First Sunday of Advent – Cycle A
Reflecting on Romans 13:11-14
I once had an intense experience of darkness on a freezing Colorado night at the Trappist monastery in Snowmass, Colorado. Retreatans are invited to walk the mile from the retreat house to the chapel for Vigils at 4:30 am. In that entire, moonless valley, the single light was a humble bulb over the chapel door. For those who didn’t stray from the path it must have seemed an easy journey towards the light. But for me― lost, cold, uneasy in the dark mountains―the absence of a light to guide me seemed thoughtless and almost hostile.
I’ve never forgotten that feeling of abandonment and cold. There were no stars, and no bright moon to illuminate the path. My feet were numb, and I had lent my gloves to a person I had only met an hour ago. I walked several miles alone in that valley, lost, searching the sky for the first violet of dawn.
And it came, of course. Morning stars pulled the violets and rose from the sky. The night had advanced, the day was at hand. And as the morning light awakened the valley I could see it finally―that tiny light just off to my left, the light that had been there all the time, beckoning me to the warmth of the chapel.
I think about that light this Advent, and I wonder how many silent souls are out there in the cold, searching for us, but unable to find us because our light is too dim, too distant, too familiar to those who know the way and too far away for those who are lost.
Sharing God’s Word at Home:
How brightly does your light shine in the darkness?
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I have come to light a fire on the earth; how I wish it were already burning (Lk.12:49).