Advent 1

This coming Sunday, Advent 1 – the first of four Sundays to pay attention, get ready … align our senses and open our hearts … that Jesus might again be born, and we be born anew.

With good reason, the date of Dec. 25 was settled upon for the birth of Jesus, though none know the date. But think about it.

In the darkest time of the year, the brightest work of God!

I don’t know how it all works, but the strange intermingling of darkness and light, despair and hope.

I think it has something to do with our coming to the wall, when we’ve expended our all, and nothing more to be done … now what?

The strange and wondrous love of God meeting us at the end of our rope.

St. John of the Cross, a 16th century mystic, wrote The Dark Night of the Soul for young monks who had lost their initial fervor and joy. St. John counsels: God is on the move doing His most important work, but for our sake, God conceals it in darkness, and only when ready, does God reveal it to us. If we knew what God was doing in such critical moments of our formation, we’d rush in and muck it all up with our opinions and our desires.

“Wait upon the LORD” is still the best advice. And that’s what the Season of Advent teaches us anew – the power of waiting, because we are waiting for God!

There is, for all of us, a Bethlehem – that little out-of-the way place in our soul, not much in looks or means, but just right for the Son of God.

Wait for the LORD … you will not be disappointed!