Do you write Christmas cards to your loved ones? This Advent, join seminarians Dylan and Gabriel as they help us get ready for the joy of Christmas, a time that brings everyone together as one family in Christ. This week, they are decorating Christmas cards and share three saints they would each love to write to, reminding us that the saints are part of our extended spiritual family encouraging us on the way to holiness. If you could send a Christmas card to a saint, who would you choose?
Transcript
Hi guys, welcome back. This is week three of our little Advent series. I’m Gabriel, I’m Dylan. And it’s a pleasure to see you all again. You are joining us for another activity. What do we have Dylan? Today we’re going to be writing cards to some of our family members and talking about some saints. So, happy third week of Advent. We’re fifth year seminarians. So, let’s see how good we are at putting these cards together, it’s the first time we’ve ever done this, is that right, Gabriel? Yeah, it is. Let’s go. Let’s go! Although it’s my first time making a card, I have written a lot of Christmas cards. You write Christmas cards, do you? I do. It used to be a family thing, that I would write the cards. As you can tell, my handwriting is not at the point where I should ever be writing cards. You get a very basic card from me with Merry Christmas and my name at the bottom of it. I don’t believe in just giving a card for the sake of one and then the person having to chuck it out. So, if I give you a card, I expect you to keep it. So, we’re both have never done this before, so we’re both sort of figuring it out. So, I’ve gone with the three wise men. Oh, very good. Hey, whoa, where did you find the other two wise men before? I thought it was Mary and Joseph. Oh, no, that’s that one. Never mind, false alarm. I’ve gone three wise men, and you’ve gone with the Holy Family. I’ve gone, yeah, they’re in the stable. I love how it’s, if you can see that, it like it pops out a little. That’s very cool. I like that. That’s very cool, people are very clever with the cards. Very clever. We’re writing Christmas cards to people in our family right now. But Gabriel, if you could write say three Christmas cards to three different saints, who do you think you’d write to? So it would be to Eulalia of Mérida. Who is a saint that I’ve sort of journeyed with for quite a while, Mérida as in being from Spain and she was thirteen I believe at the time and martyred for the faith and really brutally. And I just was captivated by that as a kid by her story, by her witness. So I think she deserves a Christmas card. Another one I think would be pretty cool to write to would be maybe one of the wise men because growing up I used to love the carol We Three Kings. I absolutely, oh man, whenever that played, I was jamming out. That is a good Christmas carol. It’s an absolute banger. So I would have to write to one of the wise men. Who would I put it down to? Feel like Casper has the cool name. Yeah, he always comes first, doesn’t he? He does come first. And it reminds me of Casper the friendly ghost. So I’d write one to Casper. Are the three that you have in mind? I would write one of Saint Boniface. Saint Boniface cut down a pagan tree that they were worshiping, which is why we have Christmas trees. So, that’s sort of a tradition. I’d write to him and be like, “Hey, man, thanks for doing that, it’s all turned out really well. We have got Christmas trees now.” So, I reckon he would appreciate, you know, knowing that what he did resonated so much. Who else you got? There’s so many quite good ones but someone like Thomas Beckett, whose feast is just after Christmas. Okay. Okay. He’s sort of like the kid whose birthday is near Christmas and he never gets any presents because you know, mum always gives him all the presents on Christmas day for both. So poor Thomas Beckett nobody, you know or Saint Stephen or someone like their feast gets overshadowed by Christmas. So I’d be like, “don’t worry we haven’t forgotten you. They made quite a good movie about you back in the sixties, so”. That’s his consolation? Yeah. Yeah. Saint Stephen because pretty much immediately following Christmas we celebrate this feast day of this protomartyr, like this guy who has given up everything, his whole life, for this message that begins on this Christmas day. Which we celebrate and because, you know, for our Archdiocese I’d like to give him that acknowledgement I’ll say, “you know what buddy, thank you for your intercession for this Archdiocese. We’re still doing well, keep praying for us, keep us on track. Bless our new Archbishop.” I think Saint Stephen deserves one. While you’re about to say your third. I may have accidentally done it upside down. So, your third, sorry. Saint Robert Bellarmine, who I’ve been annoying you with, I’ve annoyed Gabriel with. This guy and Robert Bellarmine, oh man. For six years, I have been mentioning Robert Bellarmine and annoying everyone I ever lived with. Theologian from the sixteenth century. And I’d write him a Christmas card because I’ve enjoyed his writing, but also because I’ve met him. We met him in Rome at his tomb there. He had a big influence in my journey back to Catholicism when I was away for a little bit. Right, right. So I would definitely write a little letter, a little Christmas card to him. That’s sweet, you can, you know, sort of give him that thanks. Despite the centuries difference, his influence is still there, especially in your life. That’s pretty epic. Yeah. You know, there’s something about the saints we’ve chosen, we’ve talked a bit these past few weeks about family. Christmas is time for gathering as a family. Advent is preparing us for the celebration, bringing everyone together. The saints are our extended family. They are, yep. Yeah. Well, this is my finished product. This is my Christmas card, my double sided Christmas card. On the one side, we have the beautiful nativity scene. You can see beautiful glittery Jesus there, my favorite part of the card. And then on the back, Dylan, I have, the three themselves. The three of them. The three themselves journeying, which is what this season is all about. Very good, I picked up on the journeying theme. So, I’ve got my Christmas card here of the three wise men going towards Jesus, just like we are in Advent. And I think it’s a good reminder, especially since we’re going to give these to the people before Christmas Day, that we’re still moving towards it. And we really thank you to the ladies who helped us with this, we had a craft group help cut out the stuff. It was really, really nice to do these. So, I think my grandparents are going to have a nice little surprise this Christmas. Oh, beautiful. They’re going to get a nice little handmade card. Nice, nice. And yep, this will go to my one of my Aunty’s in India. So, why don’t you at home do some advent cards this advent? Get them out there, it’s always nice to get a little Christmas card in the mail. Absolutely. Most of the things we get in the mail are bills or things we bought ourselves. So, it’s really nice to get, you know, something nice from family, you know, and you can put them around your house as little decorations. We hope you’ve enjoyed that, we’ll see you next time for the fourth week of Advent. Thanks guys, God bless.