card by Olivier Heitz

Tis the season we all come together around a beautifully lit tree to pray before a nativity scene. Some of us even have a family Advent wreath, sing Christmas carols and more. But it is our unique family traditions that truly imprint the magic and beauty of the sesaon on our hearts. Our instructors share some of their treasures: live nativities, ornament exchanges, old fashiioned pictures, Jesus'stocking, Christmas book a day, and more. All of these make their Christmas season a time apart from time, a moment that will remain with them forever. They invite you to start your own traditions too!

Every night at the ending of bedtime prayers with my 9 year old son, we pray the Eternal Rest for the faithful departed, especially our loved ones and I encourage him always to pray for the most forgotten Holy Souls in Purgatory because in return their prayers for us are very powerful and beautiful because they have the sure and certain hope that they will enjoy the Beatific Vision and earnestly desire us to follow them to that same Glory. 

Ordinary Time. It’s a deceptively boring label for the liturgical season we now find ourselves in. It’s not “special” like Advent, Christmas, Lent or Easter. There are no special, beloved Ordinary Time songs or decorations. No unique Ordinary Time traditions. It’s just ordinary, plain. It’s just like most of my life and yours. We “live and move and have our being” in the ordinary time of our lives, punctuated by special events like birthdays, marriages & anniversaries, job changes, and moving.

I believe the beatitudes are a model or pattern for spiritual maturity with one building on another and ultimately looping back again in a continual path toward spiritual perfection. Rather than looking at them separately as if describing different types of people in the Kingdom of God, they lay down a blueprint for how to become a disciple. This seems to make sense within the greater context of the Sermon on the Mount found in Matthew 5-7.

“Silent Night” has never been one of my favorite Christmas carols, but this year I think I’ve changed my tune. I’ve been meditating on silence this Advent, ever since I started reading “The Power of Silence” by Robert Cardinal Sarah.

After first vespers of the fifth Sunday of Lent we enter the beautiful but solemn season of Passiontide.