Happy Holidays…or not

Our gaunt patron of sailors has become an overweight, jolly fellow created by Montgomery Wards.  Our ‘nativity Lent’ has been preceded by ‘Black Friday’ which is supposed to help fix our economic woes (they are in the black while shoppers bleed more red).

I suppose it is a good thing that Advent coexists with the ‘holiday season.’  It is quite fitting and quite humbling to see our worst in print, advertising, billboards and everywhere else one may care to look.  The season of Scrooge belongs right next to the (second and first) coming of Jesus, and the dusty prophet who paved Jesus’ way–that way our need of transformation and repentence is right there on the table.  Kyrie Eleison!

4 thoughts on “Happy Holidays…or not

  1. Advent time is the purple pre-dawn of the coming Sun of righteousness, its very air fragrant with the dark sweetness of repentance mixed with the hushed rose of generosity. It affects me like the earliest myrrh scented moments just before the general resurrection, when all the earth and sea, pregnant with invisible myriads of the dead, are about to give birth. He comes, He comes to judge the living and the dead. The King of kings of kings, blessed be He!
    Advent, the cool, candle-lit antechamber of the coming Day.
    Come, Lord Jesus.

  2. There is absolutely nothing I can say on this subject that wasn’t said better by Lawrence Ferlinghetti in his poem, “Christ Climbed Down.” So, here it is…

    Christ climbed down
    from His bare Tree
    this year
    and ran away to where
    there were no rootless Christmas trees
    hung with candycanes and breakable stars

    Christ climbed down
    from His bare Tree
    this year
    and ran away to where
    there were no gilded Christmas trees
    and no tinsel Christmas trees
    and no tinfoil Christmas trees
    and no pink plastic Christmas trees
    and no gold Christmas trees
    and no black Christmas trees
    and no powderblue Christmas trees
    hung with electric candles
    and encircled by tin electric trains
    and clever cornball relatives

    Christ climbed down
    from His bare Tree
    this year
    and ran away to where
    no intrepid Bible salesmen
    covered the territory
    in two-tone cadillacs
    and where no Sears Roebuck creches
    complete with plastic babe in manger
    arrived by parcel post
    the babe by special delivery
    and where no televised Wise Men
    praised the Lord Calvert Whiskey

    Christ climbed down
    from His bare Tree
    this year
    and ran away to where
    no fat handshaking stranger
    in a red flannel suit
    and a fake white beard
    went around passing himself off
    as some sort of North Pole saint
    crossing the desert to Bethlehem
    Pennsylvania
    in a Volkswagen sled
    drawn by rollicking Adirondack reindeer
    and German names
    and bearing sacks of Humble Gifts
    from Saks Fifth Avenue
    for everybody’s imagined Christ child

    Christ climbed down
    from His bare Tree
    this year
    and ran away to where
    no Bing Crosby carollers
    groaned of a tight Christmas
    and where no Radio City angels
    iceskated wingless
    thru a winter wonderland
    into a jinglebell heaven
    daily at 8:30
    with Midnight Mass matinees

    Christ climbed down
    from His bare Tree
    this year
    and softly stole away into
    some anonymous Mary’s womb again
    where in the darkest night
    of everybody’s anonymous soul
    He awaits again
    an unimaginable
    and impossibly
    Immaculate Reconception
    the very craziest of
    Second Comings

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