Editorial

Black Friday sends the wrong message about the Christmas season

The day after Thanksgiving is known as Black Friday.

It’s a day when retail stores offer deep discounts, and many holiday shoppers seek to outdo one another in the hunt for bargains. Some say that the origin of the name, which has been popular since the 1960s, is based on the fact that retail sales finally start to become profitable (“in the black”) at this point in the year. Others point to the chaos caused by large crowds and heavy traffic, which often results in a stressful experience for merchants, shoppers and security personnel.

To say that Black Friday inaugurates the Christmas season is sad. This is a secular occasion if there ever was one. Black Friday celebrates materialism, greed and selfishness. Therefore, it sends all the wrong messages about this holy time of year.

Advent is a time of self-denial and patient expectation. Black Friday is the ultimate expression of impatience and acquisitiveness. Christmas, which follows Advent’s four weeks of hope-filled waiting, is the season of generous self-giving. It is the very opposite of the materialism and secularism of today’s black “festival.”

It would be a mistake to mark Black Friday as another secular holiday like Memorial Day or Labor Day or even Thanksgiving Day. Those holidays, and many others spread throughout the calendar year, celebrate positive values in our society. Respect for those who have died in service to our country, honoring the hard work of those who labor on our behalf and giving thanks for the blessings we have received are virtuous activities. “Shop till you drop” is not (or should not be) an American value—as much as we appreciate the economic freedoms and material benefits that we enjoy as a nation.

In the Gospel, Jesus teaches us to resist the temptation to make false idols out of material things. Jesus admonishes us to seek first the kingdom of God, which is a spiritual treasure, and everything else we need will be given to us (Mt 6:33).

Christians do not despise material things. We use them, enjoy them and recognize their value as being of secondary importance, while we strive always to keep first things first, especially the love of God and neighbor. To the extent that Black Friday encourages us to focus all our attention on material things, it directly contradicts what is (or should be) of primary importance to us.

This editorial calls attention to one day out of the year, but the problems of materialism, consumerism and greed are everyday problems for us sinful human beings. We have come to believe that our deepest desires for happiness, peace and prosperity can be satisfied by things that are not capable of fulfilling our spiritual needs. “You can’t buy happiness or love,” we say, but we are constantly tempted to buy our way into heaven on Earth. “You can’t take it with you,” we tell ourselves even as will fill our homes and storage units with excess stuff.

If only we would take Jesus at his word, and seek God’s love and mercy first and foremost, we would not feel the need to surround ourselves with things. If only we could do what the “rich young man” in the Gospels (Mt 19:16-30, Mk 10:17-31, Lk 18:18-30) could not do, namely sell everything, give it to the poor and follow Jesus, we would know what it means to experience perfect joy. Unfortunately, like the young man, we too often “go away sad” because our hearts are all wrapped up in our possessions.

Most of us are not called to a life of radical poverty. We need our money and material things to live and work “in the world,” to support our families and to serve others—especially the poor and vulnerable. The Lord doesn’t ask most of us to live heroic lives. He asks us to live in ways that demonstrate that we have our values in proper order. First comes our love for God and neighbor. Everything else flows from our commitment to “seek first” the spiritual gifts that come from God alone.

Let’s make the day after Thanksgiving a multi-colored Friday, a day for giving and sharing all God’s gifts. Let’s begin the Advent and Christmas seasons with confidence that everything we need will be given to us if we let go of our dependance on material possessions and let God fill our hearts with love.

—Daniel Conway