The cycle begins...

Well, here we go again...
Today began the round for penance services. Usually these happen in Advent but mercifully Fr. Jimmy at OLM scheduled their penance service outside of the season of Advent, when priest are generally quite busy going from parish to parish for penance services. There were two other priest also at the service today but I did not take photos then, only at lunch. You see Fr. Michael Kingery and Mr. Danny Dorsel here reclining a bit after a wonderful meal.



And here you have yours truly and Fr. Jimmy Adams, Chaplin at OLM. It was a wonderful time for the students to receive the Sacrament of reconciliation. Just in case you did not know I really enjoy the Sacrament of reconciliation and the unique opportunities it provides me with penitents. So why the HMPH above...well

As you see it appears that Christmas is blooming at OLM, which is their choice...but it frustrates me. I hear people year after year tell me that Christmas gets here earlier and earlier (last time I checked we begin celebrating Christmas with the Vigil Mass on Christmas Eve {or EPI}). They say things like, "I went to the store and they already have Christmas up, and it's only October!?!" I could not agree more. The problem is once you move the beginning of Christmas from any time before the beginning of the anticipatory Mass for Christmas begins that day, and any time is before Christmas actually begins (and therefore not Christmas yet) which is as good as any other date. It also adds to the Christmas fatigue many people experience, really how many Christmas decorations do you know that go up before Advent and come down by the 26th of December. I liken all this to a big surprise birthday party:

The people all gather and get ready for the arrival of the guest of honor. Then the guest of honor arrives with the obligatory surprise!!! Then the party really gets going. A great time is had by all...

What we see happening in our country today is more like this:

The people all gather and get ready for the arrival of the guest of honor...by eating and drinking and enjoying the party. Then the guest of honor arrives with the obligatory surprise!!! Then the people leave the party right after the "obligatory surprise!!!" because they are tired of celebrating because they have been going for a while now and don't have any energy to carry on..."but happy birthday, anyway...got to run, K thx bye bye merry x-mas.?..."

So what could be the answer...glad you asked. We have the new Liturgical year beginning this week as we being Advent. Advent is a time for us to anticipate the Coming of the Lord at the end of time and also being born to us anew at Christmas. What if we made a conscious effort to wait, celebrate, enjoy and anticipate Christmas this Advent. Lets leave Christmas to The Christmas Season (Dec. 24 at the beginning of the Vigil of the solemnity of the Nativity of the Lord through January 13, 2008 after Evening Prayer II).
You know sometimes the Lord just puts you in the right place at the right time. Remember my earlier post on a the great Sunday I had in Berlin? Well when we went to Mass I saw these stickers and thought: THANK YOU LORD! I have been looking for something like this for a long time, how perfect...
This is a campaign to save Christmas, I mean really save Christmas (not like that phony baloney stuff Bill O'Reilly goes on about) YES lets keep Christ in Christmas but while we are at it lets keep Christmas in Christmas. ((as an aside it is sometimes like those old Reese's commercials, hey you got Christmas in my Advent etc...)) Anyway in the campaign to save Christmas and turn away from Consumerist Christmas, I think the Germans at Bonifatius Werk are doing a great job! You can see their main page here, their specific weihnachtsmannfreie zone page here and a nice game where St. Nicholas has to avoid the nefarious Santa Claus here. (All those pages are translated thanks to google, although not the best translations, if you speak German you can always turn off the translation.) So if you see that sticker of Santa around you know what it is about (hey if you rearrange the letters SANTA spells SATAN??!!! hehehehe). Anyway, now you somewhat know where I am coming from on all this, and now you know why I said I feel like that LOLcat...HMPH!

Peace!