In This Season-of-Darkness-and-Light-to-Come 

Amanda Zuretti, CSJA

We are near winter now; we are in Advent. The winter solstice arrives on December 21 in our calendar, and soon, lengthening daylight will begin again. 

In this season-of-darkness-and-light-to-come, I have revisited my notes on Sister Dorothea Masuret’s November presentation, “On the Grace of the Charism,” again and again. Specifically, I re-read: “. . . at the breaking points of human community [the grave disharmonies of our world] we see in the breakdown and order and relationship a unique occasion for the activity of God. Therefore, we believe in both the possibility and the power of reconciliation and seek to let God bring about unity in our lives and in the lives of our sisters and brothers.”¹

If I heard her correctly, Sister Dorothea was communicating that in committing to our charism, we are called to ordinary holiness in our lives (or maybe it was we are called to holiness in our ordinary lives). The foundational principle is that we women and men are called to gather the fragments left over, to trust that there will be enough for us to give, and that what we give is absolutely – and all – that’s needed from us. 

The season-of-darkness-and-light-to-come, (hyphenated) is every season of our lives. I am in the season-of- darkness, (unhyphenated), when I am figuratively (and sometimes literally) without light. It is a season of discomfort and grief in which I am unable to see myself or my surroundings in any meaningful way, and when I am deeply suspicious that the light-to-come is a fiction.  

The light-to-come is the season when I am, literally (and sometimes figuratively) the light again; in other words: enlightened. In the light-to-come time, I can sustain calm in the quiet. I am able to hear, strong enough to listen, open. The light-to-come returns to all of us unfailingly, although sometimes its arrival takes longer than we think we can bear.  

If I’ve got this right, our charism is the daily exercise of believing in and living the promise that the season-of-darkness-and-light-to-come aren’t decoupled. The season-of-light will come on December 21 or December 25 or at any time at all, usually when we most need it.  

Thank you, Sister Dorothea. 

¹ from the CSJ Boston Constitution