HOW IS MARRIAGE LIKE CHRISTMAS?

I was out walking Sebastian this morning and a jogger stopped to say thanks to the Church for keeping Christmas alive throughout the Christmas seasons.  “I can’t believe how many trees I’ve already seen on the devil strip!”  

On the other hand, Sebastian was in need of a long walk last night after my duties were done and so we took a long night walk and I was very proud of my neighborhood as the number of lights and trees that we did see gave testimony that there are still some people out there who get it.

My jogging friend (who is always great for giving me things about which to mull over) said, “Christmas should be more like art.  The muse gives you inspiration and you contemplate the work, then you have the gift as the art is brought to life, and then you live in the presence.”

That is an apt expression of the Church’s liturgical life during this season.  Advent is the time to anticipate.  The Gift comes on Christmas day, and then we live in the presence of Christmas until the Baptism of the Lord when His public ministry begins.

As a society though, we eat most of the sugar first (trees, decorations, lights, good, parties,) have a duller moment of gift, and then are ready to go on a diet once the actual Christmas season begins.  

Does this not seem to mimic how society celebrates married life?  Traditionally it’s, “First comes love, then comes marriage, then comes the couple with the baby carriage.”  But very often today first comes the sugar: living together and practicing married life without being in the season of marriage.  Then there is the duller moment of gift - there will be no firsts.  Besides the exchange of vows, life will continue as it did the month before with possible exception of a change in name.  Than it’s back to life as usual.  

I think there is something to be said for delayed satisfaction.  (It's no guarantee mind you, but I believe the odds are in its favor.): The season of anticipation, hoping, dreaming, longing - terrible, terrible longing.  The gift then is so much sweater!  At last!  Relief!  Satisfaction!  Satiation!  And THEN we settle in for an extra long season of living in the presence.  Of gratefulness.   

MONDAY DIARY - OH CHRISTMAS MOUSE HOW LOVELY ARE YOUR WHISKERS

Let this story act as a lesson for you. Forewarned is forearmed.

This has been a busy week of interesting things. But there is one thing that sticks out. A friend of mine feeling poorly that he cannot come to my installation tonight stopped by on the weekend to help with projects around the parish. He is my Christmas Councilor. If you are heavily involved with your parish you know that Christmas begins in September. Masses are planned, the choir is already practicing its music, people want to know about decorations so the appropriate items might be ordered, so forth and so on.

Of course stores are already well into preparing for the holy day (or the season greeting day) and although they do not go all out in earnest until after Thanksgiving they have already had all the signs of the impending spending spree decorating their buildings and advertisements.

Through all of this the church scrupulously avoids any sign of celebrating Christmas. Why? Because it is not Christmas! It’s advent. Christmas begins on December 25th, not ends! Yet on December 27th (giving a day for people to make returns or buy a present they forgot) the store decorations are down and the music is changed and St. Valentine’s Day decorations are put out.

Now so your parish, not so! For we are finally singing “Joy to the World” and “Hark Harold the Angel Sings” and will continue to do so for the next few weeks. Our homilies will be Christmasy in nature. So between the secular world and the ecclesial world Christmas can be stretched out for MONTHS. This is why some people such as myself think that we should skip Christmas every other year.

Fortunately I have a Christmas councilor who talks me through it, making sure that I build the proper cheer of the season and carefully observe all of the Christmas brouhaha for which I am truly grateful. So this past weekend we he stopped by we went to the tree farm to get a Christmas tree for the rectory. We are not putting it up yet – it’s just here getting ready to go.

Mom always said that a tree needs to sit in the garage for a week before it is brought into the house. She never said why – just that. The why I learned this past weekend. When the man picked up the tree a mouse ran out of it. When he went to chop of the bottom for us, another mouse ran out of it. So I told him to shake it well which he did – and guess what. 3’s company.

Back at the rectory we opened the tailgate and found we had a new resident here at the parish. It’s so hard living so far away from your brothers and sisters. I hope he decided to head home for the holidays and by that I do not mean back in the tree.

Subsequently I am following my mother’s advice and the tree shall sit out for a week before we bring it in after which it will have to pass the Three Priests Vigorously Shaking It test in order to come inside. I’m sure there is a cute story about the mouse that got to spend Christmas in the rectory brewing here – but I prefer to keep that in the realm of fiction.

SYMBOLIC SATURDAY - A GOOD TIME OF YEAR NOT TO BE A FIR TREE

To tell the truth, I had intended to move on to something quite different in this series, but it did not seem appropriate for this time of year. So I thought I would share (at least one - there are more) origin of the Christmas tree borrowed heavily from the Catholic Source Book by the Rev. Peter Klein.

When I was in the seminary we used to try to re-create (somewhat) the Medieval mystery plays with varying success until some wayward turns had them banished for the past decade. (Please don’t ask.) If you know anything about these plays you might know that to represent the tree of good and evil in the Garden of Evil with apples hanging on it.

At some point much later in history the Germans brought back the tradition of the tree and modified the decorations by adding sacramental wafers along with the apples, “relating the eating that brought death with the eating that brings life.” I tried this one year on the tree in the rectory at my last assignment but too many people found the unconsecrated altar breads used in such a fashion scandalous so I never did it again. Of course I did lots of things one should never do in decorating a tree. I once used microwave buttered popcorn to string and decorate the tree. BIG mistake rancid butter is.

Anyway, the decorations evolved over time. Perhaps oranges were added to the apples, then colored balls, and perhaps the altar breads were replaced by breads in the shape of stars and angles and what not.

In Victorian times many trees took on the entire story of salvation history. There is one such tree that is (or at least was – I’ve not been there for a spell) put up in Cleveland at the Western Reserve Historical Society that had this theme, from the Guiding Star at the top to the devil being kicked off the tree at the bottom.