advent - joyful anticipation


kind of a catch-all post, so bear with me...

~~like the good Godmother i attempt to be on occasions, i got my advent calendars out to my Godchildren, save for my 16-year-old bud - i will do something different for him -- did you open advent calendars as a child and do you still? i always try to make mine Christ-centered and not so much candy-centered or present-centered, and find they are almost hard to come by now...

~~there was a lot going on yesterday, as always - molly spent the day in new york city (i was sooooo jealous it wasn't even funny) and i can't wait for her to return today with her stories...she told me she went to St. Patrick's Cathedral - i said "did you light a candle?" "ma!! it was two dollah!" (funny how the money counts when it's hers, huh?)

~~my brother who moved to texas provided me with his blog addy and i am cherishing their pictures, but here's my first question: do you link your blog to your family? do they know you have a blog? i am sorry to say i created a new blog so i could post on his without linking back to mine - is that sad or what? my one brother has my link here, but he's so removed from the drama of my family, it's safe to let him in...but if the other side of my family had the link to here? whoooboy. i don't know. i just don't know. what do you do?

~~black friday was a nightmare in our area, so it said in our local paper, of which you need a login name and password to get the archive for from yesterday, so i bailed on the link so you just have to trust me and what i read... - people were trampled.

trampled. actual blood was shed. is that *joyful anticipation*?

because the guys at best buy were handing out flyers that had a map to the store. read that twice: handing out a map to the store. and from what else i read, it wasn't much better at the local wal-mart...

are you kidding me? these people camped out -- from 12:00 midnight the night before - FOR WHAT? what could possibly be that important that you have to brave sub-zero temperatures and everything camping out on a cement slab entails? am i not getting it? what are people thinking in life? why the rush? what is the point of it all?

~~is this what Christmas is all about? (rhetorical, i know, but it's another question...)

in his homily yesterday, a visiting monsignor talked about the season of Advent and our joyful anticipation of the birth of Jesus - in fact, today's Gospel is from St. Mark and talks about our staying awake - we know not the time nor the season:
Take heed, watch; for you do not know when the time will come. It is like a man going on a journey, when he leaves home and puts his servants in charge, each with his work, and commands the doorkeeper to be on the watch. Watch therefore -- for you do not know when the master of the house will come, in the evening, or at midnight, or at cockcrow, or in the morning -- lest he come suddenly and find you asleep. And what I say to you I say to all: Watch." Mark 13: 33 - 37
"watch." that is pretty powerful and is coming directly from Jesus. we don't know the time, and i'll tell you what, i am hoping He'll know who i am when i knock on the door! monsignor posed the question - what if Jesus came back today - would you be ready? what if He came to spend the day or the week with you - would you do the same things with Him that you do every day without Him?

(i gave that some thought - i am uncertain whether He would enjoy a game of literati or dominoes on the computer, so maybe i would need to scale back the time spent doing that...but what about everything else i do? or the words i speak aloud when nobody is really *listening* - what about then? or when my house is in disarray - would i want my Guest to see that?)

~~ and finally, would you rework your schedule to "fit" Him in and/or would you heave a sigh of relief when He was gone?

~~do you have joyful anticipation of the coming of Christ (and Christmas?)

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