And Fit Us for Heaven

Liesl Schiavone reflects on navigating grief and finding joy during the Advent and Christmas season.

Grieving during Advent is hard.

We lost my Mom in November of 2022. I don’t remember a lot from that winter; most of Advent and Christmas are a bit of a blur. It was no sooner than we resumed our routines after her funeral that we were putting up decorations and listening to Christmas music. The Christmas cards were mixed in with the Mass cards and sympathy cards. I remember people checking in on me, seeing how I was doing grieving such a loss during this time of year. It was almost as if the world was happening around me, like I was setting scenes and placing props for a play that I couldn’t be in. There was joy everywhere, but my heart was breaking, and grief was visiting often.

My mom loved Advent and there were so many reminders of her in the preparations for Christmas. She had given me almost all of my Christmas decorations, from the funny little gnome choir candle holder to my beautiful Lenox Nativity scene. Her tradition of giving us Christmas ornaments every year according to our interests and life stage brought waves of grief as I decorated the tree and remembered all she gave at Christmastime. My brother and I discussed how good she was at keeping the Santa thing going and how everyone breathed a sigh of relief when I (the youngest) finally surrendered. Mom’s passing was unexpected, and we were still processing the shock of her diagnosis while navigating the grief of her passing. It was a hard season.

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Grief transformed

This year and last, the grief is still there, it always will be, but it’s made that movement toward joyful memories. I can now look at the beautiful reminders and smile instead of cry. I can reorient my sadness into hope and my heartbreak into peace. I can love like she did and fill our own Christmas season with the beauty and wonder that she manifested during this season. I don’t think grief goes away, but it can be transformed into something beautiful.

The whole point

The words of the popular Christmas hymn “Away in a Manger” give us a glimpse into the real purpose and meaning of Christmas and can help us when waves of grief visit during the holidays.  

Be near me, Lord Jesus, I ask thee to stay
close by me forever and love me I pray.
Bless all the dear children in thy tender care
and fit us for heaven to live with thee there. ("Away in a Manger," William J. Kirkpatrick, 1895)

Fit us for Heaven. That’s the whole point.

Christmas is important because the Cross is important. We can rejoice at Christmas because the Incarnation opened the gates of Heaven, and death is conquered forever. The victory is won because the ruler of the Universe came as a weak and helpless babe. He came to be “close by us” and to love us, even in our sadness. All we have to do to be fit for Heaven is to love.

Though that Christmas of 2022 wasn’t necessarily the same as the years before, it was still good, because He is good. The reason we celebrate Christmas doesn’t hinge on how we celebrated in previous years or even how we feel about celebrating at the time. We celebrate Christmas because it changed the course of human history. Regardless of the challenges we’re facing in any given December, Jesus came for you and for me. The Word incarnate, the light of the world, came to dwell among us. He taught us how to love and was pierced for our transgressions — and the end of that story doesn’t change.  

God made us “to love Him and to serve Him in this world and to be happy with Him forever in heaven” (Baltimore Catechism, question 6). Though we mourn the loss of those we love, we can take comfort in the knowledge that the beauty of Christmas is fulfilled in the promise of their eternal life with Him. Because of the Incarnation, their salvation, and ours, is possible.  

If you’ve lost a loved one this year, you’re probably feeling all too familiar with the paradox of suffering in what should be a joyful season. You’re feeling a hole, an emptiness, and that dreaded anticipation of when the next moment of grief will visit. You may be tired and burdened, too tired and burdened for all this gaiety. But our suffering, united with Jesus’ suffering, is setting us on the straight and narrow path toward eternity with Him. It’s pointing us toward that open gate; all we need to do is love.

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