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Friday, December 19, 2008

'tis the season @ 05:01

the 2nd week of advent: peace. and how ironic it was, the way i had to live out this week.

the week started with a flurry of activity, a restless continuity from the last. there was a weekend of cg planning, of Lourdes, of RCIA, of something i don’t remember, come monday a big celebration - our last and longest CG, a celebration of a whole semester.

peace was a far cry. there was too much going on.

not until it struck - crisis style.

it was a perfect reminder never to get complacent. days of plans fulfilled and activities successfully held, it could never get rosier than this. but everything came to a standstill as i succumb to a raging 39 degree fever burning through my temples right to my throat. i was utterly confused because as warm as i was, i felt a blistering cold against my skin and my nose was perpetually wet when my throat felt as parched and inflamed, like a desert, i would imagine. what more..my hands & feet were cold as ice, dead, as if all life were draining away through them. with the aid of medication, i slept for days. maybe i was shutting down.. i was gettin the rest i needed all semester. i was resting now ‘in peace’.

every waking moment was a difficulty. in a very twisted way, it was fortunate that i slept like 23 hours a day. for every waking moment, i had to come to terms with how my illness had ‘transformed’ me.

whenever i woke up, i could feel the heat from my fever burning through my eyes, so much so that daylight took on a different shade, a strange yellow hue. whenever i was awake, i tried to pray but could only manage a cry to the Lord before i slip back into unconsciousness again. whenever i woke up, i felt the burning gash in my throat and my whole nasal tract swollen. i thought twice and hard about swallowing a next mouthful of saliva. sometimes i sat there staring into space, paralysed by this pain and by the fear of swallowing the already accumulating saliva in my mouth. eating was worse. whenever i could manage a few spoonfuls of a ‘blended diet’ which i couldn’t taste, i found myself exhausted and unable to continue. for swallowing was not only painful but swallowing meant ceasing a moment of breathing, which made it even more tiring and more difficult in coping with the pain.

i was reduced to nothing - bedridden and useless.

it took time. but fortunately after five days, i was able to garner more waking hours, which gave me precious time to ponder and pray. i spent most of these hours just sitting down, groaning sometimes (in pain), but most importantly pondering.

five days gone and i was still recovering. and i wondered how the chronically sick and terminally ill lived like this. this i wondered, with the Lourdes experience still fresh in my mind (during which i witnessed first hand, the fragility of our human body). five days and i was already starting to show signs of despair. yet these people’s experiences would have been a million times worse than mine and they would have had to cope with their ailments for weeks or months! i only had a mere fever, flu and an inflamed throat.

imagine a patient robbed of his basic bodily functions, his ability to care for himself, his reliance on somebody else to give him the most basic care that you and i are capable of doing - bathing ourselves, going to the bathroom, eating & drinking etc. some may be prone to despair. they would feel not just robbed of these basic capabilities but also robbed of their dignity as a human being. they would feel less of a human. how hard it is to see hope. how hard it is to see God in times like these.

this i pondered hard.. during the week of peace, about hope and about the anticipation of Christmas - the birth of our Lord, His 1st coming and the 2nd to come. how would a sick person feel in this time of Advent? what is there to anticipate when he lives by the day and when looking forward can be a painful and scary thing to do because there could be no tomorrow?

as the week of peace drew to a close and the week of joy came… i was gradually being relieved of my symptoms and of my pain. how much i can now savour joy… as i do so, my heart continues to dwell on the many sick people laying helplessly in their beds and the many poor and homeless who have had to worry everyday about their livelihood.

how significant the season of Advent and Christmas will be for these people… that during the season of Advent, as we fix our eyes on the coming of the Lord, we recognise that…

this coming of the Lord were, more than a future event, a spiritual place in which we ALREADY WALK in the present, during the wait, and in which we are perfectly vigilant in every personal dimension. In effect, this is exactly what we live in the liturgy: celebrating the liturgical seasons, we actualize the mystery — in this case, the coming of the Lord — in such a way as to be able, so to speak, to “walk in it” towards its full realization, at the end of time, but already drawing sanctifying virtue from it from the moment that the last times have already begun with the death and resurrection of Christ. The word that sums up this particular state in which we await something that is supposed to manifest itself but which we also already have a glimpse and foretaste of, is “hope”.- from the Papal Advent Homily Nov. 30 2008

this has far reaching implications for the suffering for this hope becomes so vital to them. this hope IS a reality in their lives that if recognised can empower them to rise above any proneness to despair. for if we already ‘walk in it’ and already have access to the ’sanctifying virtue’, then the coming of the Lord and His saving us is already NOW.

As we fix our eyes on the 1st and 2nd coming of the Lord this season, we begin to see how our very lives are woven into the history of salvation and how in this seamless timeline of history, we already have access to a saving grace that helps us to live fulfilled Christian lives in the midst of human fraility and human circumstances.

imagine what this would mean for the sick. despite all the pain and suffering, i have always been loved by a God who grants me His sanctifying graces that not only helps me cope with my human circumstances but also helps me recognise my dignity as a daughter or son of God in my relationship with Abba Our Father.

imagine what this would mean for the terminally ill. His graces not only help me cope with all the challenges and difficulties i have had to face in my life and all its circumstances but it helps me to cope with the end of my human life - my death. Christmas then takes on an even greater significance. For the celebration of Jesus’ birth and 1st coming helps the dying to see the ‘hope’ explicated above - that Lord Jesus came and that He filled the human essence with God’s love, so much so that it conquers death. So much so that we NOW can ‘walk in it’, in this journey of love as a reality of our lives. how significant can this be, for a patient with possibly no tomorrow.

in this light, i believe we can better appreciate our Holy Father Pope Benedict’s call at the beginning of Advent - that the whole church ’become a sign and an instrument of hope for all men’. if we were to celebrate Christmas by feasting away and partying as hard as we can while a sick person lays alone in his bed in despair or while a kid sits outside in the street cold and hungry, then we must be very mistaken or ignorant about the whole meaning of Advent and Christmas.

Ignatius Fu

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