It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas…: Weekly Message for 12-24-2019

Dear Friends in Christ,

Christmas Eve is almost upon us, and the old song comes to my mind by Johnny Mathis:

It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas
Everywhere you go
Take a look in the five and ten glistening once again
With candy canes and silver lanes aglow

Would Johnny have ever imagined that the “five and ten,” the name for the store where you could purchase things for a nickel or dime (akin to today’s dollar stores), would be replaced by Black Friday bonanzas even before Advent started? Johnny is still touring as of this writing (he was scheduled for Hawaii last weekend), but I admit I haven’t asked him. 

The anticipation expressed in his song depends on your age: for children, it’s an eagerness to get the toys they want. For adults, it’s eagerness for Christmas break (which is not called “Christmas” break anymore, thank you) to end, and for the kids go back to school. There’s still a lot of expectation out there for the moment when fleeting material bliss is satisfied (albeit for about as much time as it takes to open a gift) “family time” concluded for another year, and decorations and trees packed and stored.

With all apologies to Johnny, that’s not what Christmas truly looks like. Is it beginning to look like Christmas everywhere you go? Maybe not, but is it beginning to look like Christmas everywhere you go? Today is the sunset of Advent, a whole liturgical season to prepare for Our Lord’s birth, and the dawn of a new liturgical season: Christmas. The sunset of Advent in broad daylight and the dawn of Christmas in the dead of night should remind us that we’re guided by a different light than the one that blinks on trees and glints off tinsel: the light of Christ. It’s the light you’re guided by that makes things look like Christmas wherever you go. When the light of Christ guides you, life looks like Christmas everywhere you go.

Here at RCSpirituality, we can wish you no greater gift for Christmas than the light of Our Lord, so that the true gifts of the season blossom for you and those you love: peace, hope, reconciliation, and joy. Advent is not over for a few hours, and Christmas is just barely about to begin. Why not discover some more ways to find Christmas everywhere you go using our retreat guide on The Hidden Treasures of Christmas?

May the light of Christ show you Christmas everywhere you go this season.

Father Nikola Derpich, L.C.
Online Classroom Manager
fr.nikola@rcspirituality.org

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