Sixth Day of Christmas

December 31
Whatever caused us to enter despair, the specific circumstances which gave us our ticket beyond the comfortable and known, something is certain – we feel helpless, and rightly so, in the face of such atrocity. How can we possibly go on? How can we ever see beauty in the world again? What we have seen has revealed to us just how tainted the world really is. We are right. We cannot stand alone in the face of such injustice. No one asks us to, except our own false ego. Here, at our realization of helplessness against the tide, is where we give up. We die. Rather, our false self dies and we are left with the person God created us to be. Sounds so simple, so “Oh, I’ve done that now, let’s move on.” It’s not. It’s painful and cyclical as we spiral ever upward and deepward on our journey. And every time it reminds us more fully how much we need the cross. The cross is our sixth gift of Christmas, for at its feet we place our failings and inadequacy and they are transubstantiated into gifts of community and hope. Merry Christmas!
Patrick

Fifth Day of Christmas

December 30
Despair comes when the mind can no longer martial into order and sense the absurd grotesqueness about it. When the mind does thus feel, as it is doomed to, for it was never designed to grasp the infinite, it is the heart that must come to our aid. While the mind’s gift is the ordering of chaos, collecting of knowledge and setting into expression and memory our experiences, it is the heart that embraces the infinite, enters the mystical. The heart needs no understanding; it sees what is beyond understanding and knowing. It accepts the mystery and enters into the experience and shows us more than we’ve ever imagined existed. Then the mind’s simple job is to somehow interact with the ungraspable and inexpressible and find expression for it. Herein lies our hope when despair swallows us down – the heart is the fifth gift of Christmas for it helps us explore the land of darkness and despair and find Jesus there, ministering to those abandoned and lost, including ourselves. Merry Christmas!
Patrick

Fourth Day of Christmas

Fourth Day of Christmas – December 29
At some point in our journey we each enter into the depths of despair because of humanity’s lack of humanity. We’ve only to briefly examine our history as a Church or a nation to see the hypocrisy. Or perhaps we find it closer to home. If we are to become fully human we have to enter into this despair. Not just see it intellectually, not merely acknowledge our inhumanity. We have to, at some point, experience it so personally that we intimately feel both its victim and perpetrator. We have to lose sight of hope. This is the fourth gift of Christmas – despair at humanity’s inhumanity to humanity. Merry Christmas!
Patrick

Third Day of Christmas

December 28
If everyone is due the same core dignity I am, why don’t others treat them with dignity? Why don’t they treat themselves with dignity? Why don’t I? Do I even treat myself with the dignity I deserve as a unique expression of God? No. Jesus and Mary are the only people who treated themselves and every person they met with the dignity they deserved. This is how we are to act if we wish to live up to our humanity. This is the third gift of Christmas, Jesus and Mary have shown us how to do what we didn’t realize we needed to do, let alone believed possible, to become fully human – the golden rule. Do unto others, as you would have them do unto you. Merry Christmas!
Patrick

Second Day of Christmas

December 27
The reality that I am a unique expression of God means I have an irremovable holiness – dignity. I am irreplaceable and because of this I deserve to be treated in certain ways. So does everyone else. It is not easy to realize the depth of my value, but when I do there is an incredible “A-ha!” Now I have to expand my view to see that every person I meet has the same depth of value for the exact same reason I do – their uniqueness as an expression of God. God’s ironic grin is impressive – our uniqueness binds us together as possessing the same core dignity. This is the second gift of Christmas; everyone’s uniqueness makes them just as valuable as I am. So much for my big head. Merry Christmas!
Patrick

First Day of Christmas

December 26
Did God really need to enter the world? Clearly not. Omnipotence leaves all options open. So why take the hardest road to redemption? Why not the scrap heap for humanity followed by the drawing board? A second edition would seem the way to go. But it wasn’t. Each of us is a unique expression of God – not expressed again ever or anywhere. Each of us contains a piece of God unique and irreplaceable. Each of us has the capacity through grace to choose to live out our unique divinity just as Jesus did. God chose to enter the world as one of us to show us our true potential, no matter the cost. Our divinely human potential is the first gift of Christmas. Merry Christmas!
Patrick

Merry ChristmasTide

Christmas Day – December 25

Today begins the Christmas Tide. Tomorrow is the first of the Twelve Days of Christmas. You might think it was today. Not so I say. Today is Christmas – all twelve days in one go. Beginning tomorrow, we get to unwrap them, savor them, and be challenged by them. The gift of this series is exactly that, we get to celebrate the whole season of Christmas, which goes through Epiphany on January 6. There is one letter per day for you to read aloud together some sacred time each morning of Christmas. On these I must insist: together, aloud, in the morning. My prayer for us is that we may enter into a deeper, broader experience and understanding of Christmas. But that all begins tomorrow. Today is Christmas, a day of wondrous enchantment and gift. Experience and enjoy! Merry Christmas!

Note: I wrote this series on the ChristmasTide for the deacon candidate couples who were in formation when I became disabled and could no longer be part of their formation team. Enjoy.

Love and Blessings for a very Merry ChristmasTide!
Patrick

How do You Celebrate Christ's Mass?

What? Christmas lasts more than one day? You mean there really are 12 days of Christmas? All the way through Epiphany? Wow! It sure is grand to be Catholic! Grin.

Our family, and many of those we know, struggle with how to live Advent as real preparation for Christmas, and Christmas as a time of celebration and feasting for 12 whole days. The purpose of this post is to share ideas about how to celebrate Christmas -- the full season long.

I like to use the creative process (I'll cover that in more detail in a future post) to help with strategic visioning. It's how I figure out what I want for lunch and how to orchestrate social and theological revolutions (surprisingly, I'm not kidding). Grin. Anyway, we start by naming what we want to create:

Christmas Tide Vision
A Christmas Tide celebration feast with family and friends which starts sundown Christmas Eve and goes solid tilt through Epiphany.

Of course there are a few things which we have to be aware of because our culture make realizing that grand vision a real challenge:

Current Reality as it Relates to Christmas Tide

• The commercialization of Christmas, which now begins just after St. Valentines Day. Sardonic grin.
• People seem to think Christmas begins December 1st. When is the season of Christmas parties? Nearly all are in Advent, before the feast has begun. When do the Christmas treats arrive in the workplace? Yup. Same schedule. Actually bring in Christmas treats during Christmastide and be accused of bringing in your leftovers (before I was disabled, I tried this, so I know!). And lots of folks have somehow come to believe the 12 days of Christmas refer to the 12 days leading up the Christmas rather than the 12 days after Christmas. We've had a struggle trying to convert our daughter's 12 chained countdown made as a school craft to being used during Christmas rather than before.
• Want to cut a Christmas tree in the National Forest Christmas Eve? Nope. Illegal. Have to do it by the second weekend in December.
• Christmas ends for most people at midnight, December 25. New Years is a separate and almost entirely secular celebration without any attempt to link it with the Christmas season.

But this is not supposed to be a gripe and groan session (hard to tell, aye?). Sometimes, howver, that's what current reality as it relates to our vision is. Now the questions becomes, how are we going to make this Christmas Tide 2-week Celebration happen?! Here's how we celebrate, starting with Advent. Much of what we do comes from a variety of German and Scottish family traditions as well as the marvilous book "To Dance with God" by Gertrud Nelson).

Advent

Christmas Eve
Breakfast: German: fresh baked pretzels and meat and cheese pretzle roll.
Decorate for Christmas: we do this as a family (because of my disability we don't have enough hands otherwise) -- Adding bows to greenery, Christmas decorations throughout the house, ornimants onto the tree.

Christmas Eve Dinner: Brats, red cabbage, potatoe salad and other German fare.
Kris Kringle brings the presents durring story time away from the Christmas room (family room), which is left dark.

La Posada: Krist Kindle bell calls us to gather for the La Posada. One of the lassies is Mary, and she is given baby Jesus to carry in her "belly" (looks recarkably like a pocket, while she, Joseph, the donkey, and the angel go seeking a place to spend the night. After the inn keeper of the first two stops refuses them, the third offers them the manger. The Christmas tree lights go up and we sing "Joy to the World" as Mary puts baby Jesus in the manger and Mary and Joseph arrive at the stable (reverse this).

Carols, Presents, Christmas Mass: More Christmas carols are sung. Then we break out the Christmas cookies. Then we open one or two presents each and its play time for the lassies to enjoy their new gifts. Barbara and the lassies go to afternoon, evening, or Christmas morning Mass, depending on what works best that year (I can't go because of my brain injury).

Christmas Day
After getting up: sing more Christmas carols (we do this each day before opening the presents for that day). Stockings were filled by Krist Kindle yesterday and are pilfered through now.
Scottish breakfast: porrage with cream, honey, and Scotch, black pudding, sausage, bacon, eggs, grapefruit etc... The rest of the day is a family day, with a walk, games, stories, etc... With a simple dinner so we don't have to cook that evening (feast foods happen throughout the season, but this frees Christmas day of the burden of extensive food prep.

Each Day of Christmas
Early morning: sing carols (and move the wise men, who began their journey Christmas Eve -- they arrive on Epiphany) and open a present (sometimes we all get one, sometimes it is a family present). This helps the feast last, helps each gift be more fully appreciated, and helps the focus of Christmas be Jesus, love, and relationship.

Feast foods, time off from work (as much as possible), gathering with family and friends (we try to not do this much during Advent)

In addition we add some thing on specific days:

New Years Eve - Holy Family - Family Reconciliation Service (I post more about this later), and typical New Years Eve things (we celebrate New Years on Scottish time so it's not a late night for lassies or brain injured.)

Epiphany: Wise men arrive to "We Three Kings" via procession through the house, Special presents saved for last day of Christmas Tide (sometimes related to travel), home blessing with "20 C+M+B 07" written over the inside of our main door (for Casper, Melkiar, and Baltazhar).

After Epipahny: clean up. Sing O Tannembaum, dance around the tree one last time, take everthing down in cleaning up for entering into ordinary time.

How do you join in the celebration of Christmas Tide? Use "comments" to share your traditions!

Merry Christ's Mass!
Patrick

Advent: How do you prepare for Christmas?

Advent is an odd season. We want it to be a time of quiet reflection, but I think at its best it is a hurried season of upheaval preparations. We are, after all, pregnant with Jesus, who when born among us, is miraculously both human and divine -- exactly what we were intended to be when God created us. Oh, how short of our potential we fall! I think we sense this, and know that Jesus' birth will help transform us more fully into who God created us to be -- which will rock and upheave our world.

If you've been an expectant mother or father, remember all that time you had for quiet reflection? Me neither! Any father or mother to be can tell you pregnancy is hardly a time of quiet reflection. If you've been blessed to go through it, you know. There are all sorts of core questions. Will I be a good mother (or father)? How can we possibly care for a baby? Can I really be that responsible? And of course these questions are going on while we daftly rush about trying to make things ready last minute because nine months is such a long time we didn't think to get started sooner. Grin.

Amidst the chaos lies the wonder. We long for a chance to sit down, but we know we won't get it for years to come, once the infant is born. We certainly can't sit down now, there's already too much to be done to get ready!

Advent is wonderful for us as Catholic families. It helps us experience the sacred holiness hidden in the hurry and rush of everyday life: caring for each other through the labors and preparations of meals, work, home and car maintenance, discipline, fun and games, laughter and tears, finances, dog training, soccer and ballet schedules... God reveals himself to us through the chaos of it all. Advent is a season to remember to see God in the activity of preparing -- and in family life we are always preparing!

Here is a brief version of what we do during Advent:

Decoration
We put up greenery without bows (they arrive Christmas Eve).

Baking and food prep
Cookie baking happens throughout but we wait to eat them until Christmas. We've been known to make a plum pudding too.

St. Nicholas Day, December 6
We put our boots out the night before and find a few tasty treats (turned green by stinky feet) and chocolate gold coins, and a breakfast fruit.

Christmas Tree Cutting
We cut our Christmas tree the second week of December, put it up singing "Oh Tannenbaum!". The tree receives lights, which we turn on in anticipation of Christ's light being born anew in our lives, but it waits for ornaments until Christmas Eve.

Creche
Our creche is put out to tell the story of what happened before Christmas. We put it so the lassies can play with it throughout Advent -- this leads to some amazing roll playing. One daughter is baby Jesus, the other Mary, which gives us an opportunity to talk about how baby Jesus really is in us and in the wise choices we make. The animals are in the stable, the manger (which is a food trough) is there empty. Mary and Joseph are placed away from the manger, traveling toward Bethlehem from a different room. Baby Jesus and the wise men are nowhere to be found.

Making the Manger soft for Baby Jesus
When we "catch" our daughters making wise choices, they get to add a piece of hay to the manger, helping make it soft for baby Jesus to arrive.

St. Lucy's Day, Dec. 13th
We have a candle light procession round the kitchen to a breakfast table of sticky buns.

Advent Calendars and Candles
The lassies each count down the 25 days to Christmas with German Chocolate Advent Calendars. We burn Advent candles, with the person lighting them saying "Come, Lord Jesus!" and everyone else responding "Come quickly!". One set of godparents sends crafts and chocolate for each week of Advent, along with an age appropriate scripture reflection.

Song and Stories
Our Advent song is "Come oh come Emmanuel," which we sing before our home religious education each Sunday as well as at many meal times. We read J.R.R. Tolkien's "Letters from Father Christmas" (and they get a letter from Fr. Christmas on Christmas morning). Jan Brett has several delightful books about Christmas that are grand Scandinavian fun.

How do you celebrate Advent? Add a comment and share what rituals and traditions you cherish, or with you did?

Want to also share your Christmas traditions?

Come, Lord Jesus!
(All) Come Quickly!

Patrick

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All Is Gift

Disability and strife
along with
Capability and delight.

Some wrapped gloriously,
easily opened.
Some wait in the shadows
until I am ready.

Some wrapped in armor,
laborious to shed.
Some down right ugly to behold,
painful to touch,
impossible to open
unless placed
on the altar,
opened as they are
transformed
at the foot of the cross.
Amen.

--Patrick A. Jones

Through 4 years of diaconal formation we experienced one common thread in all we did. All is gift. Family life is chalk full of gifts, from the awe inspiring wonder of new life to the everyday wonder of dirty dishes and hectic schedules, to the devastation of unwanted grace in face tragedy and death -- there seems no more appropriate common thread for weCatholic's explorations than All Is Gift.

I wrote this 10 months after becoming disabled with traumatic brain injury. This past March, our third daughter (5th pregnancy) died minutes after being born. I have no idea how there is gift in such devastating loss. I do not understand. I struggle with questions without answers. And yet how much more precious is the time I get to spend with our two daughters -- playing in the snow, or a game by the fire, or answering questions about baby Jesus as they add straw to the awaiting manger. The touch and love my wife and I share though is often seems as if we are two beloved ships passing in the day and night. All is gift. Somehow.

I pray for God's blessing on all who come to this site. Give us wisdom to be passionate Lovers, wise and loving parents and help us know and love our faith that we may become more fully who you've created us to be. Amen.

Love and Blessings,
Patrick