The mild and amusing distraction only lasted a few weeks. I presumed the band, having finished football season after the Ontario championship on Nov. 9, was practising for its remaining semester events. That was confirmed when the Thursday before Kingston’s Santa Claus parade we could hear them rehearsing Christmas music. Precisely at the moment of the elevation after the consecration, as I held up the Sacred Host for the silent adoration of the students, I could hear the Queen’s Bands playing “Adeste Fidelis — O Come All Ye Faithful.” And the part they were playing at that very moment? I heard the strains of the “venite adoremus, venite adoremus, venite adoremus Dominum — come let us adore Him … Christ the Lord.”

The Queen’s Bands were rehearsing for the Santa Claus parade. That’s commercial, secular Christmas, sponsored by downtown businesses. Come let us go shopping. The jolly old elf at the back of it all is something of a smoke wreath to disguise what is otherwise a commercial event. The local Knights of Columbus wisely put a float in the parade reminding revelers to “keep Christ in Christmas.” Wise, because it is needed at the parade. And I have a lot of affection for our Queen’s students. I would guess that many of those in the bands could only be tenuously included among the fidelis which are being commanded to be present — adeste! — in Bethlehem.