This year is different……yes, we are ready to celebrate the joy of Christmas, but for the first year in close to 25 I will not be the Celebrant at a Mass within a Church.  I will be the Celebrant for our family’s Mass tomorrow, but for tonight we will just wait in anticipation.

I confess, it feels pretty weird.  Yet oddly enough it will solve an issue for me.  When I was a young man you could go to “Midnight Mass” with the idea that you would receive Communion on Christmas. But as my ministry progressed, more and more we saw the services moving earlier on the 24th.  And in fact in many of the Churches I served I could be home well before midnight.  And for years I even kept up Christmas Day Mass at the Church, but it was often just me and one or two others.  Tonight however, I will not do a thing and tomorrow I can finally conquer that theological issue I have fought deep within myself.

And this is not meant to be critical, as the celebration of Christmas is as deeply personal and varied as every human heart the Son of God was born to enter.  We each need to find our own way in this as God calls each one of us by name.  I just felt conflicted about it for myself.

But in a very real way, this has been healthy for me.  I am not gone from my family traveling and doing services, I am present and helping out.  And I will not be that exhausted “guest who lives here” tomorrow, I can be the man I am called to be, a father to my kids and that great trophy husband my wife can’t live without.  It’s actually pretty cool.

But regardless of how I feel, Christ is born nonetheless.  Yes, we are prepared, and yes we will celebrate.  But for now I am just thankful for the gifts He has bestowed upon me and the family (minus that one US Marine and future daughter-in-law) he has given me to enjoy!

Goodnight my friends and God Bless!

Tommy+