...And hate to see the season come to end?
IT DOESN'T HAVE TO!
Every day of your life can be Christmas morning. Just go to daily Mass. It's a time machine taking you back to the stable. The beginning of the Mass is Advent, pointing the way to the coming of Christ at the Consecration when he is laid in the manger of the altar by the priest. We come, shepherds and kings, the lowly and the powerful together to worship. We bring Him gifts like the shepherds and the magi did, the gifts of ourselves: our prayers and sacrifices, our acts of charity. We know the gifts of the magi: gold, frankincense, and myrrh. We can imagine the gifts of the shepherd:, a woolly fleece to keep the baby warm and protect Him from the scratchy straw, perhaps goat milk and cheese for Mary and Joseph. Yes, the shepherds, despite their littleness, would have come bearing gifts for the King of Kings.
The Mass is Advent and Christmas, Lent and Easter all compressed into a short space of time that contains eternity. We see Christ at His birth; we hear His preaching in the Gospel; we sit at the banquet table of the Last Supper; we kneel at the foot of the Cross and share in His suffering and death. And we are there at the Resurrection and that moment Easter evening when He says, "Peace be with you; my peace I give you."
How can you stay away from daily Mass when God Himself calls you there and desires to feed you with His own Body and Blood? Let your New Year's resolution be to attend Mass as often as possible. It is the closest we will ever come to heaven on this earth.
