The Dominus Project

Entering into Advent

Friends, we wanted to get out our December newsletter as soon as possible because it’s Advent, a liturgical season the Church gives us that holds so many treasures for the culture of faith in our homes. In this newsletter, we’ll cover some easy ways to incorporate Advent into your family’s life, mention an important aspect of successfully handing on the faith in the home, and tackle the great “Should we do Santa in our house?” debate. We’ve also got a reminder about a fun evening for parents and caregivers coming in January. So, read on for more!

Jesus is Coming

If you’ve never thought of adding Advent traditions to your family’s daily life, or if you were planning on doing so but never got around to it, it’s not too late! We, at The Dominus Project, have four easy recommendations to help you get started with your liturgical living of this beautiful season. First up is the Advent Wreath. A small wreath, three purple candles, and one pink candle are really all you need to create one, though you could easily use the candles alone if necessary (in our home, we’ve even wrapped colored construction paper around white candles when we didn’t want to buy new colored ones). Each candle represents a week of the four-week Advent season that precedes Christmas. So you light a purple candle the first week, an additional purple candle the second week, the pink candle with the preceding two purple ones the third week, and all four in the final week. Light the appropriate candles at dinner time or during family prayer. In our house, we clean up dinner and then sit back down at the table, dim the lights, light the candles, and pray night prayer together from the Liturgy of the Hours. The warm glow and the flickering lights add a special atmosphere to our prayer as we await the coming of the Light of the World. For more on Advent wreaths, check out this write-up by the folks at the Hallow App.

A second recommendation is to do a Jesse Tree. This is a way to meditate on the Scriptures that speak of Jesus’ family tree, as a way of preparing for his birth. Our Sunday Visitor has a great article on this tradition. In our family, we have paper ornaments that we found online and printed. Our boys colored them, and they take turns each day of Advent adding a new ornament to a little plastic pine tree I picked up in a post-Christmas sale one year. We read the Bible story related to the picture on the ornament, talk about interesting or challenging things that came up in the reading, and then the ornament is hung. Other families have their children create the ornaments from scratch, and there are really helpful resources like this one from the Augustine Institute/FORMED that give quick reflections on each day.

While the first two recommendations are things you can do with your family, these last two are aimed really at you, the parents and caregivers, and your own walk with the Lord. Our third recommendation is easy to say but hard to do: say no to things in your life that keep you from saying YES to spending quiet time with the Lord. Advent is a busy season for families, and the temptation can be strong to do every good thing that presents itself, from outings to sports to caroling to parties to cookie decorating. But Jesus came to us not with great fanfare but in silence. Ask the Lord to show you what to do and what to say no to, so your family can spend more time just being with Him and each other instead of doing, doing, doing.

Fourth and finally, our stellar project coordinators, Jennifer and Ansleigh, recommend this St. Andrew prayer tradition as a way to keep your mind and heart turned to the Nativity. Print it out and put it around your home as a reminder throughout the season.

Is this Lame?

A quick note for those of us who might worry that, by starting a new tradition, our kids might think “This is so lame” or ask “Why are we doing this when we’ve never done it before?” I’ll talk more about this in a future newsletter, but sociological research has shown that there is a difference between parents who simply want their kids to “do this thing” and those who witness to its importance in their own lives—a difference that matters when it comes to how effective we are at passing on the faith. So, if you’re thinking of taking up a new tradition, one of the most important things you can do is explain to your family why it matters to you. But, be careful—it’s easy, when trying to offer your personal witness, to slip into an inadvertent “do this” attitude: “This matters to me because I want you to… (know your faith more, care about Christmas, spend more time thinking about God than being on your phone, etc.).” No, an authentic witness is one where you share what your relationship with God is really like and say why this tradition means something to you personally. For example, it could be: “Ever since Grand Dad died, I’ve been feeling like I need to grow closer to Jesus. He really is the most important thing to me, but I’ve been feeling a little distant from Him. So I thought to myself, maybe as we prepare for Christmas this year, doing this together will help me and give us a chance to talk about God together. Will you help me?” Chances are, your personal witness will go a lot farther than simply trying something and hoping everyone will come along.

The Great Santa Debate

I know I’m walking on thin ice here, but I also know it can be ho-ho-horrifying trying to navigate what to do when one family does the Santa thing and another doesn’t, and the kids start asking each other things like, “What are you asking Santa for!?!?”

On the one hand, you’ve got the Doing-Santa-is-lying-to-your-kids position, like this old post from Aquinas Pinter Matt Fradd. On the other hand, you have posts like this one from Word on Fire editor, Brandon Vogt, bringing in the likes of Chesterton to defend Santa festivities in the home. Believe it or not, there’s actually a third way, a la Catholic All Year mom, Kendra Tierney. In the Pedraza house, we’re a “third way” kind of family, though not necessarily like the Tierneys. We talk about the real St. Nicholas, but we also wax about how fun it is to use our imaginations the way many people do, thinking of a jolly, plump man delivering presents to every kid in one night. Or, as my children like to bring up, if he crosses the international date line, maybe that’s two nights…

In any case, we at The Dominus Project wish you a Blessed Advent and a Merry Christmas. Here’s a lovely song by the Vigil Project to help you prepare for the coming of our Savior.

Come Lord Jesus!

It Takes Practice

Looking for simple practices to help build the culture of the domestic church in your home during Advent? As mentioned above, The Dominus Project recommends 1) an Advent Wreath for family dinner and prayer, 2) the Jesse Tree tradition, 3) discerning how to reclaim quiet and time being with the Lord and your family, and 4) the St. Andrew Christmas prayer.