November 30, 2024
Dear Friends in Christ,
As we approach this Advent season, I would like to take a moment and reflect on the brightness of our Lord’s love. Recently, someone told me how much she dislikes this time of year. She said, “Daylight is short. The hours of darkness are long.” My heart went out to her in that moment, and I shared with her a few words from John’s Gospel: “The light shines in the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it.”
Indeed, as December ushes in the winter weather, the darkness and the long nights – Advent ushers in the light of God’s love. And in the darkness, God’s love shines all the more brightly through the grace of the Holy Spirit.
The dread of darkness during these short December days can make us feel lost at times. We may feel that we have lost God’s friendship or that God has forgotten us. We may feel we have lost our friends or have been forgotten by them. Sins, weaknesses as well as spiritual and emotional wounds are part of every life. But when these get the better of us, we may think that God and other people have given up on us. This is, of course, a lie. Yet, the sense of being lost to God and lost to our friends can seem very real.
In today’s world, many feel isolated and alone. God seems far away. Perhaps, you may feel an absence of love in your life. Without love, life make no sense. When love is lacking, so, too, hope is lacking. And when hope is lacking, it is all the more difficult to deal with those sins, weaknesses and wounds that bedevil us.
This Advent, please remember: As Christians, we believe that God does not want us to be lost. So much does the Father love us that he sent us his only-begotten Son into the world to find us, to save us, to gather us into his family. To do this, God’s Son assumed our humanity – not just our flesh but a human mind, heart and will.
As the Lord went about preaching the Good News, healing, forgiving and rising from the dead, he experienced hunger, thirst, pain and sorrow – and finally laid down his life for us. This is how far God went to find us. And by the way, he’s still searching. He searches for you and me at this very moment.
Let us then prepare our hearts for the Christmas season, the great reason for our hope. And how do we do this? By allowing the Lord to find us. Often, when we feel the absence of the Lord’s love, it’s because we have hidden ourselves from it. We often do this because of painful realities that are difficult to face. We blame, deflect, hide, self-isolate.
During Advent, let us allow the Lord to break through barriers that prevent us from receiving and giving love. This can happen when we make an unburdening confession of our sins. Or when we have an honest conversation with a trusted friend or spiritual director. Or when we reach out in love to someone in need, rediscovering the joy of giving.
On Christmas Eve, Pope Francis will open the Holy Door at St. Peter’s in Rome to inaugurate a Holy Year, a Jubilee of Hope. The theme of this special year of grace comes from Romans chapter 5, verse 5: “Hope does not disappoint because the love of God has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit…”
May your hearts be filled with hope this Advent season as we await the joy that Christmas brings!
Faithfully in Christ,
Most Reverend William E. Lori
Archbishop of Baltimore