Now there was a man in Jerusalem whose name was Simeon; this man was righteous and devout, looking forward to the consolation of Israel, and the Holy Spirit rested on him. It had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit that he would not see death before he had seen the Lord’s Messiah.

Luke 2:25-26

When my grandmother got married, she moved into the multi-generational household of her new husband’s family. This was not uncommon at the time, and it had its advantages and its disadvantages. One advantage was that my grandfather, Sam Lee, could continue to manage the family farm while at the same time practicing law in the small Alabama town nearby.

One distinct disadvantage was that my grandmother, Mattie, who became part of an extended family whose women would scarcely have been mistaken for shrinking violets, was never to be the mistress of her own home.

It turned out, however, that Sam Lee had serious heart disease; and since he had been advised to rest, Mattie began to make lunch for him at his office so that he was spared the trip home each midday. After lunch he would nap on a cot there. This was the closest, my grandmother told me, that they ever came to having their own place.

Now Sam Lee’s law office happened to be next to the county jail. After he died in 1935 at the age of fifty, Mattie received a letter. It was from one of the inmates at the jail, who wrote that he had been able to see into the office from his cell, and he could tell how happy they had been during these noontimes together. Far from feeling embarrassed at being more or less spied upon, my grandmother found great comfort in this letter. It was a confirmation of their love and a consolation in her grief.

Comfort, O comfort my people,
says your God.
(Isaiah 40:1)

Advent teaches us, like Simeon, to look for the Christ where we might least expect to find him. The comfort of the One who comes may be manifested through unlikely events or through people we might tend to dismiss. Everything, in fact, holds the potential for encounter with the divine Comforter.

We must open our eyes and our hearts to the small child, to the inmate at the county jail – and also to the hungry, the naked, the ill, as Jesus teaches in Matthew 25. Not only is it true, as he says to us, that whatever we do to “the least of these who are members of my family” we do to Jesus, but we may also find God’s solace reaching out to us from these unexpected quarters. For Jesus himself was not what people expected of the promised Christ.

…he was despised, and we held him of no account.
(Isaiah 53:3)

Nothing in our lives – no person, no event –can be ruled out as a privileged meeting place with the always abiding Christ who is now and forever with us, until the end of time (Matthew 28:20).

During Advent, there are three ways in which we are called to be attentive to the coming of Christ – or as was said about Simeon, in which we are “looking forward to the consolation of Israel.”

• First, during the beginning of Advent especially, we look forward to the Second Coming of Christ.
• Second, as Christmas draws near, we anticipate the joy of Jesus’ birth.
• Third is mindfulness to God’s presence in the Christ who is always coming to us in often unexpected ways.

So be attentive, we are exhorted,

…or else he may find you asleep when he comes suddenly.
And what I say to you I say to all: Keep awake.
(Matthew 25:36-37).

Here are four recent examples — small actions, but not insignificant, for kindness is never insignificant:

After I filled the gas tank, the pump flashed a message instructing me to pick up the receipt inside the store. So I locked the car and went in.

As I returned to the car, I had a sinking feeling. Where were my keys? I peered inside, and as I feared, they were on the seat inside the locked car.

Back in the shop, I asked if I could use the phone (because of course the cell phone was also in the car), then wandered about the aisles, waiting for our Sister Annette to locate the extra key and pick me up (one of the many kindnesses I take for granted on the part of my community).

Quickly tiring of the cramped store, I went back outside to wait. A woman pulling away in her truck stopped. She smiled, showing a mouth mostly bereft of teeth.

“Are you going to be okay, Baby?” she asked.

“Yes,” I answered. “I locked my keys in the car, and I’m waiting to be picked up.”

“I do that all the time,” she said, to encourage me. “That’s why I have three sets of keys. Is there anything I can do for you?”

I told her no, and thanked her. She drove off, and I continued waiting, but now feeling a bit more positive about myself and life in general.

On primary election day — the local primaries here in Gainesville — I bicycled to our polling place and afterward on to the public library, where I found a book and read for a while. At the table next to me was a middle-aged couple, and when I got up to leave, the woman noticed my “I VOTED” sticker.

“Oh, you voted!” she exclaimed.

“Yes, I did.”

“You go, Girl!” And she high-fived me.

Such a small event this was, but immensely cheering.  And as the high five is not a common convent greeting, I was thankful that I knew how to respond to this gesture of approval.

There is a mentally handicapped man whom I encounter occasionally, a small and rather round African-American who is often visible downtown — at the library, in the post office, outside on the sidewalk. His mission in life seems to be greeting passersby and wishing them a good day — far from a worthless calling when you think about the general state of human relations, and I earnestly hope most people respond to him in kind. His greetings serve as a reminder of God’s never-failing good will.

Another mentally handicapped citizen is the physical opposite of this greeter, a very tall white man whom I have met at daily Mass. His mission is similar, but with an explicitly religious slant. He blesses the congregation as he goes out after communion, anticipating the priest’s official blessing.

The other day at church, he was alone in the row just behind Sisters Annette, Elizabeth, and me. During the Our Father when worshippers in our parish generally hold hands, everyone in our pew had already taken the hand of the next person. He moved forward, but instead of trying to break in, he simply placed his left hand on my shoulder and his right hand on the shoulder of the man standing next to me. His hand was warm and weighty as we prayed, which was fitting, I thought, because a genuine blessing is not as insubstantial as we might think. No, a blessing has heft.

And like all blessings of which I am mindful, these small acts of kindness are not lacking in heft for me. Even what seems trivial can shed a glimmer of light on that supreme truth which Christ’s Resurrection manifests in splendor: that all the evil so evident in our world cannot annihilate the Goodness of God.

The Lord bless you and keep you;
the Lord make his face to shine upon you, and be gracious to you;
the Lord lift up his countenance upon you, and give you peace.

(Numbers 6:24-26)