Finding joy in the season when someone is missing.
Grieving during Advent is hard.
Last Advent is a bit of a blur. I remember people checking in on me, seeing how I was doing grieving the loss of my mom during this time of year. She had passed in early November and the grief was fresh. It was no sooner than we resumed our routines after her funeral that we were putting up decorations and listening to Christmas music. The Christmas cards were mixed in with the Mass cards and sympathy cards. There was joy everywhere, but my heart was breaking, and grief was visiting often.
My mom loved Advent and there were so many reminders of her in the preparations for Christmas. She had gifted me almost all of my Christmas decorations, from the funny little gnome choir candle holder to my beautiful Lenox Nativity scene. Her tradition of giving us Christmas ornaments every year according to our interests and life stage brought waves of grief as I decorated the tree and remembered all she gave at Christmastime. My brother and I discussed how good she was at keeping our belief in Santa going and how everyone breathed a sigh of relief when I (the youngest) finally surrendered. There was so much anticipation and joy and I wanted to be a part of it, but I was still in a fog. How could Christmas be the same if I couldn’t talk to her or see her?
This year there is still grief, but it’s made some movement towards joyful memories. I can start to look at the beautiful reminders and smile instead of cry. I can reorient my sadness into hope and my heartbreak into peace. I can love like she did. I don’t think grief goes away, but it can be transformed into something beautiful.
The words of the popular Christmas hymn “Away in a Manger” give us a glimpse into the real purpose and meaning of Christmas and can help us when waves of grief visit during the holidays.
“Be near me, Lord Jesus, I ask thee to stay
close by me forever and love me I pray.
Bless all the dear children in thy tender care
and fit us for heaven to live with thee there.”
Away in a Manger, William J. Kirkpatrick, 1895
Fit us for heaven. That’s the whole point.
Christmas is important because the cross is important. We can rejoice at Christmas because the gates of heaven are open and death is conquered forever. The victory is won because the ruler of the Universe came as a weak and helpless babe. He came to be “close by us” and to love us, even in our sadness. And all we have to do to be fit for heaven is to love.
Though last year’s Christmas wasn’t necessarily the same as the years before, it was still good, because He is good. Because the reason we celebrate Christmas doesn’t hinge on how we celebrated in previous years or even how we feel about celebrating at the time. We celebrate Christmas because it changed the course of human history. Regardless of the challenges we’re facing in any given December, Jesus came. The Word incarnate, the light of the world, came to dwell among us. He taught us how to love and was pierced for our transgressions – and the end of that story doesn’t change.
God made us “to love Him and to serve Him in this world and to be happy with Him forever in heaven.” 1 Though we mourn the loss of those we love, we can take comfort in the knowledge that the beauty of Christmas is fulfilled in the promise of their eternal life with Him. Because of the Incarnation, their salvation, and ours, is possible.
If you’ve lost a loved one this year, you’re feeling all too familiar with the paradox of suffering in this joyful season. You’re feeling a hole, an emptiness and that dreaded anticipation of when the next moment of grief will visit. You may be tired and burdened, too tired and burdened for all this gaiety. But our suffering, united with Jesus’ suffering, is setting us on the straight and narrow path towards eternity with Him. It’s pointing us towards that open gate, all we need to do is love.
As the prophet Isaiah tells us, “Comfort, comfort, O my people”.2
We’re not alone in our suffering. Our Savior, Emmanuel, has come to comfort us.
Allow yourself to be comforted.
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