First: a blessed feast of St Lucy! My youngest is called Lucy, partly because of St Lucy, and partly because of Lucy Pevensie.

Second: work and getting ready for Christmas have provided a great reason (and excuse) for going quiet on twitter, Facebook and this blog. And I have been busy, it’s true. But it is also true that I find this time of year a bit sad. Nothing extraordinary, just the nostalgia for my childhood Christmas celebrations with my grandparents. And this December it has been particularly dark and dreary in my soul.

So I found this blog post encouraging. ‘God’s faith in Zechariah is enough, even when Zechariah’s faith falters.’ And I have been stumbling along rather blindly. No matter how many times I hear it, it is good to be reminded that it doesn’t depend on me. It (everything) depends on God. Yes, God chooses to work through me, so I should be attentive to the Holy Spirit and allow God to do God’s thing. That’s best for me. But God can also work around or in spite of me. Then, I fail to experience the treasure flowing through this earthen vessel. God, however, is not thwarted. That’s very good news.

If that post had missed me, I might have been caught by this one. As usual, Sr Catherine has hit the nail on the head. ‘We fail to recognise the opportunities offered to us…our loss.’ Indeed so. God wants to work through us for our benefit, not for God’s own benefit: so God’s sorrow is empathetic; God is sorry for our loss. (Again, God isn’t thwarted!)

And Sr Catherine also reminds me that Lucy is derived from the Latin word for light. Even as my own Lucy did bring light back into my life at a particularly dark time, so I pray that God’s light will shine into the dreary darkness of my soul this Advent. And yours, too.