{"id":1515,"date":"2014-12-20T10:04:59","date_gmt":"2014-12-20T15:04:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/?p=1515"},"modified":"2014-12-20T11:57:25","modified_gmt":"2014-12-20T16:57:25","slug":"christmas-meaning","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/christmas-meaning\/","title":{"rendered":"The Meaning of Christmas"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Here are some pre-Christmas thoughts I wrote for the bulletin as we come close to Christmas.<\/p>\n<p>Well, here we are just a few days till Christmas.\u00a0 We will celebrate Masses as follows:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Christmas Eve\n<ul>\n<li>4:00 p.m. Children\u2019s Christmas Pageant with Mass immediately following<\/li>\n<li>6:30 p.m.<\/li>\n<li>11:00 p.m. with Christmas Music beginning at 10:15 p.m.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>Christmas Morning\n<ul>\n<li>10 a.m.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>To me the best part of Christmas is being at Mass.\u00a0 We hear readings that tell us the story of Jesus\u2019 birth.\u00a0 We see the manger with Jesus in it surrounded by Mary, Joseph, the shepherds and the animals.\u00a0 It is truly a holy time of year as witnessed by the great numbers we see.<\/p>\n<p>Are you ready?\u00a0 Have you finished your shopping?\u00a0 Are your travel plans or guest arrival plans set?\u00a0 Is everything decorated? All these things may seem important and necessary but they are not the most important thing about Christmas.\u00a0 Children love to see Santa but what is Christmas really about?<\/p>\n<p>A couple of years ago someone sent me an email link to a music video of a song called <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=OExXItDyWEY\" target=\"_blank\">\u201cWhere\u2019s the Line to See Jesus\u201d by Becky Kelley<\/a>.\u00a0 Each year since I watch the video a couple of times as we approach Christmas and it can still bring tears to my eyes (as I write this I am playing the video and there are tears in my eyes)!\u00a0 If you do an Internet search on the title, links to the video as well as the story behind the song.<\/p>\n<p>Christmas is about Jesus.\u00a0 Christmas is not just a single day.\u00a0 Next Sunday we will celebrate the feast of the Holy Family, Jesus, Mary, and Joseph.\u00a0 We celebrate Mary as Mother of God on January 1<sup>st<\/sup>, followed by Epiphany the weekend of January 4<sup>th<\/sup>.\u00a0 Christmas will draw to a close with the Feast of the Baptism of the Lord on January 11<sup>th<\/sup>.<\/p>\n<p>So when you ask if you are ready for Christmas, think about what it really means and ask yourself are you ready to have Jesus in your heart every day.<\/p>\n<p>Peace,<\/p>\n<p>Fr. Jeff<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Here are some pre-Christmas thoughts I wrote for the bulletin as we come close to Christmas. Well, here we are just a few days till Christmas.\u00a0 We will celebrate Masses as follows: Christmas Eve 4:00 p.m. Children\u2019s Christmas Pageant with Mass immediately following 6:30 p.m. 11:00 p.m. with Christmas Music beginning at 10:15 p.m. Christmas &#8230;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/christmas-meaning\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading &lsquo;The Meaning of Christmas&rsquo; &raquo;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[62],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pMTPk-or","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1515"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1515"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1515\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1520,"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1515\/revisions\/1520"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1515"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1515"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1515"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}