Realizing that I may be scorned and reviled, I am going to say it.
I am disturbed by the "Happy Birthday, Jesus" craze. Well meaning Christian parents bake cakes, put on party hats, take little kids to the the big Nativity display at Church so they can sing "Happy Birthday" to Jesus (I've even heard tell of Churches singing the "Birthday" song during Christmas services, shiver).
We get so wrapped up in sentimentality that we feel the need to make everything "sweet". Treacle. Well intentioned parents present Jesus as the buddy-friend-pal, God as His doting kindly Father and the Holy Spirit as a fluffy bird. Angels? Angels are what grandparents and puppies turn into when they die. Parents wring their hands trying to decide when to tell kids about hell or the devil, and end up simply letting that slide.
Teaching RE (aka "Sunday School" for my non-Catholic friends) for years, I see the result of this marketing plan. Teenagers who think Satan is a myth, that do not know hell is real, that think the only sins are murder and smoking, that as long as we are a "good person" we go to heaven (where we get to become an Angel!)
"The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom". Scripture states this not once but twice (Psalm 111:10 and Proverbs 9:10). Fear of the Lord is one of the gifts of the Holy Spirit. We have lost our sense of reverence, our children, our adults, do not have a healthy fear of God.
This holy fear, this reverence, begins with realizing that God is all powerful and all knowing. That God, who spoke the universe into existence, became man and was born of the Virgin Mary. Christmas is not a birthday party with cupcakes, Christmas is when all of time knelt in adoration and reverence and fear before a manger in Bethlehem. The Eternal God, the Word made flesh, was born to a virgin. This should strike us speechless. Kings and Angels (who are created beings, not Aunt Sally come back with wings, but, I'll save that for another post), they bowed down and sang - not a ditty from the early part of the 20th century - but "Glory to God in the highest and peace to His people on earth".
Children learn so much from things we do not even consider. Songs are one of the best ways to teach kids. We cannot teach reverence and awe for our Creator while teaching them that Jesus gets the same song as your stinky cousin. Jesus is different, He is someone we adore and worship. We sing songs for Him that we do not, that we cannot, sing for any other person.
Your kids are adorable, if you want them to sing a song to baby Jesus, teach them "O Come All Ye Faithful". Save "Happy Birthday" for Aunt Sally, before she dies and becomes an angel...
Friday, December 27, 2013
Monday, December 23, 2013
Happy Birthday, Katie and Lauren
When I was a kid, I thought that the song "The Twelve Days of Christmas" was about the run up to Christmas Day and it was wicked cool that my birthday was the first of those famous 12 days. That was before I realized that Christmas is a season and not a day.
Those of us with near-Christmas birthdays tend to have a bit of a complex. Our birthdays are frankly inconvenient. Everyone is busy with pre-holiday frenzy, to find time to celebrate a birthday in the middle of it is just a nuisance. We get birthday gifts wrapped in Christmas paper, the famous "we'll get you one bigger gift for both Christmas AND birthday" line, we have low attendance at birthday parties (memories of my 14th are as fresh today as they were that day when exactly ONE person came to my party). The very WORST is a birthday cake decorated with poinsettias and Christmas trees.
Because of all this (which would likely be better with therapy, but, who has time for THAT in December?) when my nieces were born on December 23, I had a "tiny sad" that they would face a lifetime of not-so-special birthdays.
This blog post is not about Christmas. It is about two beautiful young ladies. They are shining examples of Christian virtue in a world that becomes darker by the year. I love you both, I am proud to be your Auntie.
Katie Rose and Lauren Grace, Happy Birthday.
Those of us with near-Christmas birthdays tend to have a bit of a complex. Our birthdays are frankly inconvenient. Everyone is busy with pre-holiday frenzy, to find time to celebrate a birthday in the middle of it is just a nuisance. We get birthday gifts wrapped in Christmas paper, the famous "we'll get you one bigger gift for both Christmas AND birthday" line, we have low attendance at birthday parties (memories of my 14th are as fresh today as they were that day when exactly ONE person came to my party). The very WORST is a birthday cake decorated with poinsettias and Christmas trees.
Because of all this (which would likely be better with therapy, but, who has time for THAT in December?) when my nieces were born on December 23, I had a "tiny sad" that they would face a lifetime of not-so-special birthdays.
This blog post is not about Christmas. It is about two beautiful young ladies. They are shining examples of Christian virtue in a world that becomes darker by the year. I love you both, I am proud to be your Auntie.
Katie Rose and Lauren Grace, Happy Birthday.
Saturday, December 21, 2013
4th Sunday of Advent
Christmas sneaks up on me every year. Working for a Church intensifies this ambush because bulletin printer deadlines begin hitting before Thanksgiving, so, I am always working three weeks ahead. It completely boggles my sense of where I am in time.
Aside on "where I am in time" - ever since I can remember, I have visualized time as a circle. Calendar months are laid out in this circle with January at 1 o'clockish and we move clockwise with December at high noon. The days and weeks are in the same position as a calendar page, neat little grids.
Therefore, I see myself physically located at a spot on that wheel, but, the nature of the bulletin lady cycle has me working ahead in that circle. Sometimes it is so confusing, if not for my wonderful co-workers and volunteers who proofread (in particular this week, Shelly for pulling my fat out of the fire and realizing BEFORE I sent it to the publisher that I'd put the weekly parish activities calendar for the week of Epiphany in the bulletin for the week of the Feast of the Holy Family - and she was the 3rd person to proof that particular bulletin!) our bulletin would be more comedy and less informative.
Had begun crocheting and knitting gifts early this year, only to end up at the last minute filling the Priority Mail boxes - - - realizing in cold panic that I'd forgotten to make anything for my 5 year old great nephew, Carter. Thanks to my friend Karen S. who back in September shared a pattern she found http://crochetvolution.com/archives/spring-2012-archives/duck-pond-playset ... I was able to whip up a racecar track/pouch in an hour or so...(admittedly, the gauge was all wonky and the thing will likely never lie flat, but, he is 5 and we'll just say they are "mountains").
So, here I sit, on the 4th row of the calendar that is at the top of the wheel, I see Christmas only 3 days off and I am woefully unprepared, materially and spiritually. I've vowed to stay OFF Facebook until after the holidays (have broken that vow a few times already), need to plan a meal and to finish the crochet project that I began for Jude last year.
Christ talked about folks who were busy with their lives and were unprepared for the coming of the Lord. I've 3 days to do what the Church gave us 4 weeks for, prepare the way! Better snap to it.
Aside on "where I am in time" - ever since I can remember, I have visualized time as a circle. Calendar months are laid out in this circle with January at 1 o'clockish and we move clockwise with December at high noon. The days and weeks are in the same position as a calendar page, neat little grids.
Therefore, I see myself physically located at a spot on that wheel, but, the nature of the bulletin lady cycle has me working ahead in that circle. Sometimes it is so confusing, if not for my wonderful co-workers and volunteers who proofread (in particular this week, Shelly for pulling my fat out of the fire and realizing BEFORE I sent it to the publisher that I'd put the weekly parish activities calendar for the week of Epiphany in the bulletin for the week of the Feast of the Holy Family - and she was the 3rd person to proof that particular bulletin!) our bulletin would be more comedy and less informative.
Had begun crocheting and knitting gifts early this year, only to end up at the last minute filling the Priority Mail boxes - - - realizing in cold panic that I'd forgotten to make anything for my 5 year old great nephew, Carter. Thanks to my friend Karen S. who back in September shared a pattern she found http://crochetvolution.com/archives/spring-2012-archives/duck-pond-playset ... I was able to whip up a racecar track/pouch in an hour or so...(admittedly, the gauge was all wonky and the thing will likely never lie flat, but, he is 5 and we'll just say they are "mountains").
So, here I sit, on the 4th row of the calendar that is at the top of the wheel, I see Christmas only 3 days off and I am woefully unprepared, materially and spiritually. I've vowed to stay OFF Facebook until after the holidays (have broken that vow a few times already), need to plan a meal and to finish the crochet project that I began for Jude last year.
Christ talked about folks who were busy with their lives and were unprepared for the coming of the Lord. I've 3 days to do what the Church gave us 4 weeks for, prepare the way! Better snap to it.
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