Holidays:
Incredible shrinking Advent-Christmas season

		The Catholic  Difference  George Weigel

Twenty-one years in Washington, D.C., should have rendered me impervious to the bizarre. But I confess to having been taken aback in mid-October when, inside a grocery where I was vainly searching for some decent Peccorino Romano, I saw an enormous Christmas display with ersatz snow and all the trimmings.

It was bad enough when stores started putting out the Christmas decorations (or, as they now say, "holiday decorations") a nanosecond after sweeping their shelves of leftover candy corn and other Halloween goodies beloved of dentists with medical school bills to pay. But Santa and the elves two weeks before Halloween?

Shortening Christmas

It works the same way at the other end, so to speak. The estimable Fr. John Jay Hughes reports that the St. Louis Post-Dispatch ran a feature article last December 26 on how to disassemble and store Christmas decorations. As Father Hughes commented, "In my childhood, thanks to my Anglican priest-father, we were never permitted to put up the tree or any Christmas decorations until Christmas Eve. And once up, they stayed there until at least the Octave of Epiphany" (which, I'd perhaps better note, would be January 13 - if, that is, the bishops hadn't moved Epiphany from its proper date to a nearby Sunday, a folly surpassed only by the biblical absurdity of Ascension Thursday Sunday).

Fifteen years of intense involvement with Poles and Poland have given me an even more capacious view of the Christmas season. In Poland, the decorations stay up, the Christmas carols are sung, and the celebration of the Incarnation continues until February 2, the Feast of the Presentation, or Candlemas. That's the way it was in the papal apartment in Rome between 1978 and 2004. And that's the way it will be in Poland's intact Catholic culture this year.

Hijacked by culture

Railing against secular America's calendrical translation of the "Christmas season" into a period between mid-October and 8 a.m. December 26 (or whenever the post-Christmas sales start at the malls) is of less importance, though, than trying to ensure that the Church's Advent and Christmas seasons are not temporally hijacked by the surrounding culture.

If memory serves, Advent got exceedingly short shrift last year, being essentially just three weeks long: which meant 25 percent less time to reflect on the two great themes of that time - the Second Coming and the Incarnation.

Worse yet, more and more Catholic churches seemed to be succumbing to the secular redefinition of the seasons by putting up Christmas decorations during the third or second week of Advent. The truncation was just as bad at the far end, what with the transfer of Epiphany to Sunday, Jan. 2.

Take Advent seriously

We need more Advent and Christmas, not less - but we need them at the proper time, the Church's time, not Macy's or Wal-Mart's time. Taking Advent seriously would be a good beginning.

The widespread use of Advent wreaths in churches is a welcome development. Even more welcome would be pastors actively encouraging every Catholic family to have an Advent wreath in their home, to learn the rituals of lighting it, and to pray together.

Extending Epiphany

Reconstituting the liturgical calendar would also help. The Solemnity of the Epiphany belongs on January 6, period. Restoring Epiphany to its proper place would do justice to a generally neglected feast; in a nifty countercultural move, it would stretch the Christmas season to its proper length.

And while we're on the Epiphany, why not stretch it out, too? Bringing back, say, three "Sundays After Epiphany" would give the Church a greater opportunity to pray over the mission-to-the-nations, one of the great themes embedded in the Lord's "epiphany."

Let's be different. Let's let liturgical time define this unique time of the year.

George Weigel is a senior fellow of the Ethics and Public Policy Center in Washington, D.C.

Ramadan: Changes people's lives

		Notes from  The Gambia  Tom Brodd

"Salaam Alekum" is a common greeting among Muslims that means "Peace be upon you," to which you reply "Alekum Salaam," which means, "And upon you also."

I bring this up as we have just ended the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, so I thought this would be a good time to give my observations on how this changes daily life for people here.

Like Lenten season

The Gambia, as many of you may not know, is predominately a Muslim country - over 90 percent of the people are Muslims. Ramadan is, in certain ways, the equivalent of our Lenten season, as it is a period of fasting, charity, prayer, and reflection on one's relationship with God.

During Ramadan, which lasts a lunar month, from one new moon until the next new moon, one is not supposed to eat or drink anything during daylight hours. Which here means that from 6 a.m. until 7 p.m., most people are not eating or drinking, which, considering the temperatures here, is hard to do. But it makes fasting on Fridays during Lent seems not such a big sacrifice to make.

Changes life of people

In other ways it also changes the day-to-day life of people. Before Ramadan, people would be out and about walking on the streets or just out in front of their houses talking to the neighbors, kind of like it use to be in America when houses had front porches and people would sit outside and visit with neighbors walking by. But during Ramadan, as people have not eaten all day and breaking the fast at the end of the day is a occasion for the whole family to get together, by 7 p.m. the streets are pretty much empty.

Since most of the people I work with are Muslim, during the day at work I would hold the fast with them, as part of the volunteer experience is to live the life of people here. However, I did drink water, but only when others were not around, since I could do without food during the day but I needed to drink, if only to keep up my fluid levels, as I was still adjusting to the heat.

Slowing down

As the month wore on, one could see that people were slowing down, for although they could eat at night, the lack of food during the day, and even more so, the loss of sleep, as people would get up earlier and go to bed later at night, so as to eat before the days' fast began, was beginning to show.

To us this long of a fast may seem strange, but the meaning for it is so that Muslims can redirect their thoughts away from worldly cares and towards raising their level of closeness and commitment to God.

Holiday travel

At the end of Ramadan people travel to their home villages to be with their family to celebrate and worship together, just as we travel to be with our families during our holiday season. I can attest to this as, on the day before the end of Ramadan, there where many more people waiting for the public transportation. They all had travel bags as they were going home.

So, like the difficulty that we have in traveling during the holidays, the same troubles happen here. Getting a ride into Banjul in the morning for me was a bit difficult, as anyone going to the north side of Gambia had to go to Banjul to get the ferry.

It was an interesting and learning experience to live through. Although I do have to say that it is nice to be back to normal and once again buy my breakfast egg sandwich from the woman who sells them next to the CRS office.

Tom Brodd of Madison is living in The Gambia, West Africa, as one of 16 participants in the Catholic Relief Services (CRS) Volunteer Program, which provides U.S. Catholics with opportunities to share their skills through CRS and to live in solidarity with their brothers and sisters around the world.