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Our task is to seek and find Christ in our world as it is, and not as it might be. The fact that the world is other than it might be does not alter the truth that Christ is present in it and that his plan has been neither frustrated nor changed: indeed, all will be done according to his will.
Our Advent is a celebration of this hope. What is uncertain is not the “coming” of Christ but our own reception of him, our own response to him, our readiness and capacity to “go forth to meet him”. We must be willing to see him and acclaim him, even at the very moment when our whole life’s work and all its meaning seem to collapse.
(Thomas Merton)