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we know the cheerful christmas carol, it is beginning to look a lot like christmas . you probably hear it in the store and on the radio since halloween. today we will change the lyrics and our song is, it is beginning to look a lot like out event. christmas is a beautiful destination but the path we take to get there is important and it is crucial. where are we going in such a hurry? if the answer is, i don't know i am following the crowds and checking sale prices. it may be time to slow down. our goal, our destination, our christmas means meeting god himself in the flesh. are we ready for that? are we prepared? and how we can prepare. we know the wonderful christmas poem that begins, was the night before christmas and all through the house . today we will change those lyrics and we will say, it was the month before christmas and all through the house the month before christmas is the season called advent . all through the house

and all through the school and church we can be preparing ourselves and our families for the deep meaning of christmas. advent is four . advent is 44 spiritual and educational weeks. our guest here today are two experienced catholic educators. who will help us to understand what we can do in home, in school and in the community in our hearts to make a great christmas. advent is the shopping season but a wise priest wrote, far more important than wrapping gifts in advent is the obligation to unwrap ourselves and our hearts to prepare to meet christ and to live life as he wants us to. we will take a brief break and after this, join us to discuss advent, our path to christmas.

hello and welcome back to 'mosaic'. i guess i two catholic educators. marie is the principal of saint hillary school in tiburon. she is a very experienced educator . six years the principle of the school. i'm sorry. you have been 12 years in catholic school administration and principal of the school and prior to that a public school teacher. marie is the mother of a young son. she has a ba and ma and working on her doctorate in educational leadership. and beyond her is marion and she is the principle of saint cecilia's grammar school in san francisco. she has been there

six years as principal and nearly 30 years as a teacher and is also an alumnus , alumni, i should say. she is a grown daughter who is a dr., i understand or a nurse. experienced educators and experienced family women and they will help us understand what advent is, what our preparation for christmases. someone close this advent puzzle to me the other day and said, in the catholic church, how does new year's come before christmas class >> ativan is the beginning of the liturgical year in the catholic church. we actually start , i could say happy new year on december 3rd because that is the first sunday of advent . and what happens as we go four weeks for advent and then there is 12 days of christmas . and then we go into ordinary time . and there is six weeks of ordinary time. which will then be followed by

the season of lent . which then leads us to the most holiest of weeks, with the tritium and with easter. and it ends with ordinary time again, until we hit advent next year in 2018. >> in my intro is adjusted we are rushing toward christmas and i think you agree but you say there is a season called advent that is the new year . if we treat it like the new year, there is a kind of impulse to renew our self discipline, look at our ultimate goals and that thing that goes with new year. is advent part of that? >> it is . a time for us to slow down in the busyness of the real world where as you said earlier, we are seeing christmas in the stores. but christmas does not start until the 25th of december. advent is our time to slow down and take some time to pray , to do

good deeds for other people and to really be family with each other and to do good things. >> i know you both have in your schools and parishes, really rich programs during advent in which people of all ages participate. advent is not new, it is an ancient celebration, ancient christian practice. >> advent has been going on since the fifth and sixth century. but i think what is happened in our world, it becomes about the money and shopping and decorations, when it is really not about that. it is about preparing for the birth of jesus, which happened 2017 years ago. we are not saying jesus will be born again, but it is the second coming. for us preparing our time and getting ready for our meeting with jesus . >> let's talk about a couple of

tools of adamant. the advent wreath i think is probably familiar to most people. i can show a couple of examples , if the camera can pick that up. the advent wreath is generally an evergreen kind of thing four candles in it. and you can tell us what the candles mean. and how they are used. i will slip this into the center of the shot. just to show everyone how simple it is, this is an ancient, two pieces of crossed wood that are the basins of my houses advent reef. you apply your evergreens to that and light your candles. can you explain this? >> if you notice the advent reef, if there was greenery, has three purple candles and a pink candle. the first week of advent this year starts on december 3rd, you would like the first purple candle and that represents hope . that there is hope in our world and

in this day and age do we need to keep that in our hearts, that there is hope . it is often called the profits candle. the following sunday you would not only light the first scandal, but you would also light the second purple candle and that represents peace . it is often called the angels candle. notice that is purple, kind of royalty. the third week we like the pink candle. the pink candle represents joy. it is often called the shepherd scandal. the shepherds are out in the field and gathering the sheep. the third week , great. there is joy. on the fourth sunday of advent light the third purple. we now have all four candles lit and fourth candle represents love and it is also called the bethlehem candle because christ was born

following the fourth candle. >> what we are talking about is a daily ritual that a family can do. in my parish church we have a giant reef and we like before mass but the family does is at the family dinner table every day . >> maybe after dinner or something they do before they go off in the morning. it is a wonderful family time to spend reading a scripture or taking the gospel from that day and reading it together as a family. >> spiritual practice of some kind. is another habit called the jessi tree. this is a photo of one of the samples. this is an excursion into the hebrew scriptures to know about christ ancestors in the history of salvation coming from that direction and this is also a daily thing that a family can do . hanging an ornament on this each day. >> the jessi tree takes from the father of king david. his name was jessi. he was anointed by the prophet to establish a

royal family and 1000 years later when jesus was born. a great activity that i know in many schools and we do this in our school , the children learn about the ancestors of jesus. juices is always represented by a star and the star would be at the top of the tree, just like your tree in your home has some kind of a star. but look at genesis and the key character , one of the key characters in genesis is the story of adam and eve. you would represent that story often with an apple and a snake in the children would draw the picture and write adam and eve on it and they would hang it on the tree. followed by the next people. cain and abel would be the next people in the bible. you go through genesis all the way through isaiah and you learn about the people in the old testament. the men and

women that came before jesus. >> and other family activity. let's take a brief break and we will learn about the next tool of advent. the advent calendar. thank you.

welcome back. we are talking about advent, the path to christmas with experienced christmas educators responsible for the spiritual upbringing of children from aged kindergarten up . mary, principal of saint hillary's grammar school in tiburon, i wanted you to explain the rich program that you have in your school and this is with two tools. what is the advent reef and the other is the jessi tree. i think we have something familiar to many people and that is the advent calendar. let me show a couple of interesting samples. people

have people advent calendar. a figure can put on the refrigerator and mark off and there is a circular advent calendar and you open a door each day. i saw some that were very ornate. this is a facsimile of a german cottage and you open a door each day of adamant and see a picture. -- each day of advent and you see a picture. this is very ornate. these things run from the most simple to the most complex. mary you brought one to show and share. >> what we have tried to do as mary was explaining some of the history and we have a tradition based faith but very often with the kids, trying to keep it practical and relatable to their everyday life and what we have done is in every classroom this is part of our christian leadership class put this together for each one of the classrooms. and when i was

younger, my mom had one of these with pieces of chocolate in them. what we tried to do is , each class can pull a piece out every day and inside is a little note about what they can do in honor of advent. for the second day of advent it is , let someone else go first in line today. the next day on the third day the class opens it up and say, offer your forgiveness to someone who is circular feelings today. each day they have something to honor the season of advent to show compassion and to live the messages that we are trying to teach through the preparation for christmas. >> that hangs in the classroom. and every day at a certain time they go through it and the children participate. that is wonderful. >> what we have tried to do through different activities, is unpack the story of jesus

his birth. the couple of other things. the other thing we have tried to do is , the catholic faith has a very long and rich history and with many traditions. but we need to make sure it is relatable to kids today. all we have done is on the and and 70 seen in the office, we will have qr codes and each kid has an ipad as part of their education and they can scan these as a class in their is a message to receive. bringing the catholic faith to them in a way they are used to. >> they are used to having a mobile device and that is part of your program. >> to put the catholic faith on the. someone pointed out that the internet is the most fantastic museum you could wish. every piece of art and

every piece of text. people need to be brought to take advantage of that. >> the other thing , family struggle to find a lot of time to be a family and the busyness of their days. this is especially true during christmas . what we have done is we created a family advent calendar that can be posted on the refrigerator and each day is a different way they can celebrate advent . on friday, december 16th, have a family movie night . gather some friends and neighbors and go christmas caroling. cut and paste pictures from christmas cards received into ornaments. ways of preparing and being together and doing activities that are simple and manageable

and to remind you to slow down. how many times we hear, they want to have a simple christmas and these are ways to remember to have a simple christmas. can i keep going? >> please. >> the other part is, advent and christmas is often about jesus but we can forget about mary and her role. one thing we encourage is the membrane teaching students that mary had a huge leap of faith and said yes to being the mother of jesus. joseph said yes to mary and jesus. something we do is an activity called bringing mary's yes to the classroom and watching kids and talking students through how they can say yes to god and jesus every day through their actions and what they do and say to each other in the world at large.

that is part of what we do through our ativan celebration. >> this is a text for teachers to use. >> a guide. >> very nice. your parish also has a rich history of things. various activities . before i let you get into that i think we will take our next break and you can tell me about your parish and your community. we will be back after this brief break and talk more about advent .

welcome back. we are talking about advent in preparation for christmas. a key figure in advent is mary, the mother of jesus, as was mentioned . i wanted to bring this up for my family's archives . this little lady, if you can see her, is mary. it is a statue made by a friend of my mother's. it happens to be the pregnant mary. there she is. i think this was something of a novelty at the time. i think renaissance painters painted the pregnant mary but i don't know the we often think of her in that way. this my mother would place at the center of our ativan wreath and she stood there, going through pregnancy and we watched her. there is also the tradition of the empty manger , where jesus has not arrived yet. the aspect of mary, her yes to god is of great interest and i understand there is a lot of

advent functions she is involved in. at saint cecelia, you have a rich program of activities. >> there are many different feasts. we have the feast of saint nicholas. who is the predecessor of the modern-day santa. one of the traditions that we have adopted is on december 6th, if it falls on a weekend we do it on the friday before, every person in the school leaves out one of their shoes, right or left foot and some helpers come in and put a little treat in their shoes and we hear reindeer horns and we hear bells and all of the

sudden it gets quiet and the kids go outside the classroom door and inside their shoe they have treats to celebrate saint nicholas. on that note, our young families in the parish, it is a group of families where they have children five years or younger, we have a saint nicholas advent party. a little christmas party. we do that. saint nicholas comes and each child is asked to bring a gift to the event. as a child brings up the gift for another child and puts it under the tree, saint nicholas gives them a little token, maybe a stuffed animal or a little thing . you have given a gift and saint nicholas will give you something . and we have a big feast in the families have time for community. we also to an advent mass . rather than a christmas pageant it is a focus on the signs and symbols

of advent or the people of advent. students in the primary grades, k through three are the actors for this project and we do the mass usually around the second week of advent . on sunday they do it for the parish. what is really wonderful is our men's club provides a pancake breakfast for everybody in the parish, free of charge. probably have 1000 to 1200 people come to the pavilion and celebrate advent as a community. it is wonderful. and as part of that students participate in the toys for tots program that the firefighters have. because there are so many families ago without. our students in grade k-6 participate by bringing in and unwrapped toy or puzzle for those kids . but seventh

and eighth graders actually help out our parish and our parish has a giving tree . 900 ornaments on it. and the seventh and eighth grade, 140 kids in a seventh and eighth grade, they each take an ornament off of that tree the first week of advent and they pray for that person, who is listed on that ornament and they bring a gift wrapped to put under the tree , that then is given and the parents take the gifts and deliver them to the children . is a really wonderful time of giving. >> that is wonderful. and these items are also about service, taking care of others and giving gifts. we are so consumed with getting, i think and children learn that because they want things. but this countervailing teaching that advent is a season of preparing for charity and practicing charity is great .

>> part of our job is to be guides for students that are on a faith journey and teaching them the gospel message. they are very egocentric . development elite that is how they are that they are dealing with. they think it is all about me. part of what we do through advent is to encourage habits of giving to others and show compassion . as we and packages story of jesus coming, we hopefully encourage the habits of giving instead of receiving. >> that is wonderful. learning and understanding the bible and deepening , as a hear from you, deepening family ties. you are both aware of the fractured,

modern , hectic family and how it has defined its center and it may not be at the dinner table anymore but it could be spiritual practices that make a family a little domestic church. >> six years ago when i was preparing to adopt my son i had to go to family classes. to get certified as a foster parent within the state. one of the questions they ask is, the that the traditions within your family that someone would know , makes you part of the family. it makes you really reflect on and a lot of the traditions i came up with when i reflected on that question, came back to traditions within the catholic faith and that is what we are creating for kids and encouraging in our families. >> we are just out of time . thank you very much for watching 'mosaic' on advent .

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