1st Sunday of Advent - Knowing the Unknowable

Long relationships are good, but they can become awkward. In new relationships there is that energy, that passion. We spend time getting to know the new friend, the new love, the new baby. Everything is new and exciting.

Then the passion, the energy subsides...and the real work begins.

One of the hallmarks needed in a relationship for it to continue to grow is the space to grow. We need to permit the other to change and develop; to become more themselves; and we need the space for ourselves to grow. In marriage preparation this is part of the conversation; we cannot change anyone else including the spouse, nor can we stop our spouse from changing. Marriage is that commitment to remain with the other, to help them, and the other help us, become our best.

Things will catch us by surprise in relationships. Each time I visit with my folks I almost always catch something new about them; a like or dislike, a new interest, something faded away. The Trick is to be alert to those moments.

We have moved into another new year in our relationship with Jesus Christ, with God. Maybe this is year 2 or maybe this is year 100, or something in-between. How is that relationship? Maybe needing some change?

Fr. Ronald Rohlheiser writes of God as the infinite horizon of love. It’s a wonderful metaphor for our journey with God. We see a horizon, we walk to it, get there, and wait, there is yet another horizon, and we move on, and on, and on. We never exhaust the journey.

These coming weeks we prepare ourselves to celebrate the Incarnation of the Son of God, Christmas. This is not about baby Jesus, but about the person of Jesus Christ. It is a renewal of a relationship. And maybe we have stopped journeying; have not allowed that relationship to grow; Jesus is still the same in our eyes.

Yet, this person of Jesus can surprise us, if we allow the space. If we are alert to him. Jesus always wants to catch us and take us to a deeper understanding of him, and what he is about.

Because the more we progress in our understanding of the person of Christ, the more we are open to freedom in the world, the more good we can do, and the more Joy we can experience. 

Some of the saddest persons and at times angriest are those who claim to believe in Jesus, but it is a Jesus from their first communion. They never took the opportunity to grow.

All the tools that we have at our disposal as Catholics; our Scripture, our ritual and liturgies, our spirituality, are all but means to draw us deeper into the Christ. 

They are but means to get us to be aware of the moments of surprise when Christ calls out to us “I am here!”. Those moments of heartbreak and he says I am here to help you forgive. Those moments of pride and ego, and he says I am here to help you be more humble. Those moments of despair and grief, and when he gives us hope and vision.

Those moments when we are called to act with charity, generosity, to make this world truly reflect the Kingdom of Heaven.   We may think, “Jesus didn’t mean that!” He really did not mean for me to actually love a republican or democrat...a non Catholic, Christian, a person from another country, This means we have not created space. And yes, Jesus means just exactly that.  

People will tell me that they do not feel God anymore, or Jesus...God has left them…  Wonder if God, Jesus, the Holy Spirit aren’t simply a little ahead of us, waiting for us to get walking again and catch up. We are still looking in our place for them.


The brilliant part of the Incarnation is that the Unknowable, mysterious God became a human person so that we can know the unknowable. So that we can enter into and be with the person of God. We ready for it? Ready for the adventure?

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