Epiphany Season Epiphany

I feel sad that the Christmas season is almost over.  It's a sense of letting go. The perennial question is, "How do I keep the sense of joy, connection and wonderment going through the year?" (Although it's very good the feasting has come to an end!)

When I dig a little deeper into that sadness, that reluctance, I think of a few things I love about our celebration of Christmas this year:

• I love the way the house looks decorated for Christmas
• I like the sense of celebration
• I enjoy my own renewed dedication to the sacraments and my faith practices
• I enjoy the break from so much running around to appointments and "kid stuff"
• I treasure hearing from people with whom I am rarely in touch
• I relish (tee-hee) preparing special meals (and feasts!)
• I love the candles and theme of "light in the darkness" 
• I focus more on altruism

The question then becomes, how can I create this at other times?  Thinking aloud, here is my short list of ideas:

• Do something decorative in the house each month.  For example, this month I'm going to put some plants on the shelf behind where the Christmas tree now stands.
• Have dinner in the dining room with the china every weekend
• Continue attending daily mass and my morning practices which include meditation, scripture reading and journaling.  (I have actually already spent time with the calendar and three different parish bulletins to make this a reality.  I'm so blessed to live where I have 5 parishes within 15 miles of me!)
• Consider what "running around" I can let go of; re-institute weekly "no driving" days.
• Weekly, write a note (or last resort, an email) to someone who matters to me.
• Keep the candles around and light them. Light the fireplace. Gather the family.  Enjoy! Savor!
• Do a better job of keeping the holy water full. The kids love it!
• Like at Christmas, making a family effort, at least monthly to give a gift of time, talent or treasure to someone in need.  Right now, in fact, I know a family who could use some meals.

My task now -- right now, in fact -- is to calendar these items so that they actually occur.  Even if I need to reschedule them, they will remain in mind.  

It can't be Christmas every day but I can keep the spirit alive in our home and in me. I want the feast days to stand out -- to be a contrast to every day life -- but they don't have to be as much of a contrast as they have been.  I remember as a child, things of faith -- primarily sitting in church -- seemed like work to me. I want to bring more of the joy of our faith into our home; I want the kids to have the "fun" of it, so to speak.  

If you have any ideas on keeping the spirit of Christmas alive in your home, please share!

Beloved, we are God's children now;
what we shall be has not yet been revealed.  (1 John 3:2)

I find such hope in this passage from today's readings; I'm grateful there is more and that I am still evolving into the follower I want to be.  I'm grateful this isn't "the best" I have to offer.  There is still hope for me!

People are often surprised when I tell them that hopefulness is part of what attracted me to Catholicism.  There is so much hope in the sacrifice of the mass;  each time I say the words, “Lord, I am not worthy that you should enter under my roof, but only say the word, and my soul shall be healed,” I become that Centurian from the New Testament;  I know I am not worthy and yet I have great hope.  Jesus entering "under my roof" is the very embodiment of hope. I want that hope every day. 

Some time ago, there was shirt for kids that read, "Be patient with me, God is not finished with me yet!"  The same could certainly be said for me.  As I prepare for the feast of Epiphany, I am thinking about how God is being made manifest in my life.  What will my gift be to the newborn king in this new year? 

Happy 10th day of Christmas!

Conversion - Part Two

It's Christmas Eve.  For the last many years, I have gone to midnight mass.  Not last year, not this, but perhaps by next year, I can resume the practice.  I love being in church the moment it truly becomes Christmas; it makes little sense to be elsewhere!

At First Church, we had a lovely Christmas Eve service every year ending at midnight.  Just as the tower bells tolled midnight (yes, even Methodists can have real bells!), the congregation would complete lighting our candles while singing the many, many verses of Silent Night.  We passed the light throughout the congregation as Catholics do at Easter Vigil; it was lovely and moving indeed.  Then, singing these beloved verses, we would spill into the streets of downtown Houston, eventually filling Clay Street in front of the building.  As we sang, many cars drove by on their way to or from the bars and parties taking place downtown.  I always thought of the "angel on the shoulder" of those who witnessed the hundreds of us standing there with our candles and thought, for a moment, of the true meaning of Christmas.

At some point, a couple of years into my membership there, I became drawn to a public chapel in the Galleria area of Houston.  I worked nearby at the time and at lunch, I used to visit the chapel for a moment of quiet reflection.  It is an ecumenical chapel, built in a lovely outdoor space, but to get there, I passed by a large Catholic church.  I often noted the office workers filing in or out of the building for daily mass and longed for such an expression of my faith.  One day as I was leaving my little chapel in the woods, I noticed on the church sign the times for Midnight Mass.  I casually mentioned this to a friend of mine in the Singles at First Church, and he confessed that for the past several years, he had been attending midnight Mass at that very worship space instead of our own Methodist congregation.  Hmmm.

That Christmas, I ditched the Christmas Eve service at First Church and headed for Mass.  I was very nervous.  It was my first time in a Catholic church since I had been in Junior High; I had never been there alone.  I knew I could not receive the Eucharist but I simply wanted to be there.  I watched those sitting near me for when to kneel and when to stand, I sang with the hymns.  I was surprised there was no passing of the candle flame; it would be a few years before I learned that is a part of Easter Vigil.

I was changed as I walked out that night.  I would never have dreamed that I would one day be Catholic but I felt a kinship to the Catholic church that would remain with me always.

Tonight as I prepare my children for the Christmas Eve vigil, I will be mindful that the true magic of Christmas is not Santa Clause, but the birth of the baby born in a lowly manger.  I can't wait to show my little ones the creche and to hear their wonder as we enter a building transformed from the starkness of advent to the brightness Christmas.

I hope the wonder of Christmas is alive in your hearts tonight.

 

Part One of my story
Part Three of my story
Part Four of my story
Part Five of my story