“It’s not easy to have a great Christmas in a world where everyone is striving for what isn’t worth having.
Welcome back to 28 obstacles that will prevent you from having your Best Christmas Ever. Click subscribe to ensure you don’t miss out on any of this series.
Obstacle #2 is… Lack of purpose.
If you are unclear about the purpose of Christmas it will be impossible to have your best ever. So, take some time over the next couple of weeks to get clear about the purpose of Christmas. This series should help you get very clear.
Find your joy. Guard your joy. Follow your joy. Not just happiness. It seems our culture has confused happiness with comfort, and following comfort will lead you to misery. Find your joy. Cherish your joy. Guard your joy. And follow your joy.
Today’s gift… Off Balance. Who should you give it to this Christmas? Anyone who seems overwhelms or exhausted and anyone trying to redesign their lives. Most people can’t remember what they got for Christmas two years ago. This Christmas give life-changing unforgettable gifts.”
Don’t Sabotage Your Christmas
Don’t Let FOMO Ruin Your Christmas! – Matthew Kelly
28 Obstacles to Having Your Best Christmas Ever
“It’s harder than you might think to have a great Christmas, and it’s much easy to ruin your Christmas.
28 ways to make this your best Christmas ever will be the topic this Advent beginning November 27. Between now and then, we are discussing 28 obstacles that will prevent you from having your best Christmas ever and 28 gifts and who to give them to.
There are of course plenty of very obvious ways to ruin Christmas for yourself and everyone around you. Examples include…
Insist on talking about politics.
Tell your relatives what you really think about them as if it were objective fact.
Re-wrap a gift someone gave you last year and regift it to the same person who gave it to you.
Try to control everything and everyone.
Tell every kid you meet that Santa isn’t real and that their parents are lying to them.
There are the obvious ways… but we are going to explore the more subtle ways we sabotage our own Christmas experience and rob others of Christmas joy.
Obstacle #1 is… FOMO. Fear of missing out.
This is one of the greatest pieces of modern insanity. FOMO. The reality is you miss out on almost everything. The important thing is not to miss out on the things God created and intended just for you.
Focus on what matters most and don’t worry about what you may or may not miss out on. If you focus on what matters most, what you miss out on is irrelevant. So get clear about what matters most.
Find your joy. Guard your joy. Follow your joy. Not just happiness. It seems our culture has confused happiness with comfort, and following comfort will lead you to misery. Find your joy. Cherish your joy. Guard your joy. And follow your joy.
Today’s gift… The Rhythm of Life. Who should you give it to this Christmas? Anyone experiencing a transition in life… high school and college graduates… engaged couples, newlyweds, new parents… anyone experiencing a transition in their career, loss of a job or new job… and anyone who is experiencing divorce, retirement, or moving to a new city.
Most people can’t remember what they got for Christmas two years ago. This Christmas give life-changing unforgettable gifts.”
Sermon Notes – December 24, 2021 – The Wonder and Awe of Christmas
“The Wonder and Awe of Christmas”
Father Peter Fitzgibbons
December 24, 2021
Gospel: Luke 1:67-79.
I think of some of the Christmases I have had, and I’ve had some pretty interesting ones, like the one when I would got into a vehicle with no seat belts and a loaded weapon with a round in the chamber. Because I have been sick, this Christmas hasn’t been a fairly pleasant one, but all in all, not bad.
We all think about Christmas and how beautiful it is. The elves have done so much work to make it so. My brother priests send me pictures of their churches. I do not send them a picture of ours, because I don’t want to hurt their tiny little feelings. Sissy boys! When I was a child, Christmas time was so beautiful. We helped serve at the Mass and were seated by the Red Cassocks. It was a step up from the regular action and was the closest I ever got to being Monsignor. Do you ever wish you had the time to reflect on the wonder of Christmas through the eyes of a child? To see again the wonder of God? What happened to that wonder? No matter the age in your reflections, you would have missed so much. That was just the beginning. Part of God’s revelation is that He draws you closer to Him to become part of His sacrifice, to receive His life thru the Sacraments, and to receive more knowledge and deeper love.
Your wedding day is not the same as your 50th anniversary. The 50th anniversary is supposed to be better. Different yes, but deeper. Change is not always bad. Change can be very good. Heraclitus, a 5th Century Greek philosopher said, “you cannot step into the same river twice.” And that’s true. You never do because there have been changes. We are called to change and to grow in love so that the Christmases we are called to now are felt deeper and are even more wonderful. There’s a way to do it but I’m all preached out and running out of energy. [Father Fitz is recovering from COVID-19.] But to have a deeper wonder and awe of a child. Scripture says, “unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the Kingdom of Heaven.” (Matthew 18:3). We are supposed to be true to that wonder and awe in the simplicity of love, to the resignation of ourselves to the Savior, and to be lost in that great gift of love…to be grateful and to experience it.
Each day we have the opportunity to grow in that love, and one day it will come to its fulfillment in the Kingdom of Heaven. Do not sell yourself short by wanting to go back to your childhood. Don’t. You will miss so much. If there have been intervening problems during the years from then and until now, that can all be fixed and done away with. God can restore the beauty and majesty of life. He has come to give the gift of Himself as promised by the Profits. The gift is His death and resurrection. Once we receive the fullness of it, we will finally enter the Kingdom of Heaven.
How will you apply this message to your life?
You can read all of Father Fitzgibbons’ sermons by going to AnnunciationCatholicAlbemarle.com/, clicking on “Blog” then “Categories” and then “Sermon Notes.” They can also be found on Facebook by searching for “Our Lady of the Annunciation Albemarle”
Minute Meditation – The Quiet Joy of Advent
The season of Advent can be overlooked in the run-up to Christmas, but if we take the time to recognize its hum beneath the busyness of shopping, baking, parties, and decorations, we discover the quiet joy it can bring, those moments apart from the giddiness (or the frustration) of December. Even people who work in ministry can get caught up in the preparations for the Advent and Christmas liturgies and lose sight of the deep joy of the season. Advent challenges us to step away from the hectic activity of the world, even if only for a short time each day. Pope Francis is the perfect guide through this season. Not one to shy away from a busy schedule, he has discovered the secret of balancing work with reflection, busyness with quiet contemplation, celebration with solitude, simplicity with the complexities of daily life. And what is at the heart of that secret? Making sure everything is rooted in Christ. The work we do (and the joy it can bring) emerges from a commitment to bringing the gift of God’s love to those we meet.
—from the book The Joy of Advent: Daily Reflections from Pope Francis
by Diane M. Houdek
//Franciscan Media//
Daily Reflection – I Will Honor Christmas
Daily Reflection – It is Good to be Children Sometimes
The Date and Place of Christmas
by Fr. James B. Buckley, FSSP
Ten years after the eastern patriarchate of Antioch began celebrating the feast of Christmas on December 25th, St. John Chrysotom, in a homily to his congregation, said that the Western Churches had from the very commencement of Christianity kept it on this day. Moreover, the holy doctor provided arguments from this date drawn from reason and Scripture.
As Abbot Prosper Gueranger, OSB, writes in his Liturgical Year, volume 3, page 2, St. John Declared that “the Church of Rome had every means of knowing the true day of our Savior’s birth, since the acts of Enrollment, taken in Judea by Command of Augustus (LK 2:3-5) were kept in the publiic archives of Rome.”
In arguing from Scripture, Gueranger continues, St. John reasons thus: we know from Sacred Scriptures that it must have been in the fast of the seventh month that the priest Zachary had the vision in the temple (cf. Leviticus 23:24); the tenth day of the seventh month is the day of Atonement when you shall…offer an oblation to the Lord.” (The seventh month corresponds to the end of our September and the beginning of October); after which Elizabeth, his wife, conceived John the Baptist; hence, it follows that the Blessed Virgin Mary, having as St. Luke relates, received the Angel Gabriel’s visit and conceived the Savior of the world in the sixth month of Elizabeth’s pregnancy, that is to say in March; the birth of Jesus must have taken place in the month of December.