It's a new year, liturgically speaking, as we mark the new "church year" with this season of Advent. 

Yesterday, after my other work duties, I had the job of changing over the chapel from Ordinary Time to Advent (a bigger job than one might guess).  There are so many little details, some of which are easy to forget, from the banner to the large altar cloth to the tabernacle decor to marking the missal and the lectionary.

I ran out of time for my "adventizing efforts" and had to stop for the read-aloud I do for our residents.  Afterwards, I came back and finished up. 

Having just celebrated Thanksgiving, I had a enhanced sense of gratitude this time as I went about my work.  Last year, we had not been able to use our chapel for Mass during Advent because of the covid situation.  I felt blessed to be able to, once again, prepare for Advent liturgies in our chapel at this beautiful time of year. 

I continue to pray for protection, that we may never return to the place we were last year. 
Come, Lord Jesus!

After a year in which I’ve often been inclined to sigh “how long?”, some words of Saint Teresa of Avila gave me a nudge to be grateful for the struggles I face:

• Hope, O my soul, hope. You know neither the day nor the hour. Watch carefully, for everything passes quickly, even though your impatience makes doubtful what is certain, and turns a very short time into a long one. Dream that the more you struggle, the more you prove the love that you bear your God, and the more you will rejoice one day with your Beloved, in a happiness and rapture that can never end.

So, in her mind, a finite period of suffering leads to an eternal increase in joys.  Pondering this makes it seem foolish to lament our struggles, but it’s hard to help it.  Even though we know there’s a bigger picture, it can be hard to see past our present pains. 
 
Thank God for His gift of hope!  I’ve actually been hearing a fair amount about hope lately.  It seems to be a popular theme across multiple venues. 
 
Hope is important.  It keeps us from discouragement, sustains us when abandoned, and opens our hearts in expectation of heaven (CCC 1818).  As the Catechism further tells us, our hearts are made to desire happiness.  Hope directs our hearts to seek heaven. 
 
Paul puts it well in 2 Corinthians 4:17-18: “For this momentary light affliction is producing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to what is seen but to what is unseen.”
 
Hope lies in fixing our eyes on Jesus!  As the writer of the Letter to the Hebrews states: “since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us rid ourselves of every burden and sin that clings to us and persevere in running the race that lies before us while keeping our eyes fixed on Jesus…” (Hebrews 12:1-2)
 
This leads us to another inspiration for hope: the lives of the saints.  They’ve gone through similar trials, yet endured in faith, hope and love.  Now, they are enjoying life forever in heaven!
 
But, how do we deal with the here and now?  How do we endure when it seems that one storm surge encroaches upon another?  How do we keep hope when we end up praying, day after day, for help with a situation?
 
I don’t pretend to have perfect answers to these questions…I have struggled with them, myself. 
 
However, I believe that part of the answer can be found in the upcoming celebration of Thanksgiving.  If we focus on the gifts that God gives us every day, rather than on the struggles, we can have a more positive outlook; we can be happier and more hopeful. 
 
It seems we would do well to follow the advice found in Romans 12:12: "Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, and faithful in prayer."

In looking forward to tomorrow’s Mass (1st) reading, I realized it was the very passage from Romans that I read at my grandma’s funeral over 20 years ago.
 
Brothers and sisters:
None of us lives for oneself, and no one dies for oneself.
For if we live, we live for the Lord,
and if we die, we die for the Lord;
so then, whether we live or die, we are the Lord’s.
For this is why Christ died and came to life,
that he might be Lord of both the dead and the living…(Rom. 14)
 
This reading seems especially fitting for this month of November, when we make a special point of praying for those who have died to help them on their way to heaven.
 
I recently read a quote from someone which said that when we (hopefully) get to heaven, we’ll be met by a throng of people who will thank us.  They are those who we’d prayed for while they were in purgatory. 
 
It sounds to me like a good way to get more “friends in high places” is to pray for those who have died.
 
This evening, when I teach Religious Ed, I am going to ask our first graders if they know anyone who has died.  We’ll then pray the Our Father (which they’re supposed to be learning) for these people. 
 
Recently, I was walking down the sidewalk, with bountiful fall leaves lying all around me (and more falling as I walked).  It struck me that it is with due reason that the Church chooses the month of November to pray for those in purgatory.  I realize that this custom may have flown out of the commemoration of All Saints and All Souls with which we begin the month.  However, there is a connection in nature which makes it appropriate as well.
 
Although the falling leaves are beautiful, they are a sign of what lies ahead.  The trees are becoming bare.  Soon, the ground will be covered with snow.  Days are becoming shorter.  In a way, it seems, the world is dying.  Soon, it will be resting in the sleep of winter.  What an appropriate time to think about (and pray for) those who have gone before us and to give thought to the end of our own lives!
 
As is illustrated above, some of the readings during these last weeks of the liturgical year also point to this.
 
I hope that someday, whenever the end of my own life may come, I will meet my grandma, and other loved ones again.  I might even get a thank you from them for the prayers I’ve said on their behalf.