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# The Weekend Eudemon
- URL: https://thedailyeudemon.com/5213/
- Published: 2006-12-02T12:04:35.000Z
- Updated: 2006-12-02T12:04:35.000Z
- Author: Eric Scheske
- Tags: Holidays, #wpChunk

A nice day. The storm has passed (actually, my corner in southern Michigan barely got nicked), and I have little to do today, except deal with the Seven, two of whom slept with me last night (Meg and Max--5 and 3) and trailed me to my study this morning. I've given them licorice and instructed them to play quietly. We'll see if I can finish this quickly.

It's the last day of ordinary time. Advent starts tomorrow. It's a penitential season, though I'm not entirely clear on this. It's not as penitential as Lent, and the OSV *Catholic Encyclopedia* says it's "a period of devout and joyful expectation." Penitential and joyous? On first glance, it strikes me as a paradoxical. Am I also supposed to be soberly drunk? But I can think of at least seven episodes in my life that were somber yet joy-awaiting: my wife's pregnancies. We were somber at the possibility that something could go wrong, she was somber with the gravity-intense struggles of last month, I was somber at her girth. But we were joyously expectant. It wasn't a time for parties, but it was a time for happiness. Maybe that's what the Advent season is supposed to be like. Given the event we're waiting to celebrate, the comparison seems apt.

We're kicking off Advent with a decidedly unpenitential act tonight: decorating the Christmas tree. It's a candy-filled and fun occasion. We often have a focus problem ("Dang it! Keep decorating before I shove your face in the needles!"), but other than that, I look forward to it.

[Rich Leonardi has printed a great quote from Mencken about the RCC and its Mass](http://richleonardi.blogspot.com/2006/11/go-back-to-bach.html?ref=thedailyeudemon.com). Mencken was too great to be an atheist, but he was. Yet even an atheist could see the greatness that was the old Latin Mass. I gotta believe he'd scoff at our hand-holding Glory and Praise liturgy today.

Well, there are now three little hyenas heckling at me. I gotta run. Enjoy the coming week.