going against the church.

Adventkranz. A candle is lit every Sunday leading up to Christmas.

For the first time, I can safely say, I didn't have a commercial Christmas, I had a truly Catholic one that started 4 weeks before, had a nice Christmas eve dinner, went to midnight mass. The next day, there was fish for lunch.

It was one where it was not defined by unavoidable presents but by the undeniable presence of something bigger. Usually, the greater the need, the bigger the presence.

Maybe the Church should rethink it's approach to the religious calendar. Instead of a calendar marked by Christmas, Easter, Ephiphany, whose significance is hardly personal, I think the Church should encourage everyone to have their own personal religious calendar. One where we record the shit-in-the-pants moments, the times when we feel like we cheated death, the days where we find ourselves talking to the Being a lot. I am sure when we total up the days in a year when they happened, it will outnumber the existing religious holidays marked. And be all the more significant.

Maybe then, can we see how much we have needed it in reality rather than claim how little it was needed.

Maybe then, instead of turning our backs on religion, we will realise how much it has saved our arses.