As we approach the New Year and leave another Christmas behind ... as we sit in the midst of torn paper, ribbons and bows, pine needles gathering on the carpet and poinsettias in need of water ... it's interesting to reflect back on what has been survived. I think it was Nietzsche who said: What does not kill us makes us stronger. That's also an appropriate sentiment for both the Old and New Testament, as well as the Christmas and Easter Seasons in Catholic parishes! My distant Jewish ancestors would say, with a distinctive shrug: It could be worse! That's true! At least this year the Fourth Sunday of Advent was not also Christmas Eve as we encountered last year ... I think I celebrated 12 Masses in a day and a half! I'm told that won't happen again until 2011 ... when I hope to be on a sabbatical!
I try to encourage my parishioners to really honor Advent with quiet reflection and (semi) patient waiting, rather than the made dash to shop and wrap and cook starting the day after Thanksgiving, so that they will not be exhausted when Christmas really arrives. We've lost the whole concept of the Twelve Days of Christmas leading up to Epiphany ... there are already Christmas trees out on the curb for trash-pickup in my North Dallas neighborhood!
When did we become so lax that people legitimately have to ask: "What time is the Midnight Mass?" Obviously some churches celebrate a "midnight" Mass at times other than midnight ... but doesn't that make it a Vigil Mass? Why do some people show up for the Children and Family Mass 5 or 10 minutes before it starts and complain that "every year we have to stand, Father!" I have one family send me a multi-page diatribe on changing the Christmas Mass schedule without notifying them ... when the change was made three years ago (and has been unchanged since)and the Mass schedule had been prominently posted at all church entrances since Thanksgiving, as well as printed in the Sunday Bulletin for the past three weeks!
Most years I go into Christmas with a joyful and hopeful heart ... and most years I come out somewhere between wistful over a gilded memory of the past, and the Grinch! Of course most people have yet to learn the lesson of the Grinch: the real Spirit of Christmas comes without packages and bows, tinsel and trees, or even roast "beast." Maybe it will be better next year!
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