At a moment when many want to leave the Church, here’s a message we need

From the always-wise Elizabeth Scalia, words of consolation and Advent encouragement during this difficult time:

Some people can only handle as much as they believe they can handle, and it is no easy thing to stand where we are and watch darkness grow where the light is fading. It is unsettling, disorienting. Despite the risk of injury, we want to run, get away from the dark, because we can’t bear to stay within it.

But that is what Advent is asking us to do: to stay. To stand a watch in the gloaming as the ever-encroaching darkness draws near, and to ultimately give witness to the victory of light over night.

And then to stand in its glorious beams and see all things be made new.

And so this is what I want to say to my friends who have left, or who are struggling; those who are halfway out the doors, or think they soon will be:

My dear sisters and brothers, Hold on! Hold fast, and don’t run at the revelation!

Don’t try to run through the fearsome darkness!

Stay for Advent and stand the watch with me, with your family, with all of us, including the saints.

Be willing, for now, to keep company with Christ, so deeply wounded by his own Bride.

Consent, for now, to share in the hard times before us (they will yet get harder, the darkness will grow deeper, still) and help us to hold, to hold fast!

Because the light is coming; the darkness will never overcome it.

This is a message many need to hear. Read it all.