A Note From Fr. Jeremy
CHRISTMAS IS COMING
Brothers and Sisters,
Here’s our Christmas schedule:
· 4pm Saint Peter
· 4pm Saint Michael
· 8 pm Saint Paul
· 12 am Saint Joseph (extraordinary form)
· 7:30 am Saint Joseph
· 9 am Saint Paul
· 10:30 am Saint Peter
· 11 am Saint Joseph (Spanish)
We will look forward to seeing and praying with you.
I certainly understand why most people think of the Christmas “season” as the weeks following Thanksgiving and – maybe – the days after Christmas Day until New Year’s Day. After all, we spend so much of our time in December working to get Christmas running – even going to a number of Christmas parties prior to Christmas Day itself. It’s understandable, I get it, and it does not upset me.
I did want to just remind everyone of the point of the Christmas Season (or any season) starting on the day itself. For example, the first day of Summer is always somewhere in the 20-22 June range. That’s when Summer starts and – similarly to Christmas – we think of “Summer” having already been going for a while. However, I do not know anyone who thinks of late June or anytime in July as the Autumn (since the first day of Summer was so long prior). Rather, even at the end of June Summer is only just getting started, even if we think of Summer having begun way back on Memorial Day weekend.
Back to Christmas: the day itself begins the season, it marks a new beginning. Similarly to the Earth’s weather changing with the turning of the seasons, so also we remind ourselves of our own need to change with each new liturgical (or “Church”) season. Even popular culture used to understand this. I remember watching “How the Grinch Stole Christmas” when I was young (the animated version from the 1960s famously narrated by Boris Karloff). It struck me that the dialogue of the movie kept insisting up until Christmas Day itself that “Christmas is coming.”
God be near,
Father Jeremy, pastor