Welcoming God into Our World

Dear Friends,

Advent begins today. The way the season is laid out, the first two weeks invite us to concentrate on the big picture – the coming of God into our world. The last two weeks immerse us in the more familiar way of celebrating Advent, namely in preparation for the well-known, well-loved coming of Christ at the stable in Bethlehem.

Another way to describe Advent is to emphasize that our God comes and continues to come into our adult world – to meet us wherever we are and to enfold us in love as we live our topsy-turvy lives.

The Dominican Herbert McCabe writes in a compelling way about this very contemporary coming, albeit in non-inclusive language: “God’s way is very much simpler than our ways. He doesn’t have our complications. He is just simply in love with us. Not just with some of us, not just with saints or people who try to be good, but with absolutely everybody: with liars and murderers, with traitors and rapists, with the greedy, the arrogant, the inconsiderate, with prime ministers and priests and policemen. He loves us all. And not in some general way. It is not a question of some vague warm feeling for humanity, for the whole human race. He loves each of us intimately and personally – more intimately and personally than we can love ourselves. He is more personally concerned for our good and happiness than we can be for ourselves.” (God, Christ and Us, p.26)

God is in love with us now, in our adult lives, as we are, where we are, however we face the future. But we are not easily convinced.

"There are certain questions we should ask ourselves, particularly during the Advent and Christmas seasons. Born 2,000 years after Christ…when we talk about God’s coming, do we not focus exclusively on the tiny babe born long ago?... Do we scan the horizons of our world for Christ’s coming, or have we locked God up in the prism of a bygone past?

"In our personal religious life, we are tempted to dwell on our childhood and our youthful enthusiasm, and we never really grow up. We surreptitiously undermine the possibility of a truly adult life. We give God no chance to exercise His initiative. We do not allow Him to reveal Himself in ways that would make Him credible as the God of adult life. We would like to overlook the divine advent yet to come.” (Johannes Baptist Metz, The Advent of God, pp.10,12)

Beginning today, we can take a fresh plunge into Advent. What one practice can you, can I, initiate to welcome God into our messy, much-loved world?

Perhaps it can be as simple as praying daily the last words of the New Testament. At the end of the Book of Revelation, we read, “Yes, I am coming soon,” and the reply “Amen! Come Lord Jesus!”

Amen!             Amen!             Amen!             Come, Lord Jesus!           Come!

~Sister Joan Sobala