BRIDGEPORT—After shining brilliantly in the field all day, sunflowers turn to the east at night and wait for the sun to rise again, said Msgr. Thomas Powers, vicar general of the Diocese of Bridgeport in a brief Advent reflection for Catholic Center employees.
During the same meeting, Father Robert Kinnally, chancellor of the diocese and pastor of St. Aloysius Parish in New Canaan, turned his attention to desert flowers that bloom under the harshest conditions in unlikely places. 
Both men offered their thoughts on “waiting” in a time of pandemic at the annual Christmas staff meeting convened by Deacon Pat Toole, episcopal vicar for administration to offer an update on the diocesan COVID-19 response and a progress report on other programs in the Diocese of Bridgeport. More than 60 employees joined the meeting over Zoom.
Msgr. Powers opened the meeting by recalling that when he was working in Rome at the Vatican, he took the train North from with the sea to his left and after about 20 minutes out of the city, the train passed through another sea of sunflowers that seemed to go on for hours and miles.
He said that the flowers dazzled him with “God’s incredible beauty,” and taught the lesson that rather than drooping in darkness, they wait for the light, just as we wait for the “creator of the sun. So to Jesus who was born comes to us every day in grace and will come at the end of time.”
Msgr. Powers said that the pandemic has led to a rough time for everybody, and as a new pastor at St. John Church in Darien, he has witnessed families struggling, suffering and waiting for all it to be over.
“COVID-19 has built into us a sense of waiting—waiting for vaccines, waiting for a time we can travel and see families and do the normal things we do,” he said. “But this is not a time to droop. We must actively wait for the sun, use this suffering as a time to wait for Christ. We must look for light of world, Jesus who is here with us and present to us.”
Msgr. Powers said that in the coming days we will see many Christmas lights, but there is one light Catholics should seek out.
“One light we should focus on is Christ that. The light by the tabernacle in every single church in the world is a reminder that Christ is present with us. Like those sunflowers, we must turn toward the light of Jesus who will come again and is not leaving this world.”
In his closing reflection, Father Robert Kinnally said that a number of years ago when he and friends were vacationing in Arizona, he decided to make a trip to the desert. However, when he got there, he quickly realized he was not prepared to enter such a forbidding place.
“As you enter the desert there are warning signs that list all the things you need to know including the sudden drop in temperature, the need to have enough water for 24 hours and of course to be careful of certain creatures,” he recalled.
But he also quickly discovered that as much as the desert can be a dangerous and frightening place, it contains an amazing silence in its vastness and “hidden points of beauty.”
“The pandemic is a time of desert,” he said, adding that the pandemic has made people afraid, frustrated and upset, but also offers an opportunity to discover amazing things.
“A lot of people have said they have discovered what is really important in life and all of the blessings that they have had.”
Likening the pandemic to a period of captivity, Father Kinnally said that Israel “waited more than a lifetime for the Messiah,” and “we have gift of Christmas every year and Christ dwells in our heart all the time. God keeps his promise to take his people out of captivity.”
He said he worries about the seniors in his parish and one of his most difficult days as a pastor was giving the final blessing to five different parishioners who were dying in a nursing home within the same half-hour.
“They could hear us as we commend them to God. It was difficult but it was a gift, and their families were grateful we could do something,” Father Kinnally said. He added that he was inspired by and grateful to his brother priests who donned full protective gear and ministered to the elderly who were gravely ill and dying in Fairfield County.
Going through the experience of the pandemic is a lesson in our need to “trust in the providence of God,” he said.
Referring to the parable of Jesus in the boat during the storm, Father Kinnally said that the apostles were concerned but the presence of Jesus was an invitation to remain calm in the midst of darkness and tragedy.
Father Kinnally said the recent loss of his own father has driven that message home. “There is an invitation for us to mourn, to understand that God takes care of us. To know that he holds us up when we can’t hold ourselves up is to know the child who comes to us at Christmas.”
He also told employees that the role they play, while it may seem small at times, is part of the history of salvation. “Everyone of us has a little bit of the story God breaking into the world and saving the world. We are all important and can make a difference in the Church.”
Father Kinnally said he prays that Christmas will be a time of peace and consolation for families.
“The waiting is frustrating, but if we sit at the feet of Jesus in patient waiting, we can emerge from this. Even the flowers in the desert turn a certain way. We must do everything we can to make a difference.”
