A Bleak Midwinter

This year, we were disappointed that there could be no Mass in our chapel of St. Margaret Mary.  A particularly fierce storm swept through Ohio the day before Christmas Eve and rendered the roads too dangerous for travel.  Rather than tempt anyone to risk life and limb, it was decided to forego the usual religious observations, reluctantly leaving the faithful to their own Christmas festivities.  Hopefully, everyone was able to spend some time in front of their own fireside nativity scenes, praying fervently for all their special intentions and thanking God for the blessings of this past year.

It is perhaps a sign of things to come.  No Mass to attend, no priests to provide the sacraments, no church in which to seek refuge from the stress of the world and in some cases, the stress of the home too.  A rather bleak reminder perhaps, but one we have been permitted to receive this Christmas from the very hand of God himself.  This storm was indeed an act of God, and God’s actions should be opportunities for us to learn his will.  The winds of change are indeed sweeping across the land, leaving behind them the wreckage of a damaged world.  We find it more and more difficult to travel unchallenged along our path toward God’s eternal kingdom.

It’s truly enough to worry even the most passive of men, to rouse the anger of the most mild.  But are we really entitled to feel that way?  Is it not by the wisdom of Divine Providence that we are made bereft of the comforts of the Church in these times?  That we should be made to learn patience, fortitude and perseverance, along with the fruits of necessity?  Heaven knows, we have been the cause of so much iniquity by our own sins that we should hardly dare to ask for anything better.  Look to the Christ Child, that pure innocent who would never sin, and who by his death even took away the sins of the whole world—was he treated any better than us?  If we’re asked to suffer the absence of sacramental grace this Christmas, let’s remind ourselves of the deprivations our blessed Lord suffered from the moment of his birth.  The indignities of being laid in a manger, the feeding trough of barnyard animals, the piercing cold of a winter midnight, and very soon, the cruel persecution by a jealous King Herod.  If our loving Father in heaven could permit such atrocities to his infant Son, what more should we expect?

So, as we find ourselves in the depths of this bleak midwinter, let us follow the example of Job and bless God.  Let us thank him for the many good things we do still have, ask his forgiveness for our sins, and beseech his mercy on this world that seems to be straying so far from his truth and love.  That Child in the manger is our inspiration.  He will see us through the trivial difficulties that weigh us down, and he will be for us that constant and ever-present reminder of how we must think and act, how we must be, to become worthy enough to follow him all the way to Calvary and beyond.  A very blessed Christmas to all.