At LAST....

the end of the beginning! Advent is nearly over... just a few more hours. What have you learned this Advent season? How has God spoken to you? What attitude do you hope to carry through the rest of the liturgical year?

I have come to begin to understand a critical difference between hope and expectation.  Expectations can be crushed, buried, or thrown out the window. We can (and do) often expect unreasonable things.  Expectations are about the temporal order, and therefore can be measured according to our system of pass and fail. I might mention that very often our expectations control us, how we feel, and how we react.

Hope is another thing altogether.  Hope sees the truth. Hope dreams the otherwise impossible. Hope never dies.  Hope is of the supernatural order.  We can hope for all sorts of things, and it is even healthy. Think of all the things we hope for, but do not expect. If you can't, maybe you need a little more hope in your life!

This is no theological splitting of hairs. This is just the difference, in my opinion, of a Merry Christmas and a Christmas. It is the difference between fostering a healthy yearning, and a dictating demand. Expectations not met only leave us bitter, sad, or angry.  Hopes that are not immediately met leave us aching all the more, and INCREASES our hope.

You see, we might not be able to expect our child to return to the faith tomorrow. But, we can hope that they will. In one case our entire attitude will reflect their coming back tomorrow - this is surrounded by denial, fear, frustration, etc.  On the other, our hearts long for it and act according to this DESIRE.  The pain subsists, but is surrounded by the truth of the situation, the truth that God is in control, the truth that God knows all things and will eventually bless our hope, the truth in a mysterious way sets us free. It frees us from false expectations and frees us to hope in what seems impossible. I know.... it doesn't make "sense." But, who says that God has to make sense to us?

Tonight is the night that fulfills all the hope, all the pain, and all the yearning. In His Time, in His Way, but in OUR LIFE!