This Sunday is the fourth in Advent, which means Christmas is next week! The church is slowly becoming more decorated for the feast of Christmas. All the candles are lit on the Advent wreath and the tree off on the side has more and more ornaments on it. During the children's liturgy, the kids make ornaments if they are so inclined. After Mass they are hung on the tree.
We arrived just in time for Mass. Things were going really well until the Kyrie. Jacob was caught off guard and couldn't find the song in his hymnal before we were done singing. He became very upset. He decided he wanted to go to the children's liturgy across the street. When Lucy saw Jacob and Mommy leaving, she raced after them.
They didn't stay too long. The homily was only half over when they returned to our pew. Jacob showed me the cut out angels he was given. He explained that he did not want to color them and he decided to come back so they went out of the room and back across the street. He explained it in an even longer run-on sentence. We've wound up using his angel to top our Christmas tree.
For the rest of Mass, Jacob did pray along with some of the other prayers. Lucy spent a lot of time out of the pew, but only standing in the aisle, not roaming around the church. She did want to give a different coin to the collection than the one I gave her. She found something in Mommy's purse (with Mommy's help).
At the end of Mass we lit candles as usual. Both children said they were praying for me. We had to dodge around the aforementioned Christmas tree and the two or three kids who were hanging all the new ornaments.
As we were leaving, we saw a lot of children up front practicing for next week's children's Mass. At tea and treats after Mass, two people told me that the Children's vigil Mass is quite an experience and that we should arrive early to get a seat. Also, if Jacob and Lucy want to dress up as shepherds or angels or whatnot, they could join in at the last minute if they want. When asked, neither expressed much interest. I think Mom was a little disappointed.
Father's homily drew out the contrast between the current spectacle of Christmas preparations and the quiet entrance of Our Lord and Savior into our world, unnoticed in a stable in a small town in Judea. So much of our culture is centered around worshiping mammon by holiday spending and greed and gorging. He hoped that we'd find the peace, the salvation that Jesus came to offer us.
Oh, and I almost forgot. Here's pictures of Jacob and Lucy dressed up last week for church. Hopefully they'll look even better next week.
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