Joyce’s Reviews > The Little Blue Book: Advent and Christmas Seasons 2025-2026: Reflections on the Sunday Gospels for Year A > Status Update

In the early church, midnight was not assigned as the precise time for the first Christmas mass. It was simply to be celebrated “during the night.” Later regulations said it was to be ad galli cantum (when the rooster crows), which was more toward 3 a.m. Spanish-speaking people still referred to midnight or early morning Christmas mass as the Misa de Gallo (mass of the rooster).

Life is like a tapestry.

It has a beautiful design, but if you look at the other side, it’s a mess. Threads are hanging out & all twisted up.

Sometimes I see life from the underside. Life can seem like such a mess.

Christmas cactus
- can live up to one hundred years
- often passed down from one generation to the next
- developed by French botanist (Charles Lemaire) as hybrid of Thanksgiving cactus & Easter cactus

Cougnou = special brioche-like bread* often baked @ Christmastime, popular in Belgium & other parts of Europe, formed of three dough balls (2 smaller @ each end + 1 larger one in middle) to resemble shape of swaddled baby Jesus, enjoyed with cup of hot chocolate

*ingredients = flour, sugar, butter, eggs, milk, yeast, raisins, or even chocolate chips

An occupational hazard of religion is to get lost in the details and miss the Spirit.

frequency of Jubilee years in Church has changed over time. first were celebrated every 100 years, then every 50 years, & now every 25 years. extraordinary jubilee year can also be added, such as Jubilee Year of Mercy in 2015.

word jubilee originates from Hebrew name for ram’s horn, “yobel” - sounded as part of ceremony to announce start of Jubilee year in Rome

In bold move @ the time, [A Charlie Brown Christmas] high point features Linus sharing announcement of Jesus’ birth by reciting verses from Gospel of Luke. Charles Schulz (teaching Sunday school @ the time) … is famously quoted as saying, “If we don’t [include Scripture in script], who will?”

Many are familiar with the … generosity of St. Nicholas, including the legend of how he secretly gave gold to three women who did not have a dowry and were in danger of becoming slaves. In fact, for that reason he is the patron saint of unmarried women.

Charles de Foucauld … lived out the Gospel in a way he hoped would lead people to ask: “If such is the servant, what must the Master be like?”

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Old Greek proverb: Well begun is half done.

Advent includes four Sundays. The first is determined by the Sunday that falls closest to the feast of St. Andrew, which is celebrated each year on November 30.