1st Sunday of Advent (2023)

Can I tell you a secret? Whenever someone says that to us, they get our immediate attention. We get very curious about what we are about to hear. It’s tantalizing. We don’t know how to feel. Something in our mind wonders if we should be excited about the information we will listen to or maybe dread the news. Regardless, we can’t wait to hear the secret.

Learning a secret gets our attention. That is why articles in the media use the word so often in their titles. They know we will stop to read any article promising to reveal the secrets of a happy marriage, how to make a killing on Wall Street or success in any facet of life. Reporters are always asking probing questions that try to get to the secrets the interviewee might have about a situation. We want to learn the secrets even if circumstances don’t directly affect us. We like to think we are always people in the know about what is happening around us.

Secrets create tensions that we will want to resolve. Learning a secret always stirs our curiosity to learn more. Hearing a secret makes us want to get deeper into the story. Knowing even a little bit prompts us to listen, investigate, and learn more about the news we have heard.

Why do we keep secrets? We keep them because it is strategic to do so. We keep secrets because we need more details about a situation before we discuss it. We want to make sure we have our information from a reliable source. Maybe we have learned sensitive information that, if revealed, would endanger or put someone at risk.

Often, we don’t want to disclose a confidence because the timing isn’t right. To divulge our information might ruin a surprise or hurt someone unnecessarily. We don’t want to cause unnecessary stress or misplaced anticipation, so we keep our news to ourselves. That is why couples usually keep an impending pregnancy a secret until it has developed further along. We keep a job change quiet until we are sure all the details fall into place because unexpected things can happen.

We can refuse to tell a secret because it isn’t something we feel comfortable revealing at present. If it became known, we know it could have unrelated consequences or cause old wounds to open. We might choose to endure the pain we feel is best left unexposed. Sometimes, we don’t tell secrets because, frankly, it is nobody’s business but our own. Not every detail needs to come out; we feel it would invade our privacy to tell everything.

We sometimes reveal our secrets for good reasons. Maybe they are getting to be too heavy a burden for us. We have been diagnosed with a serious illness and, at first, don’t want our loved ones to feel burdened. We end up telling them because carrying a burden is more manageable when others help.

Sharing our secrets with others we trust is a way to deepen our connections with them. Sometimes, when others get to know us and our struggles, it helps to build a relationship. We develop special bonds with those with whom we can share our confidences. They become our soulmates. They get to know our hearts and help satisfy our need to be understood and appreciated for who we are. When we have another with whom we can share our story, our struggles, fears, hopes, and dreams, the quality of our lives improves.

At times, we are willing to share our secrets because we need others help to carry out our plans for a Christmas party or celebration, for instance. We share our secrets because we know the one we have entrusted with them will view it as a gift and not expose it. They are people who will listen to us, are trustworthy, and not violate our confidence. We share secrets with people we believe are on our side and will treasure our information as a gift.

Did you realize that God has secrets? Maybe you never recognized it before, but scripture makes it plain that God has secrets yet to be revealed. In Mark’s Gospel we read:

“The Son of Man will come with great power and glory.

But you do not know when that will come.”

Jesus tells the apostles even He is ignorant of the timing of His second coming. It is God’s secret and no one else’s. That is why we need to resist the temptation to be caught up by anyone who claims they have special knowledge to predict the world’s end. Every few years, it seems some shyster comes along claiming to have secret knowledge about the date of the world’s end. They claim they have devised it from extraordinary knowledge of the scriptures. They deceive people into giving them money, and then the day they predict for the world’s end comes and goes, and the rapture hasn’t occurred.

God has secrets, but He hides them for us, not from us. God keeps secrets because God wants us to seek them out. God wants us to care enough about His secrets so that we will search for them, find them, and learn what they have to teach us.

One of our frustrations as Christians is that God won’t come right out and let us in on all of God’s secrets by telling us all the answers to our prayers. I remember when I was discerning a vocation to the priesthood. I wanted God to come right out and tell me yes or no whether I should enter the seminary. God wouldn’t solve that mystery for me in such a direct way. Instead, God told me I had to risk entering the seminary without feeling a decisive call to a priestly vocation. I had to chance failure before I could hear God’s call.

God does want to reveal Himself to us completely. Luke’s Gospel says:

“The knowledge of the secrets of the kingdom of God

has been given to you.”

But God won’t let us in on all of God’s secrets because God knows once we resolve our quandary, we might become less likely to seek God out or learn more of the wisdom God wants to offer us. If God gave us all our answers up front, we might feel they were unimportant and lose interest in pursuing our relationship with God. Our engagement in growing a relationship with God concerns God, and God wants to foster that growth, so he keeps some secrets for us to learn in the future.

Sometimes, we think of prophets as great and mighty, larger-than-life figures God chose for a special mission. If we read the scriptures, every last one of them was reluctant to take on the role of prophet, but God recognized they had a unique ability to be entrusted with God’s secrets. They listened to God, connected with doing God’s will, and helped carry out God’s hopes and desires for humankind’s future.

A quote from the prophet Amos says:

“Surely, the Lord God does nothing

without revealing his secrets to his servants, the prophets.”

That means every one of us who is baptized has been made a prophet. We are someone God wants to reveal secrets to. God wants to entrust us with knowledge and information God wants the world to learn. God reveals to prophets what God is doing in some circumstances and situations so we can inform others. The baptized are prophets who can honestly and authentically speak for God because they have a relationship with God. The prophet is the one to reveal God’s plan and invite others to participate.

As we enter Advent, we recognize how God did that at the Nativity we are preparing to celebrate. Scripture tells us God came into the world quietly as a baby in a small town. Most of the world ignored this birth. It was revealed to only a few, like Mary, Joseph, Mary’s cousin Elizabeth, the shepherds in the fields, and the far-away Magi. God told the secret of the birth of Jesus quietly and through simple people.

God revealed Jesus’ birth to different people in different ways depending on their role. To Mary, it was through the appearance of an angel; to Joseph, in dreams, Elizabeth learned about Jesus’ coming through prayer and the Holy Spirit. A host of angels proclaimed it to the shepherds, and a bright new star prompted the Magi to discover the Christ child. Their stories are models of openness for us to follow to learn of God’s secrets.

God wants us to take up our role as His prophets this Advent. To do that, we must commit to listening to God’s plan. We must become more aware of God’s design for us personally, our family, and our community. That will only happen if prayer is part of our life every day. We can only hear and learn from God through prayer.

As Advent begins, I ask you to commit to two things. Make every effort to come here to Mass every weekend to listen to this series of homilies about how God wants to reveal His secrets to you. That includes the 4th Sunday of Advent. I know it is Christmas Eve, and you might be planning to come to an evening Christmas Mass, but we still need to fulfill both our Sunday and Christmas obligations. There are no two-for-one deals with God, and you need to attend both Masses.

If our prayer life has grown lax over time or we haven’t ever had any prayer life outside of our Mass attendance, we need to address that this Advent. Commit yourself to making daily prayer time a priority. Starting with as little as ten minutes, commit to being quiet with the Lord to hear God reveal the secrets of His love to us is a start. Slowly increase our prayer time over the Advent Season.

This week, God will ask each of us, “Can I tell you a secret?” Say yes, and God will share the secrets that will give your life true meaning and help you live in God’s grace so you can join in the secret of eternal life.