The Fourth Sunday of Advent

Lighting the fourth candle of the Advent wreath always brings me excitement at this time of the year.  As a family, my parents would pack my sisters and I in the car to go down near the Kansas border to a Christmas tree farm.  There after much deliberation we would select, cut down, and take home our tree.  We would then help to decorate and set up the house for celebrating our Lord's birth.  It was a fun, intentional preparation which affected me in the seminary and into my priesthood.

In the seminary and parish, it has been a joy filled activity to help to decorate the Church in preparation for Christ's mass (Christmas).  From the wreaths, lights, trees, and especially the nativity scene where it provides a visual aid for the simplicity and humility of our God in his infancy.  It was during this time that I was introduced to Midnight Mass.  I had stayed up many nights before past midnight for selfish reasons or out of necessity to complete schoolwork, but never for God.  Honestly, it was a deeply moving experience.  If you have or have not gone in the past I recommend going at least once in your life.  It is at this Mass that as disciples of Christ, we return to the very moment of his birth at Midnight.  Together, we join the in the rejoicing of the angels at the gloria.  We gaze in wonder with the shepherds at beholding "the Lamb of God."  We stand beside the manger, a feeding trough for animals, at the Word made flesh.  The same flesh that we will feed upon in His Eucharist body.  Midnight mass has a powerful way of reorienting our family life upon the person of Christ.  For he came as a child into a family to redeem and sanctify the family from within.

I therefore invite you to spend some time during Christmas Eve and the 8 days of Christmas to mediate on the manger of our Lord in his humility, poverty, and vulnerability.  There with Mary and Joseph, may we ask to receive a renew in our family lives and seek to bear the Christ child with us in our hearts, minds, words, and actions into a grand new beginning!

May God Grant you and your families a Blessed and Merry Christmas!

In Christ,

Fr. Luke Fleck