Can you believe Christmas will be here soon?
Now that All Saints has passed, we'll be rolling right into Christmas soon. Pay attention. Don't let it fly by before you know it.
This happens to me too often. I start right around All Saints thinking that this year it'll be different. This year work won't so dominate my thoughts and actions like it sometimes does. I'll be more attentive to the coming of the Birth of Our Lord. Really I will.
But then the days go by. Soon it's Thanksgiving, then Advent, then Christmas arrives in a heartbeat. What did I do to prepare? Christmas is here and I'm not "feeling" it.
For me, it's work and all that it brings that distracts. What about you? Maybe it's not a problem for you. I hope not. But if it is, let's try to let our work help us this year, instead of distracting us. Where to start?
Start with what's worked in the past. Get rid of what doesn't. Now that's just good business practice, right. So we're getting our work habits to help now.
For me, that means I'm going to put aside my usual focus on all the incidentals (the tree, the carols, the Lionel train set, the food, who's coming for Christmas, etc.). Focus on Christ.
One thing that 's worked these last few years has been my insistence on saying a special aspiration I learned as a kid: "Divine Infant of Bethlehem, come and take birth in my heart." I pass it on to you. An aspiration is just a little prayer you say from time to time. Try it.
What I do is say it one time for every year since Our Lord's birth. This year that means 2009 times. I know; it's a lot. So you've got to start right away when Advent begins. But if you break it down into bite-sized pieces (maybe something like 100 a day), you'll get there. I say it when I'm "between" things during my busy days.
Maybe you don't believe in repetitious prayer like this; just remember the Church has recommended this sort of prayer for centuries. Just think of the rosary.
It also gets you to remember God during the day in a really special way during this really special season. (You know how it's always a challenge not to just forget God once we get cranking during the work day.)
Well, that's my one suggestion. At least it'll get things started.
There's a lot more you can do, of course. Maybe you really focus on the Liturgical Calendar more than you typically do - you know, things like today's saint, special feasts, etc. Here's website I use to check on what saint's feast it is today:
This happens to me too often. I start right around All Saints thinking that this year it'll be different. This year work won't so dominate my thoughts and actions like it sometimes does. I'll be more attentive to the coming of the Birth of Our Lord. Really I will.
But then the days go by. Soon it's Thanksgiving, then Advent, then Christmas arrives in a heartbeat. What did I do to prepare? Christmas is here and I'm not "feeling" it.
For me, it's work and all that it brings that distracts. What about you? Maybe it's not a problem for you. I hope not. But if it is, let's try to let our work help us this year, instead of distracting us. Where to start?
Start with what's worked in the past. Get rid of what doesn't. Now that's just good business practice, right. So we're getting our work habits to help now.
For me, that means I'm going to put aside my usual focus on all the incidentals (the tree, the carols, the Lionel train set, the food, who's coming for Christmas, etc.). Focus on Christ.
One thing that 's worked these last few years has been my insistence on saying a special aspiration I learned as a kid: "Divine Infant of Bethlehem, come and take birth in my heart." I pass it on to you. An aspiration is just a little prayer you say from time to time. Try it.
What I do is say it one time for every year since Our Lord's birth. This year that means 2009 times. I know; it's a lot. So you've got to start right away when Advent begins. But if you break it down into bite-sized pieces (maybe something like 100 a day), you'll get there. I say it when I'm "between" things during my busy days.
Maybe you don't believe in repetitious prayer like this; just remember the Church has recommended this sort of prayer for centuries. Just think of the rosary.
It also gets you to remember God during the day in a really special way during this really special season. (You know how it's always a challenge not to just forget God once we get cranking during the work day.)
Well, that's my one suggestion. At least it'll get things started.
There's a lot more you can do, of course. Maybe you really focus on the Liturgical Calendar more than you typically do - you know, things like today's saint, special feasts, etc. Here's website I use to check on what saint's feast it is today:
http://www.wf-f.org/LiturgicalCalendar-info.html
One more thing about the aspiration "Divine Infant of Bethlehem, come and take birth in my heart": You can think of each time you say the aspiration as placing a piece of straw in the manger. You're preparing a nice, fresh, clean place in your heart for Our Lord on Christmas Day. It helps me to sustain myself in saying the aspiration and not letting it just become a kind of mindless rote repetition.
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