The holiday season is upon us. This is true both in the secular sense of the
phrase “holiday season” and in the religious sense. This week, we celebrate Thanksgiving here in
the United States, and the Church Universal celebrates the feast of Our Lord Jesus
Christ, King of the Universe.
When I was in middle school at the Madeleine Choir School,
Christ the King was the start of some of my favorite music. We processed around the outside of the
Cathedral chanting the Christus Vincit Acclamations accompanied solely by hand bells. I can
still hear the chant in my head, and it brings a smile to my face. It really felt like a celebration.
And that is as it should be.
The feast of Christ the King is like New Year’s Eve for the Catholic
Church. The following Sunday, we enter
into a new liturgical year with the First Sunday of Advent. It is a time of new beginnings and a time of
reflection.
This ties in well with the secular holiday of Thanksgiving. This week, we take time to be thankful for
the gifts we have been given, and if we are lucky, we get to spend time with
family and friends whom we maybe do not get to see very often. It is a time of reminiscence and nostalgia
for many.
My family usually hosts Thanksgiving at our house. This year, we will have twelve people around
our Thanksgiving table, which is a lot for us.
I’m looking forward to it though because we will get to see family we
don’t usually see this time of year. We
are joking around the house that there will be at least eight people there who
share substantial amounts of DNA, and we’ll probably be a pretty raucous bunch
because of that, but that’s not a bad thing.
Enjoying the company of others is part of what makes the
holidays a special time of year. Let us
remember that, while we are renewing our connections with family and friends
and strengthening those bonds, we can and should be renewing our connection and
strengthening our bond with God also.
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