It’s almost time. Christmas will soon be here and many of us will struggle. Some of us have anticipatory grief, others are dealing with actual or delayed grief, some are simply depressed or at least ‘blue’. Some folks are lonely or missing family or just battle with the amount of joy over the holiday season. I struggle with both the grief aspects but also the contrast to the hatred and vitriol we display against the stark contrast of Frosty the Snowman! Yes, for me, the holidays are at times as much about hurt as joy. I think once you lose both your parents things are just different. This is probably why I spend so much time creating a beautiful Advent Liturgy as well as Blue Christmas Service every year. I don’t just craft liturgy for you, I selfishly develop it to help heal me, too. This year, if you have not noticed, we carved ‘Blue Christmas’ into every Advent Sunday. We took time to sit back, feel, cry, hope and believe together each tome we honored the Sundays of Advent. We have one more to go and then we hope and pray for a Christmas of love.
The word “advent” means an anticipation of the arrival of a person or an event. Advent is the season that reminds us of an arrival of something greater than ourselves and our problems. As a season in the Church, it is placed at the beginning of the Church year. It is the beginning of a new spiritual journey for each of us. We are reminded once again that the promise God made about our salvation has come. This promise is the true hope beyond any other hope we have. We build our traditions around this time to remind us of that great mystery of Christ’s coming for our salvation.
Some parishes use purple, but we have become accustomed to the color of blue. Saint Miriam uses Sarum Blue to distinguish the Season of Advent from Lent. Blue is sometimes used as a symbol of royalty. Some churches use Bright Blue, or Sarum like us, to symbolize the night sky, the anticipation of the impending announcement of the King’s coming, or to symbolize the waters of Genesis 1, the beginning of a new creation. Perhaps, in my brokenness, I find solace in the color often matching my mood. The Advent Wreath has become the focus and the three blue and one rose candle, each represent 1,000 years. Added together, the four candles symbolize the 4,000 years that humanity waited for the Savior. I find, in my pain, that it seems often I have waited an equal amount of time to heal.
God’s care and embrace are made manifest by often simple, selfless gifts and by His coming to us at the most opportune and perhaps unexpected moments. It is in these special moments that we are often made whole. Any earlier, these gifts would have been lost in the darkness of our grief; any later it could not have been undervalued or under appreciated. Because what will happen at Saint Miriam this Advent Season, will help heal us a bit more as we become a bit more whole again. No, I know that we will never be the same, but whatever is left, God will use for good. That I know and that I trust, because God’s timing is always impeccable.
St. Clare once said, “Let us pray to God together for each other for, by sharing each other’s burden of charity in this way; we shall easily fulfil the law of love taught by Christ.”
I pray we will; that we can.
Blessed Advent,
Monsignor +Jim