The Second Sunday of Advent

Meditation: Jesus arrives in the hearts of believers.

This past weekend, I visited the Saint John Paul II Shrine in DC, followed by vigil mass at the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception. While Cecilia was asleep in her stroller, I cried my way through most of the exhibit on JPII the Great, a saint for whom I have a special devotion, since I went to graduate school at the Pontifical John Paul II Institute for Studies on Marriage and Family in DC. This man was amazing for many reasons, but it was his fundamental love for the human person at all stages of life that really shines through his ministry. This– as well as his irrefutable proclamation that each and every human person has inherent dignity, beauty, and worth–is what broke my heart over and over again. That–and the fact that JPII, constantly swarmed by adoring crowds, somehow always managed to go out of his way to kiss, embrace, and bless the tiniest ones: toddlers and infants.

Mass at the National Shrine, however, turned out to be the harder visit. I have been to the Shrine more times than I can count since it was within walking distance of my grad school, but I have not been there since April 6, 2019. My little sister took me there the day after I held Lizzy as the ECMO machine was turned off. Upon arrival at the Shrine, I went straight to the Mother of Sorrows chapel. In helpless agony, I sobbed before the Pieta that sits in that chapel, reminding us of Mary’s all-too-human motherhood and grief.

I was recently reminded that Mary, who was not God, did not know with the same omniscient conviction as Christ that Jesus would rise again. Just as Jesus embraced every aspect of being human, up through and including despair and death, Mary, who was always only human, suffered her Son’s Passion and crucifixion without any irrefutable knowledge of what would happen afterwards. It happened to her; every step of the way, she suffered indescribable pain watching Jesus be whipped, broken, and murdered.

Every day and every night, I pray very specifically to Mary as the Mother of Sorrows, because I know that she understands my suffering more deeply than any other human being. The day after Lizzy died, when my sobs had exhausted themselves to a breathless rattle in my chest, I stared numbly at the statue of Mary holding the dead and crucified body of her Son. There are no words to describe what I felt that day, staring at this woman who so epitomizes maternal grief. And there are no words to describe what I felt last weekend, staring at that same statue, 8 months out from Lizzy’s death.

What I can tell you is that, in all the most essential ways, nothing has changed. It hasn’t evolved or “gotten better.” Kneeling there, staring at that statue, I effortlessly tapped back into the inexhaustible well of grief that swirls and eddies inside of me. When I sobbed, it was with that same wordless self-emptying in which the pain you are feeling has far surpassed verbal expression.

There is no getting over Lizzy. No replacing Lizzy. No making this first Christmas without her “better” or “okay” or “manageable.” It is just as horrible as it was always going to be. Every morning, I wake up to stare across the room at her stocking reading “Lizzy Lou” in white script over an embroidered cross-section of candy canes. Every morning, I wake up to the terrible and unchangeable void in my life that this stocking now represents.

The second week of Advent is a time to meditate on the virtue of faith. Ironically, despite my pain, I find that my faith is the main thing carrying me through these days. I think about Mary, consenting to become the mother of God, without any way of knowing or understanding fully what she was saying yes to. I think of her heavily pregnant, riding a donkey towards Bethlehem. I think of her giving birth in a stable. I think of her raising this extraordinary child, not knowing fully what in time would be called of him or of her. I think of her walking the road to Calvary beside the suffering Christ, step by step. I think of her at the foot of the Cross, kissing his feet, coming away from that kiss with his precious blood smearing her lips. And I think of her holding her child-become-man, her tortured and murdered son, in her human and female arms. I think of the Pieta, and I start to realize how very little I know about faith.

If you had told me before Lizzy was born how soon and terribly she would die, I don’t know that I would have consented to the pregnancy. I do know, however, that if I could have had any sense of who Lizzy would be and what our relationship would be, I would have traded my very life for the chance of spending only two years with her. How do we measure that which we have no way of knowing? We are not prophets or seers to know where our lives will take us. I, like every other human person, am simply swept up in the current of my life as it carries me through, intersecting with the lives of others from time to time. It is carrying me inexorably towards my own death, and I can no more change this than I can see how I will die.

There has to be a very real reason why we are not given this knowledge. What would we do if we knew the path of suffering that lay before us? I think many of us would refuse it, run away from it, hide from it. I know there is a part of me that would have. But that was before I met Lizzy. And, how, in the course of all of this, could I have foreseen the coming of Cecelia–a child that has saved my life in more ways than I can count? Who is capable of understanding the threads that have woven the tapestry of my life?

This is where faith comes into play. Without faith, the chaotic randomness of the universe howls in and devours you. I have to keep getting up every day believing in something more, something greater, some purpose or logic or intelligence that informs all of this. I have to, because if I don’t, I very literally lose the will to live.

Does this make me a coward? Choosing life guided by an unprovable, potential lie? I suppose you could look at it that way. But most days, I tend to think it’s the opposite. I think the sheer act of faith is heroic precisely because of how complex and difficult faith is. And I think heroism is both epitomized in and embodied by a 14-year old Jewess who lived over 2,000 years ago.

In the end, we all make choices that we have to live with. With so many choices spread out before me, sometimes I need to just simple it down to one thing: Lizzy. Because, you see, Lizzy is a blazing, inviolable truth before which I will always quiet down, bow my head and just . . . receive. Lizzy lived her life in total faith and trust, without any fear. Lizzy trusted me every single second that she breathed, even as she lay dying next to me. Lizzy had a faith that I cannot begin to understand. Instead, I use it as a guiding star. When I can no longer be strong, I look to Lizzy and somehow, in ways too small and humble to understand, I find more strength.

So I suppose that’s my prayer for the second week of Advent. Lord, let Lizzy be my Star of David. Let me follow her tirelessly and trust that she is leading me to your Son. And finding Him–and finding her–let me also find a place where I do not have to be tired anymore.