We Light a Candle Today

This is the season of Advent (from the latin for an "arrival" or "coming"). And true to the Roman Catholic tradition - we light our advent wreath and pray with our children every night leading up to Christmas Day. The hurricane and its aftermath have not kept us from doing so this year although we did have a late start with the wreath itself, not actually having one put together until this - the second week of Advent.


However, it was not until today when my mother and I were praying the rosary in honor of Our Lady on her feast day - the feast of the Immaculate Conception - that it struck me just how very special this Christmas is going to be for all of us. The idea was fresh and new and still a little foggy later this afternoon when I was working on taping down more contractor's paper on the kitchen floor and happened to knock our Advent prayer booklet off the table. I picked it up and it was opened to the prayer that we say at the beginning of each new week of Advent when lighting the wreath. It begins with this:

We light a candle today, a small dim light against a world that often seems forbidding and dark. But we light it because we are a people of hope.....

And that's when it hit me: What a beautiful opportunity for truly celebrating the season! Just in case some of my non-Catholic readers are having trouble fishing out the significance here, allow me to explain. According to Catholic Online, the "Advent is a time of joy tinged with penance. Joy, because we can imagine nothing more sweet than the Christ Child and His Mother Mary's bliss at His coming to light. Penance because we must strive to be properly disposed to receive so great a gift of His presence. In the millennial tradition of the Church, we faithful have done penance before great feasts."

How blessed we are then - to be given the chance to do real penance. To, for once, strip Christmas-time of all the commercial trappings... the informal lawn decoration competitions... the worry over twinkling lights that fail to twinkle... the mountains of gifts that we receive and give sometimes without any true sense of what it is to 'receive' or to 'give.'

So I took a break from the contractors' paper today and set out to decorate our front door.


I made the wreath from various scraps of Christmas decorations the kids had gathered from the street after the debris trucks dropped them on their way through the neighborhood weeks ago, a few items from a neighbor who has moved away now, and some salvaged pinecones I had been collecting for just such a project.

I had refinished our front door right after the storm when I was trying to find some way to stay busy. I used marine varnish this time... it seemed so fitting after that poor door took such a beating from the salt water. So it almost looks normal if you don't look right and notice the building permit in the front window...

Or look over your shoulder at the homes of those fortunate enough to have received their FEMA trailers....

Or as long as you don't actually open our front door. Under that mound of plastic is our new living room furniture -- someday it will be safe to actually take it out and use it. :)


And so I spent the afternoon cleaning and preparing for the next stage of rebuilding with renewed hope and vigor. Yvonne seemed to sense it too as she was quite eager to help me with all of my chores today. She also demonstrated that she had been paying attention when we were putting primer on the walls... I don't think I'm ready to actually put paint on her roller yet (although she seems perfectly ready) - but I sure do love the company.


Next week will be a challenge for sure as Dave will be going out of town for a couple of days and I will be left to handle contractors and kiddies and wayward sheetrock dust all without him... But I won't be alone and I'm pretty sure we'll be okay. Next week we light the pink candle as we sing:

"The desert will bloom with abundant flowers and rejoice with joyful song..."

Amen.