Christmas in July. (Odds & Ends).Back in the Dark Ages, about 50 years ago, a really fine summer vacation Summer vacation (also called summer holidays or summer break) is a vacation in the summertime between school years in which students are off for 3 months, depending on the country and district. meant a two-week or longer stay in a remote cottage perched on the water's edge. Little lake towns with barely a population during the nine-month off-season swelled to epic proportions during the summer. Empty roads became hosts to traffic jams. Sparsely populated pop·u·late tr.v. pop·u·lat·ed, pop·u·lat·ing, pop·u·lates 1. To supply with inhabitants, as by colonization; people. 2. diners and supper clubs were transformed into "Reservations Only" places. The beer wagon made daily stops at taverns. Local shops, barely eking eke 1 tr.v. eked, ek·ing, ekes 1. To supplement with great effort. Used with out: eked out an income by working two jobs. 2. out an existence during the off-season, did brisk business selling T-shirts, salt and pepper shakers Salt and pepper shakers are condiment holders used in Western culture that are designed to allow food eaters to distribute edible salt and ground pepper.[1] This is a conjoined term for salt shaker and pepper shaker. , and other Made in Japan gewgaws embossed em·boss tr.v. em·bossed, em·boss·ing, em·boss·es 1. To mold or carve in relief: emboss a design on a coin. 2. with "Souvenir of Lake ..." Many a Catholic church in these innumerable resort towns of America also hustled during the summer influx of vacationers. Tiny parishes, whose churches usually seated only a few score of local parishioners, moved their Sunday Masses outdoors to accommodate the crowds of summer season. Some parishes built huge canopies keeping the hot sun and the occasional rainstorm off the summer people who attended Mass in these lake towns. Others, perhaps less pastorally inclined, let their summer charges sweat it out, unprotected from the elements, during their outdoor Masses. Some enterprising pastors saw more than souls in their summer congregations. These priests, not satisfied with loose change from the pockets of the summer parishioners, dreamed big: a Christmas-size collection in the heat of summer. These pastors inaugurated an annual "Christmas in July" Sunday and preached one rouser of a hellfire and money sermon (no scripture-based homily homily (hŏm`əlē), type of oral religious instruction delivered to a church congregation. In the patristic period through the Middle Ages the focus of the homily was on the explanation and application of texts read or sung during the back then). How could people refuse, affluent enough to vacation with spouse and kids, enjoying life, sleeping late, fishing, napping, eating out, surrounded by natural beauty? The summer folk, more often than not, dug deeper into their pockets and helped fill parish coffers and no doubt in some cases provided pastors with lengthy winter vacations on luxurious Caribbean islands. These rural preachers of the "Christmas in July" sermons knew urban rubes Rubes is a syndicated newspaper single panel cartoon created by Leigh Rubin in 1984. Leigh Rubin began making and distributing his own greeting cards in 1979 through his company Rubes. when they saw them! Some versions of this story--perhaps apocryphal--claim one pastor actually donned the gold vestments reserved for Christmas, said the Mass of Christmas Day, complete with Luke's account of the Nativity, and had the congregations sing, "O Come All Ye Faithful." No doubt there were many incarnations of "Christmas in July" in the resort parishes of the 1950s, and each one had its own particular charm. Did one overly dramatic pastor really place flowering poinsettias on the altar for the occasion? Did another actually set up the crib scene in the heat of the summer, or yet another pastor have special "Christmas in July" collection envelopes printed for this holy day? Christmas in July? Nowadays people no longer trot off to lake cabins for a few weeks' summer stay like they did a half century ago. But that's no reason not to be generous. In the midst Adv. 1. in the midst - the middle or central part or point; "in the midst of the forest"; "could he walk out in the midst of his piece?" midmost of our leisure season, when we take time to enjoy nature, life, and one another, it would be great to drop some money to a charity that only hears from us at Christmas time. Christmas in July? Give it a try. PETER GILMOUR (Pgilmou@wpo.it.luc.edu) teaches at the Institute of Pastoral Studies of Loyola University Chicago Beginnings and expansions Founded in 1870 as the St Ignatius College on Chicago's West Side. In 1908 the School of Law was established as the first of the professional programs. . |
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