Merry Christmas!

Last Sunday of Advent

This week of Advent gets shortened as Christmas Eve is the day after. 

Mary set out and traveled to the hill country in haste to a town of Judah,  where she entered the house of Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth. When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the infant leaped in her womb, and Elizabeth, filled with the Holy Spirit, cried out in a loud voice and said, “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb. And how does this happen to me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me? For at the moment the sound of your greeting reached my ears, the infant in my womb leaped for joy. Blessed are you who believed that what was spoken to you by the Lord would be fulfilled.” (Lk. 1:39-45)

The spirit of Advent largely consists in living close to Our Lady during this time when she is carrying Jesus in her womb. We can think of the whole of our life as a somewhat longer Advent, a time of waiting for that definitive moment when we will at last find ourselves with God forever. The Christian knows that he has to live this Advent beside Our Lady every day of his life if he wants to be certain of attaining the only thing in the whole of his existence that is really important–finding Christ in his life, and afterwards being with him in eternity. There is no better way of preparing for Christmas, which is now so close, than by keeping Mary company, getting to know her and deepening our love and trust in her.  Mary imparts a great joy to our souls, because when we turn to her she leads us to Christ.

~from In Conversation with God, Daily Meditations, Volume One: Advent and Christmastide

News of late

Everyone home, wrapping presents, sleeping in, eating Christmas cookies, enjoying the season.

Marian and her friend Mily and I went to see The Great American Trailer Park Christmas Musical last night.  Funny, predictable, but a nice break in the busy season.

Last minute Christmas shopping today then choir rehearsal tonight for the girls.  (We are singing at Midnight Mass.) 

Tomorrow will be cleaning and cooking in preparation for Christmas day.

Christmas traditions

Everyone has their traditions, some weird, some wonderful.  Hopefully, our family falls somewhere in between.

Tonight we will have a family dinner and then decorate the tree, while listening to A Christmas Carol narrated by Patrick Stewart.  This tradition started when we lived in Chicago and watched Star Trek:TNG regularly.  Someone gave us the cassettes of this (I know this dates us) and then when online shopping became the rage and cassette tapes stopped working, we finally found it on CD.  So, now we listen to that each year while decorating. 

Another tradition is to make a cookie for each member of the family during the month of December.  Anna chose sugar cookies, Klara (Gabriel's girlfriend) chose snickerdoodles, Gabriel wants cornulete, Marian wants gingersnaps, and Bogdan has yet to determine what he wants.

Blessings of the season and celebrate those Christmas traditions!

Third Sunday of Advent

Rejoice in the Lord, always: 

again, I say, rejoice. 

Indeed, the Lord is near.

O God, who see how your people 

faithfully await the feast of the Lord’s Nativity,

enable us, we pray,

to attain the joys of so great a salvation,

and to celebrate them always

with solemn worship and glad rejoicing.

Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,

who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit,

one God, for ever and ever.

SNOW!

We're excited to have snow this morning, but realize it won't stay too long.  But, it sure is nice to have at this time of year.

The house is decorated, but we still have to get the Christmas tree yet.  Will try to this week. Gabriel comes home on Monday from school.

Marian has been busy with auditions and shows lately, having just done a great audition yesterday for the Bijou awards.  She has 2 more next week and then she has to do a video audition for an arts summer program.

Anna has a kitten!  She has named the kitten Penelope, and it's super cute.  It was a stray a friend of ours took in, but couldn't keep.

Demolition has begun for our bathroom remodel.  We are updating our hallway bathroom, making it bigger with some more modern features, we promise pictures once it's all done.

Second Sunday of Advent

Prepare the way of the Lord, make straight his paths:
all flesh shall see the salvation of God.  ~Luke 3:4,6

First Sunday of Advent

(from ewtn.com)
Prayer For The Advent Wreath
Lord, our God, we praise You for Your Son, Jesus Christ, for He is Emmanuel,
the Hope of all people.
He is the Wisdom that teaches and guides us.
He is the Savior of us all.
O Lord,
let your blessing come upon us as we light the first (purple) candle of this wreath.
May the wreath and its light be a sign of Christ's promise of salvation.
May He come quickly and not delay.
We ask this in His holy name. Amen.

Waiting
We light a advent candle today, a small dim light against a world that often seems forbidding and dark. But we light it because we are a people of hope, a people whose faith is marked by an expectation that we should always be ready for the coming of the Master. The joy and anticipation of this season is captured beautifully in the antiphons of hope from the monastic liturgies:

See! The ruler of the earth shall come, the Lord who will take from us the heavy burden of our exile
The Lord will come soon, will not delay.
The Lord will make the darkest places bright.
We must capture that urgency today in the small flame of our candle. We light the candle because we know that the coming of Christ is tied to our building of the kingdom. Lighting the flame, feeding the hungry, comforting the sick, reconciling the divided, praying for the repentant, greeting the lonely and forgotten – doing all these works hastens His coming.