Dear Parishioners,

About this time of year, many people including myself, can feel overwhelmed and frazzled by what I refer to as, "the dynamics of the holiday season." These include all sorts of details, great and small, that demand our attention to various degrees. We've almost come to expect this frazzled feeling as an inevitable feature that permeates the days leading up to Christmas. Many of us exclaim that it seems to be getting more intense each year and we wonder why that is.

Reflecting on this experience, I have come to conclude that one of the main causes of our "frazzlement" (my word) is that we have more and more decisions that we must make each year because we have a an ever increasing number of choices at our disposal. Using our church life as an example, here at St. Joan of Arc we have six options for Christmas Masses, e.g. on Christmas Eve there is: 3:00, 3:15, and 10:00. On Christmas Day there is 7:00, 9:30 and 11:30. I am delighted that we can offer this many options, but families must spend time discerning which of them works best for the other activities that will be a part of their celebration. What if there were only one option for Mass here and at all our local Catholic parishes? Would not having to choose an option for Christmas Mass help to decrease the holiday anxiety or would people simply eliminate Mass as an expectation for the day? What about places throughout the world where there may not even be one option for Mass on Christmas? What about places where attending Mass on Christmas Day (or any day) is illegal and would be done at great peril to people's lives.

Think of the other options that call for careful planning and decision making, e.g., What gifts do we give and to whom do we give them? Who do we invite for Christmas dinner or to whose home do we go for Christmas dinner? What do we serve for our Christmas feast, an increasing challenge given the number of dietary choices and restrictions that people have? Which Christmas parties do we attend, and which do we find an excuse to decline? To whom do we send a Christmas card? Do we send Christmas cards at all given the cost of postage? How should we decorate for Christmas? Do we put a live tree or an artificial one? How long do we keep our decorations displayed?

This is just a smattering of choices that bombard us these days and call forth from us a decision, some of which may not be well received. On the one hand having this plethora of choices and decisions is a luxury that countless people across the globe will never have to consider. In this sense, our feeling frazzled is a luxury problem that reveals the many blessings for which we ought to be grateful and which we ought to be eager to share. However we wish to cope with the holiday frenzy, anxiety, sadness, stress or joy, one antidote to help keep us focused and relatively calm is setting aside some time for quiet reflection and prayer. There is no end of resources that that can facilitate this effort. One that I find useful is poetry such as the following written by John Betjeman entitled "Christmas."

The bells of waiting Advent ring,
The Tortoise stove is lit again
And lamp-oil light across the night
Has caught the streaks of winter rain
In many a stained-glass window sheen
From Crimson Lake to Hookers Green.

The holly in the windy hedge
And round the Manor House the yew
Will soon be stripped to deck the ledge,
The altar, font and arch and pew,
So that the villagers can say
The church looks nice' on Christmas Day.

Provincial Public Houses blaze,
Corporation tramcars clang,
On lighted tenements I gaze,
Where paper decorations hang,
And bunting in the red Town Hall
Says 'Merry Christmas to you all'.

And London shops on Christmas Eve
Are strung with silver bells and flowers
As hurrying clerks the City leave
To pigeon-haunted classic towers,
And marbled clouds go scudding by
The many-steepled London sky.

And girls in slacks remember Dad,
And oafish louts remember Mum,
And sleepless children's hearts are glad.
And Christmas-morning bells say 'Come!'
Even to shining ones who dwell
Safe in the Dorchester Hotel.

And is it true,
This most tremendous tale of all,
Seen in a stained-glass window's hue,
A Baby in an ox's stall?
The Maker of the stars and sea
Become a Child on earth for me?

And is it true? For if it is,
No loving fingers tying strings
Around those tissued fripperies,
The sweet and silly Christmas things,
Bath salts and inexpensive scent
And hideous tie so kindly meant,

No love that in a family dwells,
No caroling in frosty air,
Nor all the steeple-shaking bells
Can with this single Truth compare -
That God was man in Palestine
And lives today in Bread and Wine

May God bless us with calm and creative minds as we immerse ourselves into this most wonderful time of the year as it unfolds in our world, our church, our homes and our hearts.

Fr. Gabriel O.S.B.

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