We celebrate the season that's always called "Advent," and it occurred to me, this week, that it should be re-named. And I came up with a much better title, although I have to warn you that I don't think it will work because, first of all, it's a little awkward title. And, secondly, it doesn't sound "churchy" or pious or preachy, so it's hard to sell. But I think it's a great idea.

The name I would use for the season of Advent, the title instead of "Advent," would be "What's Inside?" ..."What's Inside?" You don't like it? I expected a burst of applause. You know, it is a season when we're buying gifts and wrapping them, so people will wonder what's inside. It is a season when Christmas gifts start appearing at the foot of Christmas trees and little children start asking, "What's inside?" But, more importantly, it's a season of discovery, and the place where we have to look for our spirituality, for our religious experience, for our experience of the presence and the power of God is inside.

Now, we've been misled on this, for centuries, I think we have been mislead. I can remember the first time I was really mislead about where to look. It was in the 1940's. There was a movie that won an Academy Award, the "Song of Bernadette." Jennifer Jones played St. Bernadette. And we went to the movie. Not only did we see it in the theatre, but, later on, they brought it to the Catholic Schools and showed it on those old 16 millimeter projectors. And there you saw Bernadette, kneeling outside the grotto in Lourdes. And you looked up and you saw, projected right up there, standing for all the world to see, Mary, the Immaculate Conception.

But, the historians of that event and the journalists of that day assure us that, if we had been there, we would have seen absolutely nothing, because the religious experience and the Marian apparition that St. Bernadette had was within her. There were no spectators allowed. I would even suggest, if we were lucky enough to have been in Nazareth when the Angel Gabriel appeared to Mary at the Annunciation, we would not have seen the Angel projected on the wall. We would have seen Mary, deep in prayer, awesome-struck in silence. And it was going on inside her. That's how the power and the presence of God works in our universe, in our lives, in our Church, in our world. So that's why I think it's a great title, "What's Inside?," even if you didn't cheer.

The Advent season and the celebration of Christmas are not so much waiting for God to come down or waiting for God to arrive. It's not waiting for the Son of God to descend from out there, or up there, or over there, or someplace else. Rather, it's for us to discover, and for humanity to fully realize what was true from the very beginning, that the best name of God is that Hebrew name, "Emmanuel," God IS with us. And our task is to discover God with us, and then try to live by that discovery.... by what's inside.

You know, we have other phrases. One of them strikes me. It's always puzzled me a bit, the "Chosen People," the Hebrew people, Jewish people, referred to as the "Chosen People." Why did they get chosen? In fact, I think it's a little anti-Semitic, but G. K. Chesterton, the English author, used the phrase, "How odd of God, to choose the Jews." And, in Fiddler on the Roof, Tevia, the hero, looks up to God and says, "Dear God, just once, why won't you choose somebody else?"

But, what do we mean when we say they were "chosen?" Was it because they were better than other nations and people? I don't think so. Was it because they were holier than other people? I don't think so. Was it because God loved them more than other people? I absolutely don't think so. Was it because God was nearer to them than other people? Absolutely not! The reason we call them "chosen" is, in their history, they recognized, they discovered the power and presence of God at work. They NOTICED it! And then, for centuries later, their prophets kept reminding them of their discovery and challenged them to live faithfully to it, with very mixed results.

We think of the event and of the person of Christ Jesus that we celebrate at Christmas. And we call it, the "Incarnation," the Word made flesh. It's not the celebration of a distant God coming to pay us a visit. But it is the living presence of God, already in our midst, the Word of God, already in the midst of creation, surfacing and breaking through as one of us. And that Word of God is not a recent arrival. That idea is not a new idea. And, by "recent," I mean it's not just a mere two thousand years ago. Uh-uh. Our God was present from the first moment of the birth of this universe, and from that moment, seeking to be discovered and to give us wisdom and to break through.

There is a prayer Father Dibble will say a little later, the Advent preface of the Mass, where it talks about "Your plan formed long ago." .... Long ago... Now scientists will tell us about how long ago, about fifteen billion years ago. That's where "God with us" begins. And that's what we're about. Our focus is not "up there" or "over there" or "back there," but it's what's inside, what's inside our present history, and what's inside our world, and what's inside our relationships. We look at our relationships. It means looking at family, looking at friends, looking at co-workers, at classmates, looking at our personal attitudes, and looking at our conversation and our patterns and our behavior, and saying, "Do we discover God there?" If we do, do we have to get more in harmony with that God?

And here's the big one! What about discovering and looking for God in the history of our world, right now? I mean, globally, it's a terrifying scene. You take Afghanistan with the Taliban, with warlords, and with our young men and women there on our behalf. Or you look at the Holy Land, "Holy Land," torn apart with anger and bloodshed and terrorism between Israeli and Palestinian. Or you just look at the last hundred years. What's inside, when we look and see, in the last hundred years, the genocide of the Armenians, the Holocaust of Nazi Germany, the tragedy of Pearl Harbor, the Killing Fields of Cambodia, the on-going trial of terrorism between Protestant and Catholic in Northern Ireland, and the tragedy of the World Trade Center. What 's inside of all that?

I would suggest there is a thread that keeps re-appearing, like a light that refuses to go out, and a light that, if we see it and discover it, we are somehow responsible to keep it burning. Through it all, our God Emmanuel, God with us, keeps calling us to find ways of compassion and roads to justice and paths of peace. If we discover that light, the call of that God says to us we need to begin with the simplest, closest steps in our life, with kindness and care for those near us, with compassion and consideration for those distant and different from us, and, despite all the difficulties, with the refusal to give up hope in the face of global challenges.

Advent's a real interesting season, a season of discovery, a season where we look for "God's birthing star," (We sang of that.) among us, a season to ask, "What's really inside, and, then, what must we do about it?" Amen.