Tuesday - December 13, 2022

WORDS OF HOPE

Much scholarly debate surrounds who exactly Jude, the writer of the last epistle in the New Testament, actually is and what his relationship is to Jesus. He may be one of the twelve Apostles and he may be a half-brother to Jesus. Translation issues as well as the fact that Jude, or Judas, was a common name in the first century make the description of some of the people and their relationships in the New Testament hard to sort out.  Whether or not these words of Scripture are from Jude the Apostle, or another Jude is a discussion for another time.

St. Jude, the Apostle Jude, is known as the patron saint of hopeless and desperate causes. The fact that the Christian church has such a saint seems somewhat ironic since the phrase “I can do all things through Christ which strengthened me” (Philippians 4:13) is so often quoted during our times of feeling despair. Perhaps our feelings of hopelessness and despair come not solely from the difficult situations in which we find ourselves, but rather from having to wait for them to be resolved in God’s way and time rather than our own. We are not proficient or comfortable with waiting. The liturgical season of Advent is a time where we are offered the opportunity to practice waiting, the kind of waiting that Mary experienced during the final months before the birth of Jesus. Advent should be a time of anticipating Christmas. For many, however, exhaustion rather than joy comes on Christmas Day because the Advent season has been spent outwardly preparing our surroundings rather than inwardly preparing our hearts for the birthday celebration of the Christ Child.

A cause that is dear to my heart is the work of St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. In January of 2020, a good friend and I were waiting in line to board a cruise ship for a much-anticipated girl’s trip when she received a call from her sister saying that her five-year old nephew had just been diagnosed with kidney cancer. Our week onboard the ship was spent waiting - waiting to hear what such a diagnosis actually meant, waiting to hear the treatment protocol, waiting to learn where and when treatment would happen, and by the end of the week, waiting to hear how this little guy was doing after his kidney had been removed. Though the waiting was difficult, by the end of our time on the ship, this brave little boy was recovering well from surgery and had become a patient of St. Jude Hospital, where he would receive chemotherapy and continued follow-up care.  Once treatment began, day to day life felt like anything but waiting, but the busy-ness of the treatment process was couched in the waiting to know whether or not the chemotherapy was successful. The discomfort of that waiting was amplified by feeling a need to do something and realizing that there was nothing to do to bring about healing beyond what was already being done. I was praying fervently. Though in my heart I know the power of prayer, in those early moments, it didn’t feel like I was “doing” enough. 

Shortly after we returned from our cruise, I committed to running 10K as part of the St. Jude Memphis Marathon with my hope being to raise awareness and money for the work of St. Jude Hospital. I was fifty-eight years old and had never in my life been a runner. I don’t know why this is what came to me in prayer as what I needed to do, but it was. And so, I began a running plan that started with baby steps. I waited to get stronger. I waited to see if on race day I felt prepared to run the race that I felt I was called to run.  And once I started running on race day, I still was waiting to see if I had the endurance to get me to the end. None of that waiting was easy, but all of it was necessary. Waiting provides us the time and space to prepare our hearts and minds for whatever is to come. 

Thankfully, nearly three years later, my friend’s nephew is a thriving cancer-free eight-year-old little boy. I now have participated in several runs for St. Jude raising money for the children and their families who are waiting for a cure. Through all of this, I have learned that though waiting can be difficult because we feel like we should be doing something more, it is in these times of slowing down and reflecting that we prepare a way for God to lead us to our next right step. And hopefully, as was the case with Mary, we also will hear an angel saying, “Be not afraid,” because that next right step is not always easy.

During these final few weeks of Advent, embrace the gift of waiting. Let the demands of the Christmas season wait for Christmas. Be still. Be quiet. Pray. Be open to God’s call to you. 

PRAYER

“In dwelling ever-present one whose nearness we have known, whose hand has soothed us in distress, whose love precedes our own: Come to those who seek you, who long for the sound of your voice. Immanent advent one, come!”

From a poem by Delores Dufner, OSB and set to music in a choir anthem by Joel Martinson.

DEVOTION AUTHOR

Kris Baker

Order of St. Francis and St. Clare