This evening, in the dark, things will go bump in the night. Demons and devils and goblins and such, many disguised as little children during the day, will ring that door bell and demand a treat, lest they be forced to think up some dreadful trick to pull on the residents of Deacon House.
But this is not the only night that things will go bump in the this holy house, and you know what, that’s what makes it holy. For if we pick up the crosses God gives us, it’s often a very bumpy ride.
Saint Paul compares it to a woman in labor, groaning in pains from deep within, straining for the redemption of our bodies and of our very selves.
Such straining often takes place at night, as when Peter struggled to remain faithful to the Lord and failed. It was night.
It’s often after the gloaming of the day that such struggles occur, when the doubts and the fears come out to play, when old rages or panicky gasps crawl out from beneath the veneer of respectability that we maintain during daylight hours. At those moments when we are most like our primordial selves we work out our redemption, like Peter beside the campfire trying to choose Jesus or himself.
But it is such nights that make this journey blessed, my brothers. For when you face the bumpy ride you never do so alone. It is a blessed share in his blessed Passion, which transforms you, deepens you and makes you ever anew. It is the dark purgatory of the living, which refines you into the fire-tried gold he has called you to be.
Paul’s analogy to the woman groaning in labor is apt. For it is the greatest pain a human being can know, but it always ends in a birth to new life.
