The Advent Gift

Something happened to us this Advent. We didn’t ask for it. We didn’t prepare for it. We didn’t know it was coming until right before it came. Snow fell. Snow fell softly and silently. Snow fell in blankets of white, clean and fresh, bright under a quarter-moon sky. It fell on a house where a man’s intelligence is being lost to him, slowly giving way to cancer, and his dreams are turning to life beyond. It fell on houses where people are putting up colorful lights and preparing for holiday guests and cheerful dinners. It fell on a house where a family is weary of the strain of alcoholism that sows its sinister seeds of destruction. The snow fell gently and completely and left no one untouched. The snow became a sacrament, a visible sign of the invisible. It was a sacrament of God’s grace. Not changing our lives all at once, the snow left us a little more quiet, a little more reflective, and a little more reverent. The white snow made us aware of all that is not white and clean and fresh, and of all that could be. The snow covered things that are always seen, and made us aware of things that were not seen before. Perhaps, we think, we might even see roses in December…?...Or a baby born in a cow trough…?... And still, and even moreso, the snow invited us to play, and laugh, and sled down its slopes. It invited us to take long walks in it, and gaze at it through a window. It made us feel once more alive again in a different kind of way! The snow … that is … the snow of God’s grace.

Merry Christmas! - - - Father Jim