tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7848199850119259567.post1532094459273645761..comments2024-03-23T12:12:09.483-04:00Comments on Association Of Catholic Bloggers: A grinch in AdventMelanie Jean Juneauhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14762839203074357706noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7848199850119259567.post-26753862345824639362011-12-27T06:41:11.850-05:002011-12-27T06:41:11.850-05:00Lovely post...sorry to hear about your daughter..a...Lovely post...sorry to hear about your daughter..am praying..Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7848199850119259567.post-11373279186591616542011-12-24T20:47:21.859-05:002011-12-24T20:47:21.859-05:00A Happy Christmas, Beth Cecilia, to you and your f...A Happy Christmas, Beth Cecilia, to you and your family. May your daughter fully recover. Advent is the 'lost season'. I guess we have to learn to some degree to be 'schizophrenic', to observe Advent by following the Church's liturgy, while Christmas and 'Christmas' are going on all around us.<br /><br />However, I associate carols witn the time before Christmas and with giving, even though most of the carols are about Christmas. In my last two or three years in school in Dublin a group of us used to sing carols in O'Connell Street, the main thoroughfare, and collect moeny for charity. The weather was usually very cold. Groups of carollers used to go from house to house raising money for charity.<br /><br />RTE, Ireland's national broadcaster, starts playing Christmas music, as far as I know, on 8 December, not before, though the commercial Christmas in Dublin now starts in November.<br /><br />If we are focused on Christmas Day what comes before it, including the Christmas music on the radio, the Nativity plays in school, can all be integrated to some degree with Advent, with the preparations for the feast.<br /><br />Part of my own Advent every year is reading Charles Dickens's Christmas Carol. While he doesn't hammer home the birth of Jesus, that is what underlies the whole story. It would make noe sense without it.<br /><br />As Tiny Tim said, 'God bless us every one!'Fr Seán Coylehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02287947090085700335noreply@blogger.com