It is so easy to caught up in Christmas trees, cookies, gifts, and on and on.
It is so hard to teach your children the need of preparation when Christmas is here according to the television and the department stores.
Every year I try to build up Advent in order to prepare well for Christmas. Every year I take the teaching moments at home to try to do this. how very difficult it is especially when your children are already compiling their Christmas lists.
Let's try to educate ourselves about this very important season of waiting.
Let's try to learn more about this time of preparation.
What is Advent as liturgical mystery?
Liturgy is mystogogical. In other words,
one role of liturgy is to teach and form the faithful, to catechize us
both in and out of formal liturgical events.
If our home is a “domestic church,” then it
should look, sound, and feel like a church, especially if we live with
children. Why? Because churches are decorated and arranged for more than
ornamental purposes. The pictures, colors, structure, style, and order
of a church are all deeply catechetical. The images teach and show. The
form of the rituals are the curriculum for lessons that go unstated. The
homily is but a supplement to the vestments worn, the songs sung, and
the intentional, repetitive order of it all. Liturgy is educational in
the deepest sense.
This is not just pedagogy; this is mystagogy.
The season of Advent may be the most
educationally significant liturgical period, for countercultural
reasons. Since no one else seems to observe Advent these days —
including many Catholics — the domestic church that celebrates this
season stands out, teaching an additional lesson about the radical
exception of the Gospel. We are not of this world. We prepare for Incarnation. We do not skip over the need to wait.
Please pray for us as we pray for you.
Happy Advent!
No comments:
Post a Comment