Dai­ly Reflec­tion
Decem­ber 5, 2020

This Advent sea­son is a unique one as we find our­selves endur­ing the ongo­ing onslaught of this glob­al pan­dem­ic.  As we “fall” away from the sun and into the dark time of win­ter, here in the north­ern hemi­sphere, the days, weeks and months feel as if they are drag­ging on.  Com­pound this with a tox­ic divi­sive­ness in this coun­try and around the world; nat­ur­al dis­as­ters that show up in the form of wind, water and fire; economies stretched to their lim­its; and record num­bers of our sis­ters and broth­ers being forced to flee their home­lands due to envi­ron­men­tal, polit­i­cal and/or eco­nom­ic tensions. 

Our world is wound­ed.  
We are wound­ed.  
I am wounded. 

In pray­ing with today’s read­ings and con­sid­er­ing this Advent time, let us con­sid­er how our wait­ing in wound­ed­ness might be filled with hope for healing.

I live in a coun­ty that has seen its high­est num­bers of pos­i­tiv­i­ty rates for COVID which, not sur­pris­ing­ly, has led to increased hos­pi­tal­iza­tions and deaths.  After spend­ing a few days around our gen­er­al elec­tion on Novem­ber 3^rd look­ing at maps of the US paint­ed in reds and blues, I now look at a COVID “heat map” of our coun­try and see only red.  Our micro­cosm of Creighton Uni­ver­si­ty has had its share of fac­ul­ty, staff and stu­dents who have dealt with loss in their lives.  Loss relat­ed to COVID, but also relat­ed to any num­ber of oth­er ill­ness­es or tragedies.  All of this loss is com­pound­ed yet again by the real­i­ty that peo­ple can­not vis­it loved ones as freely in hos­pi­tals or even be at their bed­sides when they pass into eter­nal life.  We are all fac­ing the loss of not being able to gath­er as safe­ly around hol­i­days as we would typ­i­cal­ly be doing this time of year. 

Wait­ing in woundedness…

In today’s Gospel, we find Jesus vis­it­ing the sick in var­i­ous towns and vil­lages.  “At the sight of the crowds, his heart was moved with pity for them because they were trou­bled and aban­doned.”  (MT 9:36)  The wound­ed­ness and loss we expe­ri­ence in our world is trou­bling.  At times, it leads to a sense of hope­less­ness and paral­y­sis.  At oth­er times it leads to spir­i­tu­al and emo­tion­al agony, caus­ing us to cry out to God.  Even when we retreat to prayer or con­tem­pla­tion, we might find our­selves unable to escape a sense of trou­ble or aban­don­ment.  As Thomas Mer­ton writes in New Seeds of Con­tem­pla­tion, “Let no one hope to find in con­tem­pla­tion an escape from con­flict, anguish or from doubt.  On the con­trary, the deep, inex­press­ible cer­ti­tude of the con­tem­pla­tive expe­ri­ence awak­ens a trag­ic anguish and opens many ques­tions in the depths of the heart like wounds that can­not stop bleeding.”

…filled with hope for healing.

Into this very human place we find our­selves (in some ways, the only place where we can be), God arrives.  “O peo­ple of Zion, who dwell in Jerusalem, no more will you weep; He will be gra­cious to you when you cry out, as soon as he hears he will answer you.”  (Is. 30:19)  As dif­fi­cult and painful as it is, Advent is a reminder that we wait in the dark­ness hop­ing for the light to return.  This is a time to explore the wounds.  What, if any­thing, might they teach us?  As Louis Arm­strong croons, “I see skies of blue, and clouds of white, the bright blessed day, the dark sacred night.”  What is sacred about this dark night of the soul?

One thing about which we can be cer­tain, and from which we might draw hope, is that God is a heal­er.  Both Isa­iah and the Psalmist reit­er­ate this.  “He heals the bro­ken­heart­ed and binds up their wounds.”  (Ps. 147:3)  Jesus under­stands this on a deep lev­el from his own expe­ri­ence of the wound­ed­ness he endured.  This is why the image of the Sacred Heart, Caravaggio’s paint­ing The Increduli­ty of Saint Thomas, and any num­ber of depic­tions of the cru­ci­fix­ion, are so res­o­nant.  They all remind us that Jesus is the wound­ed healer.

Jesus, out of his com­pas­sion for the suf­fer­ing he wit­nessed, expand­ed the reach of his heal­ing touch by com­mis­sion­ing those clos­est to him to “Go to the lost sheep…cure the sick.”  (Mt. 10:8)  The mys­ti­cal Body of Christ that is our glob­al fam­i­ly is a wound­ed heal­er too.  We are sur­round­ed by health care work­ers who have been serv­ing tire­less­ly on the front lines for months, men­tal health pro­fes­sion­als who are guid­ing more and more peo­ple back to a place of whole­ness, sci­en­tists striv­ing to keep us safe while using mod­ern med­i­cine to pro­tect us, min­is­ters offer­ing bless­ings, rit­u­als, and accom­pa­ni­ment, and loved ones or friends who heal our lone­li­ness, iso­la­tion and fear by their pres­ence alone.  Jesus comes to us in all of them and whis­pers (some­times shouts), “The King­dom of heav­en is at hand.”  (Mt.10:7)

As we wait for the Lord this Advent sea­son while also wait­ing for an end to this pan­dem­ic, may we all find solace in know­ing that Christ meets us in and through our wound­ed­ness.  In our wait­ing and hop­ing I trust that “from behind, a voice shall sound in your ears:  ‘This is the way; walk in it.’”  (Is. 30:21)