Blog #5: A Candle in the Darkness

For some, life is good. It is comfortable, rewarding, and healthy.

But life is not fair. It is filled with surprises, challenges, and real difficulties, no matter your station in life, your religion, or your efforts.

At our Catholic Church today, we recognized the beginning of the Advent season. It is a time of preparation that directs our hearts and minds to Christ's second coming at the end of time and to the anniversary of the birth of Jesus Christ on Christmas.   

But I also thought that the Lord can come at any time and take anyone without notice. Only God knows.

We light candles to break the fear of darkness; to celebrate the positive. On the Altar, Father Horgan lit the first of four candles of Advent, representing the four Sundays before Christmas. It is the season of celebration.

My mind wandered.  

In our present world with war, famine, disease, pandemics, storms, accidents, and crime, growing old requires making good choices, wisdom, discipline, and faith. Even so, a visit can happen at any time, take anyone, no matter if a child, a good person or bad, a celebrity or not, wealthy or poor.

The priest asked a simple question, “are we ready?” My brain was on a different, more negative track.

I thought to myself, how can I ever be ready for the emotional pain of losing someone close to me?

OK, selfishly, I understand the value of having a legal “will”, or an irrevocable trust, as well as a pre-planned and pre-paid funeral and required arrangements. Further, my wife and I have downsized and dispensed of much of the possessions that filled a large home. Children don’t want to be burdened with downsizing. It is so different today when my new wife and I were proud of our lawn chairs in the living room and some boards on cinder blocks to make a bookcase.

How else can I be ready?

The issue is when others pass unexpectantly. I remember vividly the time of the loss of both my parents, but I simply cannot wrap my head around losing a child. As a combat war veteran, I have personally experienced the grief of families who lost a son in a faraway land. It is so gutwrenching, disabling, and crushing emotionally.

The loss of a loved one is not something that ever goes away. It is a hole that cannot be filled. For some, it destroys marriages, families, and personal health and wealth, and creates even more loss.

I pray for all those I love and that the Lord will take care of them. Selfishly, I don’t want them taken.

If it were to happen, I know I would be angry, bitter, despondent, and emotionally out of control.

My thoughts shot in different directions, bouncing around inside my head.

It reminds me that we have no time to suffer fools, we need more time to value and embrace those we love and who love us. For those we aggrieved, we must admit our error; it is a time to ask for forgiveness. If that forgiveness is not given, it is time to move on. Life is too short and too fragile.

It seems that we have lost tolerance when there is disagreement. What happened to agreeing to disagree and moving on? If we are unwilling to seek understanding, we condemn ourselves to ignorance and false truths. Confirmation bias is like wearing blinders.  

Again, at St. Lucy Catholic Church, on an unknown barrier island in Florida in this first week of Advent, a message and prayer were heard, ”So too, you also must be prepared for at an hour you do not expect, the Son of Man will come”.  Mattthew24:44

This struck me hard. Will I be alive or dead? It surely will be glorious. I hope and pray.

Was I twisting the point too much? Then I saw more:

              “My ever-present Lord, You constantly come to me at an unexpected hour to pour forth Your grace and mercy into my life. Help me to form within me a permanent habit of preparedness by which I continually open myself to You and Your perfect will for my life. May this Advent be a true time in which my readiness to meet You increases a hundredfold. Jesus, I trust in You.”

If He returned in our lifetime, that would be overwhelming. But I must be ready to meet Him.

My goodness, I thought. I pray the Lord does not take advantage of my preparedness. Heck, at 76, I am too young to go.

OK, I laughed at myself.

But surely, we all have times when we look up and ask, “Why?”. It is a matter of faith.

This is not easy for me. Typically, I believed I must have faith in myself to get things done, to succeed, to teach my children and grandchildren, to experience, to earn, to give, and to pray when I run out of answers. For me, life has been about action, love, discipline, and performance.

I rarely think about faith that stands between life and death. I do know the Lord spared me five different times during six months of combat when death was literally only inches from me, while others were “taken”.

I shook my head each time and thanked the Lord, but never considered myself a foxhole convert. It is not easy to have faith during the worst of times.

In these times, it is important to keep the faith and protect the meaning of Christmas.

It is important to light the candle that celebrates the coming of Christmas.

Find your candle to light the path to love, acceptance, and friendship.  

So help me God. Amen.

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P.S. I sought approval to use Father Horgan’s name in this article. He was my inspiration and he was very supportive and, further, gave this comment:  

“It is a personal response of military-readiness to go and to be with God.  Our lives afford us an opportunity to make sure that we are ready, that our houses are in order, and that we can stand proudly before our God.”

P.P.S. God Bless Father Brian Horgan of St. Luch Church, he works hard for the community and lights a candle for all of us.