Just a word before we go...First Sunday of Advent...December 1, 2024

Our readings today, both from Jeremiah and from Luke, speak of a people needing a savior to help them survive the issues of their day.  Jeremiah locates redemption in the form of a “just shoot” rising from the house of David; Luke speaks of the coming of the “Son of Man.” Both, of course, are referring to the appearance of the Messiah, the Lord, Jesus the Christ. 

From our perspective, in 2024, we know that Christ has already come, as a baby in Bethlehem, for whose birth we now begin to prepare during Advent. We also know that Christ will appear again at the end of time, to judge the nations.  But what about those other times, those moments of grace that occur occasionally in our lives, noticed particularly when we are suffering from hardship or illness, or another form of personal disaster. Are not those moments also manifestations of the presence of the Holy One? 

I am reminded of a story from my mother’s twenty year journey through the disaster that is Alzheimer’s. Mom had to be hospitalized about ten years into her illness for an unrelated matter.  While I was visiting her one day, she told me of another visitor. She said, “I wish that priest would come to see me again.  He took me for a walk in the garden.”  I asked, “What garden?”  My mother, who was no longer able to walk, pointed to the window in her room, and said, “that garden out there.”  We were in Bridgeport Hospital; there was no garden outside her window.  She said that the garden was beautiful, and so peaceful.  And she felt calm and comforted by the words the visitor spoke to her.  At first I attributed my mother’s story to her illness; it took some time before I began to realize that it was a moment of grace, a visit from the One who would ultimately save her from her illness and bring her home.

Luke’s description of the end times, with images of oceans run amuck, nations in dismay and trouble in the heavens, is too familiar to us as we cope with raging storms, severe flooding and drought, and a divided nation and church.  Many of us are facing personal crises, whether of relationship, finances or health. How are we to find refuge?  Where can we turn?  The theologian John Shea addresses such circumstances in these words: “surviving and engaging collapse depends on knowing where to stand...on finding higher ground…” and in doing so, being determined not to be washed away by the concerns of the world, but to take care to become attuned to the ultimate reality.  He advises that we help one another through our respective problems, doing what we can as humans, while recognizing our dependence on God.  We must do our part to help actualize what it is we ask of God. 

In my mother’s case, we went forward for another ten years, doing what we could to attend to her needs; discouraged often, but reassured by her story of the encounter in the garden.

We prayed that she resided in that garden throughout the rest of her ordeal, confident that her “visitor” would be by her side through and beyond her illness.

Moments of  grace, manifestations of God, permeate our lives; we do not always recognize them for what or who they are, but they do occur, as beacons of hope and light. Hold on to them, for they will raise us to higher ground where we can see more clearly how to manage what we can, and let go of what we can’t.  And may God grant us the wisdom to know the difference.