Everything is transformed
“All human nature vigorously resists grace because grace changes us and the change is painful.”
—Flannery O’Connor
“God is Change.”
—Octavia Butler, Parable of the Sower
Two days before Christmas, the Church gives us readings that are anything but sentimental. They are about disruption. About grace that does not soothe first, but unsettles. About God’s arrival refusing to fit our categories or our comfort.
Malachi asks, “Who can endure the day of his coming?” The psalm urges us, “Lift up your heads and see.” And in Luke’s Gospel, the neighbors gathered around Elizabeth and Zechariah protest the name chosen for their newborn son: “There is no one among your relatives who has this name.” God is doing something new, and the newness is disorienting.
Malachi’s refiner’s fire is not punishment but preparation—an image of God stripping away what cannot remain. That same preparation is required of us as we confront the realities of our time. We are living in a moment marked by profound uncertainty. Political tensions run high. Economic pressures strain families. Global conflicts and climate instability reshape entire regions. Many people feel unmoored and afraid. Like the neighbors in today’s Gospel, we cling to what is familiar, even when the Spirit is moving.
Here in Seattle, where I live, the recent atmospheric river has been a stark reminder of the climate trauma of our age. Neighborhoods flooded, transit routes washed out, families displaced—each moment revealing how vulnerable we truly are. Standing in that uncertainty, I recognize the instinct to hold tight to what feels predictable. And yet, in the midst of the storm, I also heard the psalm’s invitation: “Lift up your heads and see.” See neighbors checking on one another. See volunteers filling sandbags. See the resilience of communities refusing to abandon hope. Grace often arrives this way—not soothing at first, but awakening us to what must change, and to the God who meets us in the places we feel most exposed and vulnerable.
Authors Butler and O’Connor, writing from such different worlds, both point toward the Advent mystery: God’s coming transforms everything. Christ enters a world in upheaval and invites us to trust that change—painful, disruptive, grace-filled—is the place where God is already at work.
As Christmas approaches, we ask:
· What change is God inviting us to welcome, even if it unsettles us?
· What newness is being born in our ministries, our communities, our Church?
· What grace have we been resisting because it asks something of us?
Kelly Hickman (she/her) serves as the Director of Development for Jesuit Volunteer Corps (JVC) Northwest and Co-President of the Conference of St. Vincent de Paul at St. Edward Parish in Seattle, WA.