Whether Hallmark movies and mysteries or round-the-clock Christmas programs, you can be sure to find a movie that’s predictable. A chance meeting leads to living happily-ever-after. Persons in grief or depression have bright eyes and big smiles by the last two minutes of the program. Yet the first Christmas was anything but predictable. A virgin bearing a child? God born in a cattle shed? The lowest caste of shepherds receiving news of the Messiah first? Kings coming to a tiny village in the middle of nowhere? No predictability in the Nativity story!
And what about Advent now? Predictable? Hardly. While some have tried to ascertain the date of the Second Coming, no one has succeeded. We are certainly clueless about the time or manner of the Parousia. We can’t even be certain about the day or hour or even minute. No wonder the Church keeps telling us “Be ready! Stay awake!” Attentiveness is the real hallmark of Advent.