Reflection for the Third Sunday of Advent 2021

Reflection for the Third Sunday of Advent.

Yesterday while I was shopping in a crowded superstore, one of the sales associates whom I did not know (I’ll call him David) hurried over to me. Above his blue face mask, his dark eyes were luminously radiant.

“Sister, I just want to thank you for saving me!”

I asked him to tell me his story.

When he was 19, he had confronted his pastor one Sunday morning ‘for not being God.’ The minister was greatly insulted (as one might imagine), and by the time David reached home after the service, his grandmother had received a phone call.

”I don’t ever want to see that boy back in church again.”

David said he wandered around for years, trying to find meaning in life when God had thrown him out of the Church.

One day, David went on to tell me, while in a supermarket, a ‘little old lady nun’ stopped him in the aisle, looked into his eyes and said, “Your Father wants you back.”

David asked her what she meant, and she simply repeated, “Your Father wants you back.” Stunned, he began to continue shopping, but turned to speak to her again. Unable to find her, he went to the greeter at the door of the store and said, “Did you see where that little old nun went? The greeter assured him that no such person had entered or left the store on his shift.

David told me he found a church, and his Father did indeed welcome him back. He has been active there ever since.

Isn’t that just like God! When we can’t come to Him for whatever reason, He comes to us. In a person in a grocery store who helps us carry our bags. In a family member who says just the right word when we need it most. In a friend who invites us to come to confession with her. In a tiny Baby in a manger bed who whispers deep in our heart,

Your Father sent me to tell you He wants you back!

By the way, David told me, “That’s why I like to tell any Sister I meet, ‘Thank you for saving me.’ ”

Advent 2021 is half over today. Do we find within ourselves anything that is keeping us from running back to our Father? Fear of confession? Something good we could have done and never got around to doing? What about bad memories of a time when we said something in anger and we know we can’t unsay it now? Times we should have loved and didn’t, or failed to honor love when it came our way?

Advent is a perfect time to simply trust the Infant in the Manger who came to reconcile us to the Father.  If it’s been a long time, remember that there is no time with God. And if we have a moment of grace while looking for the hand sanitizer in aisle 27, let us recognize it as just that: a moment of grace, an invitation that can’t be refused. Perhaps we haven’t been shut out of God’s Church, but we feel a growing distance between us and our Father. Now is the time to return with our whole heart. God awaits us with open arms. Allow Christmas to save us.

Allow Christmas to save you.