The Loneliest Advent of My Life

The idealized Norman Rockwell Christmas — a bourgeois tableau of comfort and consumption — is a distraction. Advent is for the broken, the lost, and the defeated.

Dear friends —

Letters from Leo offers daily Advent reflections each morning through Christmas exclusively for paid subscribers, exploring what it means to follow Jesus in American civic and political life.

I hope you’ll journey with me as we welcome the light of Christ into every corner of our lives this season.

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To give you a sense of what you’ll experience, I’ve unlocked last Sunday’s reflection to all readers. (Note that the Sunday reflections will be longer.)

Thank you for walking with us. I’ll see you on the road.

“Come to me, all you who labor and are burdened, and I will give you rest.” (Matthew 11:28)

Today’s Readings

The loneliest Advent of my life was in 2011. I was 22 years old, working 14-hour days at the White House, living paycheck to paycheck, recently broken up, and trying to survive full-time in Washington, DC, just after graduating college.

Being new to the city and slightly socially awkward, I didn’t have many friends to celebrate the holidays with.

So, unsurprisingly to those who know me well, I spent a lot of time walking through churches.

One of my favorite spots became the crypt of the Basilica of the National Shrine. A haunting and quiet place, the crypt contains one of the most enigmatic sculptures in Christendom: The Holy Family at Rest.

Donated by the artist in 1963, shortly after the death of John F. Kennedy, this bronze sculpture sits at the East entrance to the crypt. It depicts the Holy Family exhausted during the flight into Egypt, pausing to rest secure under God’s care.

In that sculpture throughout that bleak midwinter, I found a sense of hope that God would carry the burdens of loneliness, burnout, and desperation.

As we prepare for Jesus’ coming into human history, this story offers a glimpse of what it means to have God become flesh among us.