating an important day on December 8, 2008, the Eid al-Adha. The date on which Eid al-Adha is celebrated differs every year on the Julian calendar but this year it falls on the same day as the Immaculate Conception feast and Bodhi day.

Eid al-Adha celebrates the willingness of Ibrahim (known as Abraham to Christians) to sacrifice his son to Allah. The Ibrahim account draws attention to the many stories that are common to the Koran, the Torah and the Christian Old Testament. Islam, Judaism and Chrsitianity have many common stories to unite them and the story of Ibrahim is only one of them.

Eid al-Adha (Arabic: عيد الأضحى ‘Īd ul-’Aḍḥā) or the Festival of Sacrifice (Turkish: Kurban Bayramı) is a religious festival celebrated by Muslims and Druze worldwide in commemoration of the willingness of Ibrahim (Abraham) to sacrifice his son as an act of obedience to God. The devil tempted Ibrahim by saying he should disobey God and spare his son. As Ibrahim was about to sacrifice his son, God intervened and instead provided a lamb as the sacrifice.

This is why today all over the world Muslims who have the means to, sacrifice an animal (usually a goat or a sheep), as a reminder of Ibrahim's obedience to God. The meat is then shared out with family, friends (Muslims or non-Muslims), as well as the poor members of the community. (Islam names Ishmael as the son who was to be sacrificed, whereas Christianity and Judaism name Isaac).

Eid al-Adha is the latter of two Eid festivals celebrated by Muslims, whose basis comes from the Quran.[1] (Muslims in Iran celebrate a third, non-denominational Eid.) Like Eid el-Fitr, Eid al-Adha begins with a short prayer followed by a sermon (khuṭba).

Future Dates of Eid al-Adha Observance:

1429 (Islamic Calendar): December 8, 2008 announced - calculated date: same

1430 (Islamic Calendar): November 27, 2009 (calculated)

1431 (Islamic Calendar): November 16, 2010 (calculated)

1432 (Islamic Calendar): November 6, 2011 (calculated)

1433 (Islamic Calendar): October 26, 2012 (calculated)

1434 (Islamic Calendar): October 15, 2013 (calculated)

1435 (Islamic Calendar): October 4, 2014 (calculated)

1436 (Islamic Calendar): September 23, 2015 (calculated)

1437 (Islamic Calendar): September 11, 2016 (calculated)

1438 (Islamic Calendar): September 1, 2017 (calculated)

1439 (Islamic Calendar): August 21, 2018 (calculated)

1440 (Islamic Calendar): August 11, 2019 (calculated)

1441 (Islamic Calendar): July 31, 2020 (calculated)