Twelve Ways of Christmas

Christmas is more than a day – it’s a season!  It’s easy to overlook the birthday boy in the festivities of Christmas Day. When our children were little, we would have a birthday cake for Jesus to help them more readily relate to this significant feast. And yes, sometimes we even sang ‘happy birthday’ to…

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Three Ways to a Better Advent

The Church New Year begins with Advent and is a season of preparation ahead of the birthday of Jesus. Beginning four Sundays before Christmas Day, it’s intended to be a period of intensified spiritual activity.   Yet this time of year for most families is already over-full. Between graduations, corporate Christmas parties and extended retail hours,…

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Confessions of an Advent failure

Advent is supposed to be a season for spiritual growth and reflection. Too often we arrive at Christmas eve frazzled and in a spiritual desert. Advent is full of opportunities for spiritual nourishment. There’s community celebrations and family gatherings, beautiful Church services and stunning displays proclaiming the Christmas message. Working against us, there’s the pressure…

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Waiting … with joyful hope

Advent is the season of waiting. And there sure is lots of waiting in marriage and family life. Advent, from the Latin adventus, means ‘coming’.  In the Church calendar, Advent kick starts the year with a period of preparation for the celebration of Christ’s birth at Christmas. Like Lent, the colour for Advent is purple…

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Defiant Hope

Advent is a season of anticipation. The birth of any child, not least the Messiah, gives us cause for hope. Earlier this week, we heard the testimony of Chris and Natalie Stefanick, a couple who had journeyed through dark seasons in their marriage. Having survived sexual abuse as a child, Natalie found she needed many…

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Our family is a mess!

The Christmas Vigil Mass features the Gospel of Matthew (1:1-25). Depending on whether you get the long or short version, you might hear the genealogy of Jesus Christ – a rather long list of the forebears of Jesus, going all the way back to Abraham. It includes some of the most dysfunctional characters from the…

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Love in the Waiting

Advent is the season of waiting; we wait in anticipation of the coming of Christ. But are we the only ones doing the waiting? I (Francine) was hurrying to get out the door for 7am Mass. I looked at the time on the car clock and sighed in defeat: 6:58. There was no way I’d…

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A very grand Advent

It’s Advent again – the season of waiting. This year, our waiting takes on a special focus – we are awaiting the arrival of our first grandchild. Actually, Francine has been waiting for at least a decade for this child to arrive. Byron however, is still in deep denial – he’s far too young and…

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Hold on to what you love!

As we fall across the ‘Christmas-NY’ line, we look back on the past month with a sigh of relief and a tinge of regret… yet another frantic Advent with barely time to think about Jesus or our loved ones except to curse the ones who obstinately remain difficult to buy for. Every year, we swear…

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