Advent: Season of Loss

Back when I was a parish priest, I said to our parish secretary more than once, "I hate Advent!"  And I did.  Not because it wasn't beautiful, and holy, and a peaceful preparation for Christmas.  Most of the time, it was all that.  But it was also more than that, and the part I truly dreaded was when parishioners would call or drop in with hard news to share.  Someone in the family was just diagnosed with something awful.  Someone's beloved pet had died.  Someone had just lost their job, or their housing, or their partner.  

Loss is never easy.  But deep personal losses at the time of year when everyone else is at least pretending to be full of cheer and goodwill?  That's the worst!  You walk around feeling as though your chest is just an open, gaping wound, and everyone around you can see how much pain you're in.  And then you realize that no one can, in fact, see anything of the sort, and you feel even more isolated and alone.  

What in the world could God be thinking, letting people suffer like this at the most wonderful time of the year?  I suppose we could think up an interesting theological explanation, something along the lines of God providing us a Savior to relieve that suffering... but I don't find that very helpful.

What seems more useful to me is to think about loss as a way of paring down, of confronting us with the truth that all that we have, or believe we have, will pass away.  Our Buddhist sisters and brothers call this the truth of impermanence.  In Christian terms, at the end all that will be left is me and God, in mutual loving gaze, with our wounds wide open to be kissed and healed.  

It probably doesn't help all that much in the moment, but it comforts me to think that God is present to my suffering in a caring way.  After all, in a very short time, that innocent Christmas Child will become the Suffering Servant on the Cross - God, too, will know the pain of loss.

It doesn't make me love Advent more, but it makes the hard news tolerable.  That, and remembering that after all of this is done, we will look toward Easter once again.  Blessings.