Congratulations to Mary Ellen, founder of O Night Divine for her new little boy.
Brendan Michael was born today!
Thanksgiving prayers for a safe delivery and a healthy baby, and continued prayers for a healthy recovery, and wonderful babymoon!
ETA: Go to Mary Ellen's blog and take a peek at the gorgeous baby boy!
Due to sickness and traveling, I'm probably one of the last people taking down Christmas decorations.
I keep my Advent boxes separate from my Christmas decorations, so that all I have to do is reach for Advent and not face the mountain of Christmas boxes at the start of Advent. I just want to make sure I have what I need to get Advent started on the right foot.
This is what I have in my Advent boxes:
Advent Calendars (I reuse the old ones)
I now keep all my Advent and Christmas candles in one big box. That way I can monitor the supply of seasonal candles. This is particularly important for the taper candles, as my Advent Wreath plays triple duty. First purple and rose candles for the Advent seasons. It is then transformed into a Christmas wreath with red bows and white candles for Christmas, and a figurine of the Infant Jesus in the middle. On the Solemnity of the Epiphany it's decked out in gold candles. Since I use it throughout both seasons, it is more practical that I use artificial greenery than the real thing.
We all are a little sad to take the decorations down, although I confess I'm a little glad to have the home space back to normal.
Written by Jennifer Gregory Miller.
For years I have heard the phrase: "In the old days, the Christmas season lasted until February 2nd, Candlemas Day. 40 days of Christmas, and 40 days of Easter" So many people would use that as the reason for keeping up their Christmas decorations until the Feast of the Presentation. I always wondered about it, but didn't really understand it until lately, so here are a few thoughts.
In the current Roman Calendar (the Novus Ordo), revised in 1969, the Christmas season ends after the feast of the Baptism of Our Lord, which is either the Sunday after Epiphany or January 13. Below is this year's Liturgical Calendar Wheel created by Michele Quigley which gives a beautiful visual of the changing of the liturgical seasons:
The Liturgical Wheel below is from 1961 Saint Joseph Daily Missal, following the Traditional Calendar (I apologize for the crookedness):
The Time after Epiphany of the Traditional Calendar corresponds to the first part of Ordinary Time after the Christmas season in the current calendar, and both have the liturgical color of green.
What is different is that the Traditional Calendar was also broken down into two sections: the Christmas Cycle and Easter Cycle. The Christmas Cycle encompassed Advent, Christmas, and the Time After Epiphany. The Easter Cycle included Septuagesima, Lent, Holy Week, Easter, and Time After Pentecost.
So the Time After Epiphany is technically in the Christmas Cycle but not the Christmas Season. Christmastide or the Christmas season in both calendars have white as the liturgical color. In the Traditional Calendar this lasted for 21 days until January 13, and the current Calendar it is until the Feast of the Baptism of our Lord, which could be January 13 or the Sunday after Epiphany, whichever comes first..
Dom Gaspar Lefebvre, OSB in the 1949 Saint Andrew Daily Missal explains "The Time after Epiphany includes from one to five Sundays; it recalls to use the hidden life of Christ at Nazareth, and manifests to us His divinity." The revised calendar doesn't include Septuagesima, but the focus of the beginning weeks of Ordinary Time is the same as Time After Epiphany.
So, are there really 40 days of Christmas? Well, yes and no. We celebrate 40 days from the Birth of Christ until the Feast of the Presentation. The liturgical colors and season don't reflect the Christmastide all the way to February 2nd in either calendar, but there is a focus on Christ's early life and divinity in the liturgy. Perhaps farther back in time there was more of a reflection of 40 days? I didn't find any, but please leave a comment if I'm completely off base.
Either way, my domestic church does not reflect the liturgical colors of the current liturgical season!
Written by Jennifer Gregory Miller.
There's an interesting liturgical tidbit from the memories of popular author Anne Rice as recounted in her conversion memoir: Called Out of Darkness; A Spiritual Confession. Mrs. Rice richly describes the varied sights, sounds and smells of the yearly feasts and seasons in her diocese of New Orleans during the 1940s and 50s and I was surprised by her admission that Advent was not observed by the churches there.
Mrs. Rice does an amazing job of bringing the stunning beauty of the Christmas decorations and Creches erected in the legion of Catholic churches and chapels in her area of the city, many weeks before Christmas:
"I recall spectacular Manger scenes with very simply gorgeous life-size statues, and one particular statue of the Infant Jesus that couldn't help but fill me with happiness when I saw it ... These Manger scenes were usually surrounded by Christmas greens and they smelled wonderful ... I remember the utter sweetness of the statues, the sublime scent of the greens, and the other glittering decorative elements, all of this uplifting my spirits and filling me with a pure happiness that I associated with the entire season
She tells about how these church scenes and music were duplicated all around town by the businesses and homes in the form of yard and window displays which everyone loved to go out and see in the evenings.
Mrs. Rice makes a very poignant point about this sacramental nature of the physical beauty of Christmas as it moves out of the church and into the community when she says she "sometimes wonder[s] whether for people of no religion, this might have been the only sacred space they knew. When people rail now against the 'commercial nature of Christmas,' I'm always conflicted ... those who would banish commercialism from the holiday fail to understand how precious and comforting the shop displays and music can be."
She goes on to note that when she was an older child the parishes began observing the Advent season and in making the change, moved the time of decorating for Christmas to the end of Advent. And basically her observation is that "in America 'nothing is more over than Christmas,' this meant that the cribs didn't command anybody's attention for very long. The radiant Christ Child came and went in a matter of a few days." These days, while we do have a few Christmas carols and in some places an outdoor Creche, there is not a whole lot to point to the true nature of the feast. Nevertheless it's interesting to wonder about how each beautiful song or display or sculpture might be delighting or bringing peace to the secular culture.
I'm not suggesting that we should revert to observing Christmas during Advent. But if the physical aspects of Christmastide have the power to nurture conversion then how important it must be that we bring the fullness of Christmas and all of its sacramental power to the Catholic, Christian and secular world during the season of December 24th to the Baptism of Our Lord!
The lovely and talented Danielle Bean is having a Twelve Days of Christmas lapbook give-away today. Go over and seek another chance to win this lovely project!
Angela and Sara are the winners of the Twelve Days of Christmas Faith Folder. I hope everyone had fun and I thank all who participated. I especially thank Lindy at Lapbooks for Catholics for her generosity.
Angela and Sara, do send us pictures of the completed projects! We'd love to see them.
Happy Christmastide!
I hope everyone had a beautiful, holy and blessed Christmas Day! We certainly did here and I thank you all for your prayers and good wishes.
I have exciting news! Lindy from Lapbooks for Catholics has just finished her beautiful Twelve Days of Faith Folder andd she has donated two for me to give-away! Click over to see the folder I have seen it up close and it is truly wonderful! You will really appreciate having this resource in the next twelve days.
While you are at Lindy's site I encourage you to remember the dark days of February that will soon be upon us and see if there is something there you cause to brighten up your lessons or use for an upcoming school project. It never hurts to have something in reserve for those cabin fever days.
So drop a comment in the box of this post and if you mention this give-away on your blog I will enter you twice. The drawing will close at noon on Saturday and I'll announce the winner shortly after that. That way Lindy can email you the download and you can begin right away.
Have a blessed day!
Hail and blessed be the hour and moment in which the Son of God was
born of the most pure Virgin Mary, at midnight, in Bethlehem, in
piercing cold. In that hour vouchsafe, O my God! to hear my prayer and
grant my desires, through the merits of Our Saviour Jesus Christ, and
of His blessed Mother. Amen.
Christmas memories are, for me, the thread that weaves my life together. So many major events are connected with this time of year. Some are joyous, some incredibly sad, many are life-changing. This year, Christmas Eve marks the sixteenth birthday of one of those “life-changing” events- the birth of our son, Benjamin John. When people hear that Ben shares his birthday with the Lord, (as my husband says) they feel a certain pity for him. “You must get gypped on gifts, don’t you?” is usually the remark most heard. At the time of his birth my OB offered to induce labor, since I was already past my due date. I politely told him that we would allow our baby to choose his own birthday, thank you. He smugly said “Well, you’ll probably be spending Christmas in the hospital.”
Sure enough, on the evening of December 23 labor began while I finished the last of the dinner dishes. I was giddy as I told my husband and our two- and four-year old daughters that Santa would be bringing them their new sibling for Christmas. We quickly dashed the girls off to bed and tried our best to finish the last of our preparations. It was the end of a long month for us. My father-in-law was suffering with the end stages of cancer. He was home and still well enough to call me almost every day to check in. He wanted to be sure we had a plan to get me to the hospital. Dan worked in Manhattan and this particular year, December was the month of the nor’easter. We seemed to get a quirky storm at least once or twice a week. What a relief that we could call Grandpa and let him know all would be well with getting me to the hospital!
Labor progressed slowly throughout much of it, and as is usual for me, once I transitioned, the birth took place almost immediately. It was the morning of Christmas Eve, 1992, and I got to experience Christmas in a very unique way that year. Cradling my newborn baby boy, much the same way Mary must have cradled the Baby Jesus. The hospital was actually rather quiet since most women due around this time probably opted for the induction a week ago! In the afternoon, Dan dressed my two girls in their matching flannel Christmas dresses and brought them for sibling visiting hour. It was a special time for the five of us. I watched as Dan left with the girls, knowing I would not be seeing any of them until the following night. I wanted them to have Christmas with extended family, as we had planned.
I teared up as Katie looked back over her shoulder at me and it dawned on her that I would not be home for Christmas with them. We hugged one more time and I assured her that I would be fine and she would have fun with the aunts and uncles who would be visiting and anxious to hear about her new brother.
Soon after they left, Benjamin was wheeled in for his nursing. As I held him close, Christmas carols played from the television and any sadness I felt about “missing” Christmas melted away. I was holding Christmas in my arms. This little bundle, so helpless and beautiful was perhaps the best gift I have ever, or will ever, receive for Christmas. I entered into the mystery of the incarnation in a way I had never done before. For a moment, I was at peace, I held Love Himself in my arms. I imagined all the emotions the Blessed Mother must have felt and I shared many of them myself. For all at once, I was joyful for this new life and all its potential; I was beginning the grieving for Dan’s Dad who we knew had mere weeks left with us; I was apprehensive as to what the future would hold for this son of mine; and mostly, I was grateful that our good God had once again entrusted me with another little soul to join his family. And the carols played on and I sang along…
…I love Thee Lord Jesus, look down from the sky,
And stay by my cradle till morning is nigh.
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