Category: Holiday

Posted on

T’was the Month Before Christmas…..

Twas the month before Christmas
 
When all through our land,
 
Not a Christian was praying
 
Nor taking a stand.
 
See the PC Police had taken away
 
The reason for Christmas – no one could say.
 
The children were told by their schools not to sing
 
About Shepherds and Wise Men and Angels and things.
 
It might hurt people’s feelings, the teachers would
say
 
December 25th is just a ‘ Holiday ‘.
 
Yet the shoppers were ready with cash, checks and
 credit
 
Pushing folks down to the floor just to get it!
 
CDs from Madonna, an X BOX, an I-Pod
 
Something was changing, something quite odd!
 
Retailers promoted Ramadan and Kwanzaa
 
In hopes to sell books by Franken & Fonda.
 
As Targets were hanging their trees upside down
 
At Lowe’s the word Christmas – was no where to be
found.
 
At K-Mart and Staples and Penny’s and Sears
 
You won’t hear the word Christmas; it won’t touch your
ears.
 
Inclusive, sensitive, Di-ver-si-ty
 
Are words that were used to intimidate me.
 
Now Daschle, Now Darden, Now Sharpton, Wolf
Blitzen
 
On Boxer, on Rather, on Kerry, on Clinton !
 
At the top of the Senate, there arose such a clatter
 
To eliminate Jesus, in all public matter.
 
And we spoke not a word, as they took away our faith
 
Forbidden to speak of salvation and grace
 
The true Gift of Christmas was exchanged and
discarded
 
The reason for the season, stopped before it started.
 
So as you celebrate ‘Winter Break’ under your ‘Dream
 Tree’
 
Sipping your Starbucks, listen to me.
 
Choose your words carefully, choose what you say
 
Shout MERRY CHRISTMAS ,
 
not Happy Holiday !
 
Please, all Christians join together and
 
wish everyone you meet
 
MERRY CHRISTMAS!!
 
Christ is The Reason’ for the Christ-mas Season!!!!

(This is a very clever and unfortunately true early Christmas card that is being passed on through emails this year.  Many thanks to the brilliant and insightful author, and may our Christmas celebrations of the future begin again to belong to Christ!)

Posted on

A New Season…

 “To every son and daughter
Wayward and long gone
The love of a Father will leave the light on”

(From Nichole Nordeman’s “Lay it Down.”)


You know, it just occurred to me that there are other Seasons besides Christmas!  We are now in the Season of Lent preparing our hearts for the Risen Christ at Easter. 

 Lent is an incredibly important Season — an opportunity for a new beginning and a new relationship with the God Who loves us.  It’s an opportunity to stop and think, to turn around and find a new path. It is a time to lay the weight of the world –all of our sufferings, sin and burdens — down at the feet of Jesus and start anew.

 

 Here are a few lovely places to begin your Lenten Season — reflections, online rosaries and other things that I hope will help you on your journey.

“Praying Lent”  For Lenten prayers and reflections:  http://onlineministries.creighton.edu/CollaborativeMinistry/Lent/

And here is their Daily Prayer Blog: http://dailyprayers.prayinglent.com/

“Come Pray the Rosary” is a beautiful site that allows you to pray the Rosary with people from all around the world in real time.  http://www.comepraytherosary.org/

“The Virtual Rosary”  is a way to remind yourself to pray the Rosary every day and comes complete with an application that you can download in order to pray the mysteries of the Rosary.  http://www.virtualrosary.org/

God bless you in this new and wonderful season!!!

 




Posted on

The Fourth Week of Advent

 

I thought that this reflection was really inspiring and hope that you do too.

From:

http://onlineministries.creighton.edu/CollaborativeMinistry/Advent/fourthweek.html

“So many of us experience the ironic reality that Christmas can be the most lonely time of our lives.  Some of these “mixed feelings” or “sad feelings” are difficult to recognize or name. 

For some of us, the Christmas we will celebrate this year pales in comparison to wonderful Christmases of our past – perhaps because we were younger or more “innocent” then, perhaps because some of our loved ones who were central to our Christmas are no longer living or not where I am, perhaps because the burdens and struggles of my life or the changes in our world and the war have robbed this Christmas of something that was there before.

For some of us, Christmas will be just another day.  Unable to get out to go to church to be with a faith community, and without family or friends to be with, Christmas will be a day we are tempted to ignore.

For some of us, Christmas inevitably means family conflicts.  Facing the days ahead, whether it be the last few remaining parties, or conflicting demands of family and friends, or the friend or relative who drinks too much, or the experience I’m having that I drink too much and this season is an easy excuse.

For some of us, Christmas challenges us with terrible financial burdens.  Children today become victims of the gross commercial exploitation of the day.  For those of us struggling to make ends meet on a day to day basis, feeling the cultural pressure of buying for our children things which we can’t afford, can lead us to put more debt on the credit card in ways that simply push us further and further behind.

Some of us, might be really looking forward to Christmas, and not be aware of these struggles with Christmas, yet feel that, in spite of our best efforts to make Advent different this year, there is still something missing, and we still feel un-ready for Christmas. 

For all of us, the story behind these days can draw us in, and invite us to bring our lives to the mystery of how Jesus came into this world and why.  Our best preparation for the Holy Night ahead and the Joyful Morning to follow is for us to reflect upon how he came.  He came in the midst of scandal and conflict.  He came in poverty.  He was rejected before he was born.  He was born in a feed trough.  He was hunted down.  And he grew up in obscurity.

He did not shun our world and its poverty and conflict.  He embraced it.  And he desires to embrace us today, in this day.  Right where we are.  Right where we are feeling most distant.  Right were we are feeling least “religious” or “ready.”  If we let him come into our hearts to be our Savior these challenging days, we will find ourselves entering the sacred night and morning of Christmas “joyful and triumphant” as never before.

Come, Lord Jesus.  Come and visit your people. 
We await your coming.  Come, O Lord.

Posted on

Rejoice! Gaudete! It is the Third Week of Advent!

http://onlineministries.creighton.edu/CollaborativeMinistry/Advent/thirdweek.html

Gaudete Week

Our week begins with “Gaudete Sunday.” Gaudete means “rejoice” in Latin.  It comes from the first word of the Entrance antiphon on Sunday.  The spirit of joy that begins this week comes from the words of Paul, “The Lord is near.”  This joyful spirit is marked by the third candle of our Advent wreath, which is rose colored, and the rose colored vestments often used at the Eucharist.

….

“Preparing our Hearts and asking for Grace

We prepare this week by feeling the joy.  We move through this week feeling a part of the waiting world that rejoices because our longing has prepared us to believe the reign of God is close at hand.  And so we consciously ask:

Prepare our hearts
and remove the sadness
that hinders us from feeling
the joy and hope
which his presence
will bestow.

Each morning this week, in that brief moment we are becoming accustomed to, we want to light a third inner candle.  Three candles, going from expectation, to longing, to joy.  They represent our inner preparation, or inner perspective.  In this world of “conflict and division,” “greed and lust for power,” we begin each day this week with a sense of liberating joy.  Perhaps we can pause, breathe deeply and say,

“My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord,
     my spirit rejoices in God my savior.”

Each day this week, we will continue to go through our everyday life, but we will experience the difference our faith can bring to it.  We are confident that the grace we ask for will be given us.  We will encounter sin – in our own hearts and in our experience of the sin of the world.  We can pause in those moments, and feel the joy of the words,

“You are to name him Jesus, 
  because he will save his people 
  from their sins.” Mt 1:21

We may experience the Light shining into dark places of our lives and showing us patterns of sinfulness, and inviting us to experience God’s mercy and healing.  Perhaps we wish to celebrate the Sacrament of Reconcilation this week.  We may want to make gestures of reconcilation with a loved one, relative, friend or associate.  With more light and joy, it is easier to say, “I’m sorry; let’s begin again.”

Each night this week we want to pause in gratitude.  Whatever the day has brought, no matter how busy it has been, we can stop, before we fall asleep, to give thanks for a little more light, a little more freedom to walk by that light, in joy.”

From “Praying Advent” Advent Reflections at   http://onlineministries.creighton.edu/CollaborativeMinistry/Advent/thirdweek.html

See also  http://onlineministries.creighton.edu/CollaborativeMinistry/Advent/index.html

Posted on

Advent 2010!

It’s the first Sunday of Advent! Let us pray with open hearts and await the coming of our Lord!

 http://onlineministries.creighton.edu/CollaborativeMinistry/Advent/

“Father in heaven,
our hearts desire the warmth of your love
and our minds are searching for the light of your Word.

Increase our longing for Christ our Savior
and give us the strength to grow in love,
that the dawn of his coming
may find us rejoicing in his presence
and welcoming the light of his truth.

We ask this in the name of Jesus the Lord.”

http://onlineministries.creighton.edu/CollaborativeMinistry/Advent/aweek1.html#1sun

Posted on

Jesus is the Meaning of Christmas

377px-Braunschweiger_diptychon_adoratio

 

“The people walking in darkness  have seen a great light; on those living in the land of the shadow of death a light has dawned.

 

You have enlarged the nation and increased their joy; they rejoice before you as people rejoice at the harvest, as men rejoice when dividing the plunder.

 

For as in the day of Midian’s defeat, you have shattered the yoke that burdens them, the bar across their shoulders, the rod of their oppressor.

Every warrior’s boot used in battle and every garment rolled in blood will be destined for burning, will be fuel for the fire.

For to us a child is born, to us a son is given,Ryabushkin_001

and the government will be on his shoulders.

And he will be called

Wonderful Counselor,

 Mighty God,

Everlasting Father   

Prince of Peace.”

Isaiah 9: 2-6484PX-~1

                                                                                                                    NavidadGiovanni_di_Paolo_The_Adoration_of_the_Magi