I had an
extremely busy weekend, between my annual best friends holiday parties,
celebrating the Feast Day of our Lady of Guadalupe and attending a half-day
Advent retreat - I couldn’t help going to bed quite early last night exhausted.
Yet, it was good exhaustion. Today, we honor the patroness of the Americas,
our Lady of Guadalupe, since I knew that I would not make it to the traditional
mañanitas service, my parents and I celebrated on Saturday attending the
festivities our parish hosted. It began
with a beautiful service with mariachi music and children dressed in traditional
Mexican dress. Then continued with a
full blown fiesta outdoors with live music and Mexican delights. We bought some yummy homemade food, listened
to good mariachi music and went home satisfied with the loveliness of the
celebration.
Later, that
afternoon I attended my second friends Christmas gathering. Every year, I have two traditional family
festivities with my best friends from childhood and my best Catholic friends
and their families. This year they were
back-to-back, on Friday I had one and Saturday the other. Both are usually
pot-luck style, each of us bringing a dish to complete the meal. Then there’s a children gift exchange and it’s
so wonderful to see the happiness the children get opening their gifts! These annual dinners are such family fun-
that fill one’s heart with joy. They are
also moments that help us adults celebrate our friendship and the blessing God
has given us of one more year able to share in each other’s lives. Part of the joy of Christmas is having others
to share it with (smile).
After a
couple days full of activity, I wanted to get away and contemplate the coming
of Jesus. The Sacred Heart of Jesus
sisters, in Santa Ana, host an annual Advent retreat. It pays reading the church’s bulletin because
that’s how I found out about the event.
I wasn’t sure what to expect about a six hour retreat, but I was in for
such a treat! First of all, the sisters
have a Nativity in every corner of the retreat house which made me feel like I
was at home! I also sat at the table with the mother of our soon to be bishop
of Orange, Reverend Timothy Freyer. His
mom is such a lovely woman, she was telling me that he is her only child and
she’s ecstatic with her son’s appointment.
She even invited me to his ordination in January… The retreat was really
nice, it included: two talks, a good amount of time for personal prayer, lunch and
Mass. It was advertised as an adult
retreat with the majority of the people in attendance being seniors and ladies. I think I might have been the youngest person
there, and by a big gap; but it was nice being surrounded by people who take
their faith seriously. I left feeling
elated with the wisdom I received and just the slow pace of the day.
This
Advent- I have tried doing less and it has made such a difference. It’s the first year, in sometime that it feels
like Christmas! Many times in the rush of December I never get to experience
that desire for Jesus’ coming and this year cutting back on activities and
being very particular of the activities that I do participate in has allowed me
the time to pray and reflect. How’s your
Advent going?
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