What thresholds do you need to cross? (Part 1 of 4)

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Advent comes at the threshold of a new year. Advent this year, through the Sunday Gospel readings, invites us to consider crossing certain thresholds. Advent, our preparation for Christmas, is a season of “thresholding,” of threshing the old and holding the new. During these four weeks of Advent, let’s sift through old perspectives and plans and ask what we need to keep and what we must let go. Releasing what no longer serves us, we become free to hold what is new with faith and courage.

The verse right before our Gospel today warns us: “Of that day and hour no one knows, neither the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father alone.” If you read through the Gospel (Matthew 24:37-44), the ominous refrain of not knowing haunts: The people during the time of Noah “did not know until the flood came and carried them all away.” The master of the house did not know “the hour of night when the thief was coming,” and so his house was broken into. Just like them, we “do not know on which day [the] Lord will come.”

The space of “I don’t know” can be disquieting, but can it be a threshold we are being invited to cross?

When was the last time you said “I don’t know” not just because you lacked information, but because you stood at a loss, your knees nearly buckling under the weight of being lost? This is the “I don’t know” that cannot be solved with a simple answer, but rather the “I don’t know” that spirals into staggering question after staggering question.

“I don’t know” can leave you stunned, reeling, and knocked down. But “I don’t know” can also be a knock on the door that opens to discovery.

Think of someone you don’t get along with, someone who has made you shake your head and ask: “Why do they do this? Why do they do it in that way?” Unknit your eyebrows, unclench your jaw, take a deep breath, and try saying: “But I don’t know what may be going on behind the scenes. I don’t know what this person has gone through or is going through.” “I don’t know” does not have to be a dead end. It can be the first step toward understanding.

Now think of some time in your life when you found yourself complaining to God: “Why is this happening to me? I am doing my best to be a good person. I am trying to follow your will. Why is nothing working out? Why is everything falling apart?” Uncross your arms, loosen your grip (you don’t always have to be in control), and let out a sigh as you try praying, “I don’t know what you are up to, Lord. I see only fragments of the story, but you behold the grand design. I only ask for a glimpse of your presence. Let me not be alone.” “I don’t know” does not have to be despair. It can be the first step toward trust.

And now think of yourself and remember the moments when you’ve asked, “Why am I like this? Why do I keep making the same mistakes? Why can’t I seem to change?” Soften your gaze, let go of the harsh words you hold against yourself, breathe gently, and try whispering, “I don’t know why I stumble, but I also don’t know the whole of who I am becoming. I am still in process, far from complete. I don’t know how grace is at work in me, but it must be.” “I don’t know” does not have to be self-condemnation. It can be the first step toward mercy.

We return to the verse we quoted above: “Of that day and hour no one knows, neither the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father alone.” There were things even Jesus did not know.

Can you imagine this scene unfolding in heaven before the first Christmas? God the Father is talking with God the Son: “When you go down to earth and become human, while you will still be divine, there will be things you will not know. Can you enter the world of ‘I don’t know’?” And the Son says yes.

Can we really imagine this? As the Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC) states, “This human soul that the Son of God assumed is endowed with a true human knowledge. As such, this knowledge could not in itself be unlimited: It was exercised in the historical conditions of his existence in space and time. This is why the Son of God could, when he became man, ‘increase in wisdom and in stature, and in favor with God and man,’ and would even have to inquire for himself about what one in the human condition can learn only from experience. This corresponded to the reality of his voluntary emptying of himself, taking ‘the form of a slave’” (CCC 472). In Jesus’ self-emptying, he chose not omniscience but solidarity, not exemption from human limitations but immersion in it.

The Son said yes to not knowing. It is a yes that rang out when he, using the opening line of Psalm 22, asked on the cross, “My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?” I can imagine Jesus following this with “I don’t know, I don’t know.” But I can also imagine Jesus continuing to pray the rest of that Psalm: “In you our fathers trusted” (verse 5). “Do not stay far from me, for trouble is near, and there is no one to help” (verse 12). “For [God] has not spurned or disdained the misery of this poor wretch, did not turn away from me, but heard me when I cried out” (verse 25).

The space of “I don’t know” may be disquieting. Yet knowing that Jesus himself entered this space can give us peace. May this help us cross the threshold of “I don’t know.”

Your prayer assignment this week:

Try mouthing these words, “I don’t know, I don’t know.” Ask for the grace to say them not only with anxiety but also with expectation. Once you admit you don’t know, you have taken the first step toward knowing. In the spiritual life, unknowing is not failure but faith’s native habitat. God is encountered not only in light but in cloud and darkness.

The early results of a research study I am conducting on the faith lives of Catholic students reveal something striking: Those who cling to clarity and certainty, those who want everything black and white, often struggle to hold on to their faith. But those who can be comfortable in ambiguity, those who can rest in the unresolved, are the ones who persevere. In the grays of life, Grace lives.

Are you someone who can enter Mystery? As you try to answer this question, let this song accompany you: 

Try to sing these words in your heart: “Without knowing, I can still believe. Without seeing, I can still follow.”

Fr. Francis teaches Theology, Education and Scripture at both the Ateneo de Manila University and Loyola School of Theology. As a classroom teacher, he is first and foremost a student. As a professor, he sees himself primarily as a pastor.