Second Sunday of Advent

12/6, Second Sunday of Advent

O people of Sion, behold,

the Lord will come to save the nations,

and the Lord will make the glory of his voice heard

in the joy of your heart.

Do we have joy in our heart?  Is it heard when we sing the Gloria, Hosanna, or any other song to God?  This is, I believe, one of the great sins of bad liturgy.  It pains the ears when a congregation gives no effort to the songs of the Mass.  It should be reflecting the Heavenly Liturgy!  Sing out and mean it!  On a larger scale, joy should infuse everything we do.  I know I am not the best at showing it, but that, as my dad says, is no excuse.  Let us all share the joy the Lord has given us in all that we do, especially during this Advent season as we prepare for the coming of the Lord.

Bond...James Bond

Until recently I was not a huge fan of James Bond.  The first Bond movie I watched (in the theater) was Tomorrow Never Dies.  I saw most of those that came after it (except, thankfully, Die Another Day, in the theater).  Finally about four years ago I finally decided to watch all the movies in a month long marathon.  There was a bit of overload, particularly in the middle, but I definitely liked a good deal of the movies.  Now that I have finally seen Spectre, I wanted to finalize my list of Bond movies.  I think most of them fall into pretty strong categories, so that's how I'll rank them.  But first, the definitive rank of Bond himself.

1.  Sean Connery (the original and still the ultimate)

2.  Timothy Dalton (I feel most of the hate for him is because people weren't ready for his take.  In many ways he ways Daniel Craig before Craig.)

3.  Daniel Craig (I have problems with many of his movies, but still I like him as the character)

4.  Pierce Brosnan (much better than the scripts he had to work with)

5.  George Lazenby (not a great actor)

6.  Roger Moore (cannot stand him, way too comedic)

Aces

1.  From Russia with Love  (as close to perfect Bond as possible)

2.  Casino Royale

3.  Goldfinger

4.  On Her Majesty's Secret Service  (the surprise of the series for me)

Solid

5.  GoldenEye

6.  License to Kill

7.  Spectre  (lots of great action scenes, a decent story)

8.  The Living Daylights

9.  Tomorrow Never Dies  (probably higher on my list than most people because it was my first)

10.  Thunderball

Good

11.  You Only Live Twice

12.  Skyfall  (can't get past the overly contrived villain plan)

13.  The Spy Who Loved Me

Not Terrible

14.  Dr. No

15.  The World Is Not Enough

16.  Never Say Never Again

17.  Diamonds Are Forever

No Thanks

18.  Quantum of Solace

19.  Roger Moore

20.  Die Another Day  (so bad I could not finish it)

Bond Songs

1.  Goldfinger (Shirley Bassey)

2.  You Know My Name (Chris Cornell, Casino Royale)

3.  You Only Live Twice (Nancy Sinatra

4.  Live and Let Die (Paul McCartney & Wings)

5.  Nobody Does It Better (Carly Simon, The Spy Who Loved Me)

6.  For Your Eyes Only (Sheena Easton)

7.  Another Way To Die (Jack White & Alicia Keys, Quantum of Solace)

8.  Mr. Kiss Kiss Bang Bang (Dionne Warwick, Thunderball)

9.  If You Asked Me To (Patti LaBelle, License to Kill)

10.  Diamonds Are Forever (Shirley Bassey)

11.  Surrender (k.d. lang, Tomorrow Never Dies)

12.  Skyfall (Adele)

13.  GoldenEye (Tina Turner)

14.  The World Is Not Enough (Garbage)

15.  Thunderball (Tom Jones)

16.  All Time High (Rita Coolidge, Octopussy)

17.  License to Kill (Gladys Knight)

18.  Moonraker (Shirley Bassey)

19.  If There Was A Man (The Pretenders, The Living Daylights)

20.  Tomorrow Never Dies (Sheryl Crow)

21.  The Man With The Golden Gun (Lulu)

22.  We Have All The Time In The World (Louis Armstrong, On Her Majesty's Secret Service)

23.  Die Another Day (Madonna)

24.  The Living Daylights (a-ha)

25.  From Russia With Love (Matt Monro)

26.  A View To A Kill (Duran Duran)

27.  Where Has Everybody Gone? (The Pretenders, The Living Daylights)

28.  The Experience of Love (Eric Serra, GoldenEye)

29.  Writing's On The Wall (Sam Smith, Spectre)

Bond Composers

1.  John Barry

2.  David Arnold

3.  Thomas Newman

4.  Michael Kamen

5.  Bill Conti

6.  Monty Norman

7.  Eric Serra

8.  Marvin Hamlisch

9.  George Martin

First Saturday of Advent

12/5, First Saturday of Advent

Come and show us your face, O Lord,

who are seated upon the Cherubim, and we will be saved.

Why do we eagerly await the coming of the Lord?  Because only through Him can we be saved.  There is no other path.  That is not to say that good people of other faiths cannot make their way to heaven, only that the only way to reach heaven is through the Lord.  That might sound contradictory, but only if we only think of things on the human, present level.  There is always that hope for recognition at the very end.  That does not excuse us, now, from doing everything we can to reach out to God so that He might be revealed to us now for our eternal salvation.  And so we wait.

First Friday of Advent

12/4, First Friday of Advent

Behold, the Lord will come

descending with splendor to visit his people with peace,

and he will bestow on them eternal life.

Right here in three sentences we have the true importance of Advent and Christmas.  We are waiting for Christ's coming.  Both His first coming on Christmas, and His second coming.  But why is Christmas really important?  Being born is not something in itself especially important.  By that I mean all humans (who do not die before birth) are born.  What is truly important is His death.  He died to grant us eternal life.  So while we prepare to celebrate the Birth of Jesus, we should have at least a small remembrance that we are celebrating the Birth of He Who Saves Us So That We May Have Eternal Life.

Memorial of Francis Xavier

12/3, First Thursday of Advent/Memorial of St. Francis Xavier

I will praise you Lord, among the nations;

I will tell of your name to my kin.

One of the most important things we can do as Christians is evangelize.  That's a word that usually makes me think suspicious things because often it is done incorrectly.  This antiphon sums up where evangelization should start: at home.  Are we sharing the Gospel with our families?  Are we passing down the Good News to our children?  I am happy to say that my oldest nephew just had his first Confession and will soon have his first Holy Communion.  He has been enthusiastic about it, which makes me especially happy.  The other nieces and nephew are not too far behind.  It is our duty to spread Christianity, but it has to start with our families, and what better time than Advent as we all anticipate the coming of our Lord?

First Wednesday of Advent

12/2, First Wednesday of Advent

The Lord will come and he will not delay.

He will illumine what is hidden in darkness

and reveal himself to all the nations.

I cannot help but think of sin and Confession.  We all try to hide our sins.  We try to bury them in darkness.  Confession helps us to shed a light on them so we can deal with them.  And even if we do not want to, when it is our time to be judged, Christ will illumine those that have been hidden in darkness.  The answer is, first, to avoid sin as much as possible.  But since we are human and thus imperfect, the second answer is frequent Confession.  Then, with God's grace, the light will not burn as hot when we are called before the Lord.

First Tuesday of Advent

12/1, First Tuesday of Advent

Behold, the Lord will come, and all his holy ones with him;

and on that day there will be a great light.

As I was reflecting on this I kept coming back to the word "light."  It is an important concept throughout Christian life and liturgy.  In particular I was thinking of the "ideal" of a church, at least from the Gothic perspective.  The church entrance (narthex) was intentionally dark and enclosed.  You would then walk into the body of the church (nave) which was wide open and bright as possible.  This was one of the reasons for the abundance of stained glass windows.  The point was the overwhelming symbolism of walking from the darkness of everyday life into the light of the Lord.  Let us remember that the Mass is always there to provide light to what can often be a difficult life.