Beacons of Hope

It’s hard to write a blog after a horrible crime is committed.  Twenty-six people getting massacred, most of them little children, has cast a pall over our nation.  Ironically, the 3rd Sunday of Advent which we just celebrated is called Rejoice Sunday.  The reading from Philippians is especially appropriate to be read on this day:  

“Rejoice in the Lord always; I shall say it again, Rejoice!  Your kindness should be known to all.  The Lord is near.  Have no anxiety at all, but in everything with prayer and petition and thanksgiving, make your requests known to God.  Then the peace of God which surpasses all understanding will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.”

It was pretty hard to feel like rejoicing anywhere after learning what transpired in an elementary school in Connecticut on Friday.  There are no good answers to any questions we might have about why this happens - especially this one - how could God let this happen?  or where was God in all of this?

I do believe that what helps us ‘see’ God’s presence in all of this is when a father of a 6 year old girl who was killed can say, “I’m not angry...I’m sad.”  

...or when people gather to pray at Vigil services or make-shift shrines on the lawn of the local Catholic church.  

...or when prayers come in from children in Pakistan who can sympathize with the pain.

We have a custom of lighting a star on our water tower beginning the first Sunday of Advent until Epiphany.  As one of our local cooks said to a sister once, “ You sisters are that star to us.  You are a beacon of hope and goodness.”

I wandered out to look at that star this evening.  You can see it from the highway 3-4 miles away.  The ‘real’ stars were overhead in bright array.  I’m going to use an old cliche here but during the winter in Clyde, Missouri the stars are so bright you can reach out and touch them.  A small group of five of us ventured out last Thursday night to view the meteor shower from the top of our hill.  It was freezing cold but it was worth a few numb fingers to catch a glimpse of their beauty.    It is a beauty that is very short lived so one must be alert.  But many of them elicited 'oohs' and 'ahhs.'  Things that are most fragile are the most beautiful because we know they won’t last.  

It has to be dark for us to see the beauty of the stars.  Too much light hides the beauty during the day.   

The only way to survive the darkness in our lives is to be beacons of hope to each other.  And that is where God will make himself known.  

Advent is not about the shopping days left

I love the season of Advent.   I have come to appreciate and understand it more since I entered the monastery 19 years ago.   Before that, I was aware the month before Christmas was called Advent but I really didn’t pay much attention to it.  There was some thing called a Jesse Tree in church (a dead tree branch with what I couldn’t tell - hanging on it)...maybe an Advent wreath...but  Advent was more about the shopping days left until Christmas instead of anticipating the Messiah.  Plus you could watch a 24 hour marathon of “It’s a Wonderful Life” or “The Christmas Story” on TNT on what is now known as Black Friday.  

That all changed after I became a postulant.  The first adjustment I had to get used to is NO decorating for Christmas before Dec. 17th.  That was the monastic way of trying to keep Advent as Advent.  I was used to a world of 24 hour Christmas music; putting up the tree shortly after Thanksgiving (so you could enjoy it longer - somehow it doesn’t occur to people to keep the tree up longer AFTER Christmas for that same reason); hanging lights all over the house; shopping for presents...it seemed a little scrooge-like to not anticipate Christmas like the secular world I was used to.  So,  over the years I would put up little things in the privacy of my bedroom where no one would see.  I would have my little nativity set on the top of my bookshelf by Dec. 6th.   Sometimes I would even turn on the lights in my window before the specified day to which novices (whom I should have been setting a better example for)...would shake their heads.  

It was when I began to experience Advent as a liturgical season that I grew to love it for its own sake.  I fell in love with the daily readings at Mass, especially the ones from Isaiah which are so prevalent and speak of deserts blooming and the blind seeing and the lame leaping. 

As a postulant I discovered a book that I have since gone back to many times called “The Reed of God” by Caryll Houselander.  She describes Advent as “the season of the secret - the secret of the growth of Christ - of Divine Love growing in silence...if we truly have given our humanity to be changed into Christ, (that’s what I thought I was doing by entering a monastery) it is essential to us that we do not disturb this time of growth.  It is a time of darkness, of faith.  We shall not see Christ’s radiance in our lives, yet; it is still hidden in our darkness.  Nevertheless, we must believe that He is growing in our lives and believe it so firmly that we cannot help relating everything, literally everything, to this incredible reality...”

“...We are too impatient, a seed contains all the life and loveliness of the flower but it contains it in a little hard black pip of a thing which even the glorious sun will not enliven unless it is buried under the earth.  There must be a period of gestation before anything can flower.”

I know in my own life I want to go straight to flowering.  Skip the gestation or keep it short!  Advent reminds me every year that is not how the Holy Spirit works. 

Rosa knocks on the chapel door during
the ritual for entering postulants

We had the happy event of having Rosa Cruz enter the postulancy on December 2nd, the first Sunday of Advent.  A fitting time to begin religious life, I think.  Advent marks the beginning of the new Church Year and the postulancy a beginning in monastic life.  Both events are filled with expectancy, eagerness, and the joyful hope that God's promises to us will be fulfilled.

And by the way...I am getting much better about waiting until Dec. 17th to decorate for Christmas, even in the privacy of my own bedroom, over the past 19 years!