• Skip to main content
  • Skip to secondary menu
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer
Catholic Review

Catholic Review

Inspiring the Archdiocese of Baltimore

Menu
  • Home
  • News
        • Local News
        • World News
        • Vatican News
        • Obituaries
        • Featured Video
        • En Español
        • Sports News
        • Official Clergy Assignments
        • Schools News
  • Commentary
        • Contributors
          • Question Corner
          • George Weigel
          • Elizabeth Scalia
          • Michael R. Heinlein
          • Effie Caldarola
          • Guest Commentary
        • CR Columnists
          • Archbishop William E. Lori
          • Rita Buettner
          • Christopher Gunty
          • George Matysek Jr.
          • Mark Viviano
          • Father Joseph Breighner
          • Father Collin Poston
          • Robyn Barberry
          • Hanael Bianchi
          • Amen Columns
  • Entertainment
        • Events
        • Movie & Television Reviews
        • Arts & Culture
        • Books
        • Recipes
  • About Us
        • Contact Us
        • Our History
        • Meet Our Staff
        • Photos to own
        • Books/CDs/Prayer Cards
        • CR Media platforms
        • Electronic Edition
  • Advertising
  • Shop
        • Purchase Photos
        • Books/CDs/Prayer Cards
        • Magazine Subscriptions
        • Archdiocesan Directory
  • CR Radio
        • CR Radio
        • Protagonistas de Fe
  • News Tips
  • Subscribe

Advent tears and laughter in a year of difficulty

December 9, 2020
By Effie Caldarola
Catholic News Service
Filed Under: Advent, Christmas, Commentary, For the Journey

Share
Share on Facebook
Share
Share this
Pin
Pin this
Share
Share on LinkedIn

Do you ever find yourself, during this time of COVID-19, experiencing unexpected tears?

We’ve all walked, on the news, through hospital corridors we never planned to visit. We’ve heard heartbreaking stories from families, the pleas of health care workers, the frustration and fatigue of teachers. We’ve seen refrigerated trucks holding overflow bodies, and we’ve done something we hadn’t previously imagined: We’ve livestreamed, rather than attended, a funeral of someone we loved.

One image endures, this reported on several sites: two little children, sitting on the curb outside a fast-food joint, trying to access the restaurant’s WiFi so they could “go” to school.

Or here’s my little kindergarten friend in Anchorage, Alaska. The public schools there have been entirely virtual all year, so the fun and new friendships of her first school year have come down to a panel of rectangles on a screen.

In a photo, she wears pajamas and a pair of swimming goggles. It isn’t an online school day; it’s an “independent study” day, whatever that means to a 6-year-old. Apparently, it means something as she’s studiously bowed over her worksheet. On the other hand, maybe she’s just squinting to see through those goggles.

The thing that tugged at my heart: Before COVID-19, her grandma took her and her sister to swimming lessons once a week. Now, she can’t do that so instead she wears those swimming goggles to wade through the murky, lonely waters of COVID-19 kindergarten homework.

It’s Advent, and our faith and our hearts tell us that we are waiting for the great feast that celebrates God’s Incarnation into this weary world, as well as anticipation of his second coming.

We also believe that he, Jesus, is already among us. That reign of God of which he spoke, that beloved community, it’s here, yet always straining to be here more visibly, more inclusively. We see through a glass, darkly, St. Paul said, or perhaps it’s like searching for the kingdom through those swimming goggles.

Our faith boils down to the beautiful prayer sometimes called St. Patrick’s Breastplate. It’s an ancient Irish prayer, and there are long versions and shorter.

But it’s theme: Christ.

“I arise today, through Christ’s strength. … Christ with me, Christ before me, Christ behind me, Christ in me, Christ beneath me, Christ above me, Christ on my right, Christ on my left, Christ in the heart of everyone who thinks of me” … and more.

I have a recording of someone singing this prayer, and on days when I find it hard to pray, I listen, sometimes over and over. And sometimes it brings me to tears. During COVID-19, I have sometimes found myself crying, especially in prayer, inexplicably.

St. Ignatius says that tears can be a spiritual gift. They reveal things to us.

The American writer Frederick Buechner tells us that you should pay attention when you find tears in your eyes, especially when they seem to come unexpectedly.

“More often than not God is speaking to you through them of the mystery of where you have come from and is summoning you to where, if your soul is to be saved, you should go to next.”

Constant tears can signal depression and are not good signs. But tears that spring forth in solidarity with the suffering, that draw us closer to the kingdom Jesus came to call forth, those can be good tears.

This Advent, find time to laugh. Revel in the bright lights. Make time for silence. And listen quietly to what God might be telling you through tears.

Polish Three Kings Parades break records with 2 million participants in Jubilee Year

Christ’s birth brings light to a troubled world, pope says

The most desired gift

Mother-daughter duo’s gingerbread replica of long-awaited new Catholic school ‘a labor of love’

Little highlanders from Poland win the internet with their midnight Mass caroling

Wrapped gifts sit under a Christmas tree

A Tale of Two Gifts

Copyright © 2020 Catholic News Service/U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops

Print Print

Share
Share on Facebook
Share
Share this
Pin
Pin this
Share
Share on LinkedIn

Primary Sidebar

Effie Caldarola

View all posts from this author

| Recent Commentary |

Cupcakes with 2025 graduation toothpicks in them and a bowl of cookies

Our 31-hour Road Trip

St. Paul and discovering that sin is ‘missing the mark’

Six lit candles on a chocolate birthday cake

Making a birthday wish come true

Pilgrims of Hope: Walking the Way of St. Francis in the Year of Jubilee

The fisherman and the pharisee

| Recent Local News |

St. Mary’s purchases former Annapolis Area Christian School

Radio Interview: Exploring the Nicene Creed – Part Two

St. Clement Mary Hofbauer adapts to times, cultures as it celebrates 100th anniversary

Archbishop Lori and Supreme Knight Kelly meet with Pope Leo

Hope rises from ashes for St. Rita parishioners

| Catholic Review Radio |

CatholicReview · Catholic Review Radio

Footer

Our Vision

Real Life. Real Faith. 

Catholic Review Media communicates the Gospel and its impact on people’s lives in the Archdiocese of Baltimore and beyond.

Our Mission

Catholic Review Media provides intergenerational communications that inform, teach, inspire and engage Catholics and all of good will in the mission of Christ through diverse forms of media.

Contact

Catholic Review
320 Cathedral Street
Baltimore, MD 21201
443-524-3150
mail@CatholicReview.org

 

Social Media

  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Twitter
  • YouTube

Recent

  • St. Mary’s purchases former Annapolis Area Christian School
  • Pope’s prayer intention for July: That the faithful might again learn how to discern
  • Barron: With no clergy-penitent exception, WA abuse law threatens religious liberty
  • Augustinian prior opens up about papal vacation, first encyclical, appointments and tennis
  • Radio Interview: Exploring the Nicene Creed – Part Two
  • 3 North Americans named to Vatican dicasteries for ecumenism, interreligious dialogue
  • ANALYSIS: ‘Big Beautiful Bill’ cuts expected to outweigh benefits for low-income families
  • Safeguarding remains a top priority with new appointment, US cardinal says
  • Pope at Angelus: Be a laborer in the field of mission

Search

Membership

Catholic Media Assocation

Maryland-Delaware-DC Press Association

The Associated Church Press

© 2025 CATHOLIC REVIEW MEDIA, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

en Englishes Spanish
en en