How to Celebrate Hanukkah - Hanukkah Series Ep. 2 

I pray you are well. Thankfully we are all ok over here :)

My pleasure.

Catholics are actually prohibited to celebrate any Jewish holiday. It's actually a Church teaching which can not be denied by any practicing catholic. This is binding on all practicing catholic that it would be considered a mortal sin. Saint Thomas Aquinas explains that the baptized Christian observing any Old Testament ritual, sacrament, or liturgy is sinning and if done with knowledge and full consent, such an act would be a “mortal sin”: "just as it would be a mortal sin now for anyone, in making a profession of faith, to say that Christ is yet to be born, which the fathers of old said devoutly and truthfully; so too it would be a mortal sin now to observe those ceremonies which the fathers of old fulfilled with devotion and fidelity.” (Saint Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae I-II, q. 103, Art. 4) Saint Thomas Aquinas (and the Ecumenical Council of Florence*) identify the observance of Old Testament rituals as mortally sinful. Why? According to Saint Thomas, it implies that the ceremonial and sacrificial work of Christ did not happen. Remember that in the biblical worldview, liturgy is doing something louder than words can say. Liturgy is the highest form of communication. So when you liturgically celebrate an Old Testament reality, you are literally shouting against the New Testament reality. *Quote from the Ecumenical Council of Florence: [Note that this is not a “disciplinary canon” but a doctrinal canon because the canon reads that the Church “believes, professes, and teaches…”] 712 It firmly believes, professes, and teaches that the matter pertaining to the law of the Old Testament, of the Mosiac law, which are divided into ceremonies, sacred rites, sacrifices, and sacraments, because they were established to signify something in the future, although they were suited to the divine worship at that time, after our Lord’s coming had been signified by them, ceased, and the sacraments of the New Testament began; and that whoever, even after the passion, placed hope in these matters of the law and submitted himself to them as necessary for salvation, as if faith in Christ could not save without them, sinned mortally. Yet it does not deny that after the passion of Christ up to the promulgation of the Gospel they could have been observed until they were believed to be in no way necessary for salvation; but after the promulgation of the Gospel it asserts that they cannot be observed without the loss of eternal salvation. (Ecumenical Council of Florence, AD 1445)

Feast of christ the king. The light enters jerusalem

I have the same question! It almost feels like converting to Judaism is the best way to learn, but I can't reject our Lord Jesus Christ! And yet, I also feel so drawn to celebrating our roots

I’m just learning about advent! But one the first night (this year) happened the first day of Advent so we lit it in honor of both as they both point us to prepare ourselves to receive the Light of the World within us.

Ok course. Now I do. I had to do a lot of research on it. A lot of lies have been pushed about it (it’s pagan. Yeshua was not born in December, it’s Saturnalia, it celebrates Solus Invictus, it’s a Norse holiday, the Bible says decorating trees is pagan, etc.)… These lies kept me away from the celebration but once I got to know the facts, I embraced it as the Church does.

That is not Christmas. Lol literally no one in history ever believed that. That claim is a recent claim and not by any serious scholar.