Twas a Week Before Christmas...

Today begins the fourth and final week of Advent. How exciting it is to think that in one short week we will be celebrating the birth of our Savior.  This will be the first year, in many, that I will get the pleasure of attending midnight mass.  As a child, it was the one time of year that I would beg to go to Mass.  Celebrating in the dead of night when the world is quiet and sleeping gives Christmas an almost magical feel. We as Catholics follow in the footsteps of the angels and shepherds, who gathered to look upon the newborn Savior. In the stillness it is easy to imagine the quiet awesomeness of that night so many years ago. The special knowledge of his magnificence was known only to a few.  Now in this world we are that few, who knows the wondrous things that Jesus was sent to earth to accomplish. So through much yawning I will be quietly celebrating that beautiful birth in the stillness as did those on that first night.