Praise God for blessings yet to be revealed

Published: January 20, 2024

By Father Andrew Hart, JCL
Theological Consultant

I am writing this reflection on Christmas Eve. By the time you read it, the Christmas season will be over, or nearly so, and the New Year several weeks old. I will risk being a little out-of-date, however, because there’s an important lesson we can easily forget once we’re on the other side of the holidays. And it’s a lesson that can last us all through the year.

Join me for a moment back here on Dec. 24. It’s late afternoon. This year, the waning sunlight is obscured by dreary rain. No matter. There’s something special about this now — a numinous quality, a charged stillness that seems to hover in the air. It’s one of my favorite moments of the year, this time between times, as Advent silently slips away, without parting sign or word, and suddenly the Christmas festivities are upon us.

I enjoy this brief moment each year not only because it often passes by unnoticed but also because it’s rare that we experience points of transition as they happen. Usually, it is only in hindsight that we understand how a particular incident or encounter, a given hour or day, constituted a shift in the course of our lives.

If we do recognize that suddenly things have changed, it’s most likely to be in the context of tragedy: a diagnosis of illness, an outbreak of war, the death of a loved one. We are used to how sorrow and woe can come upon us abruptly, violently even. We steel ourselves against the expectation of catastrophe and we know how to cope, or try to, when it comes.

But when it comes to noticing the joyful moments of transition and transformation, we are not nearly as observant. To be sure, they are harder to catch because they often come more quietly; but they do come. It’s important then to train our interior eye to be on the lookout for joy, to be eager — expectant, even — for the gifts of God, even if we can’t yet see them. As the prophet Micah (7:7) says, “As for me, I will look to the Lord, I will wait for God my savior; my God will hear me!”

Think, for example, of the two events that we celebrate in this season: the incarnation of Christ and his nativity. The world was changed when the eternal Son of God was conceived in the womb of the Blessed Virgin Mary, and it was changed again when he was born as our savior and redeemer.

And yet both events went virtually unnoticed at the time; they were understood only by Mary herself and perhaps those closest to her. Only with the passage of time did the meaning of those moments — and of that child born for us — become fully apparent. Such is often the way with our God. All may seem quiet and still, and yet already he is at work among us in unseen ways.

The light in my office window has dimmed further, which is my signal to return to the parish. Soon the first of the children’s Masses will be starting, and the quiet wonder of this in-between time will fully transition to the joy of Christmas. I wonder what gift, though still veiled, will soon be shown to me by the Lord? Although yet hidden in this moment, I can already give him thanks — I will praise him for the blessings he has yet to reveal.

Father Andrew Hart, JCL, is theological consultant to Arkansas Catholic, adjutant judicial vicar for the Diocese of Little Rock and associate pastor of Our Lady of Good Counsel Church in Little Rock. This article was originally published in Arkansas Catholic Jan. 20, 2024. Copyright Diocese of Little Rock. All rights reserved. This article may be copied or redistributed with acknowledgement and permission of the publisher.