Bacon and the Glorious Subterfuge of Christmas

After Mass yesterday, which inaugurated the First Sunday of Advent, we took the family (and me dear ole' Da who's visiting from Maine) to a fairly new breakfast venue in town called The Bacon Press. They had an incredible array of bacon themed and bacon saturated fare, and needless to say, I felt as if I were still participating in the afterglow of the Heavenly Banquet, yeah, as if the source of all grace flowing from the altar at St. Patrick's had indeed perchance sent a little trickle of glory into said establishment. If anyone is scandalized by what I just wrote I apolo... no, you have not yet tasted bacon. 

I believe the Jews were kept from eating pork not because it was evil, but lo, because they could not yet withstand the wonder of bacon until the Messianic age, when bacon's light would be set properly in its place as a secondary good, i.e. "You have a greater than bacon here." - Matthew 12:41b

During breakfast, as I was enjoying some pancake-battered, deep-fried bacon with my beautiful wife and children, and me dear ole' Da who's visiting from Maine, himself so wrapt in the glory of bacon that he rose from table and shared the idea with the general manager that "instead of bagels you could have 'bacels' which would be bagels with bacon in them", and as if it could get any better than all of this, Johnny Mathis soared through the restaurant radio singing "O Come Let Us Adore Him." Here's a sampling of the lyrics that I'm sure you've all been hearing in your local neighborhood Walmart, Targét, CVS, Tim Horton's, etc.

O come all ye faithful 
Joyful and triumphant...
Come and behold Him 
Born the King of angels
O come let us adore Him

O come let us adore Him

O come let us adore Him
Christ the Lord

I turned to Rebecca and had a 23 second adult conversation (which was long for us because we have three kids under 7 years old, were in a restaurant, and there was the added distraction of bacon). "How crazy is it that even in the midst of our secular culture, in our local neighborhood Walmart, Targét, CVS, Tim Horton's, and The Bacon Press, we're listening to Johnny Mathis soaring through the restaurant radio singing "O Come Let Us Adore Him"?

Ah, the Glorious Subterfuge of Christmas. We can run but we cannot hide. He comes. Even into Walmart, Targét, CVS, Tim Horton's, and The Bacon Press. He comes in a thousand ways, down a million little roads bringing His Life and Love through any and every crack in the culture we leave open. So let's not feel manipulated by the Christmas music playing in the KMart the day after Halloween, but rejoice! Jesus is in the Kmart! The Heavenly Bread lies in the tabernacle and the Heavenly Banquet is offered in our churches but in a certain sense the invitation is also in our stores, on car radios, workplaces, bus stations, everywhere at Christmas time! So come let us adore Him. 

And that's the glorious subterfuge of bacon.