December 14, 2025
Dear Friends,
If you think back to any time you’ve spent with young children, you will recall that one of their most attractive and endearing characteristics is that they are incredibly curious. Children engage with the world around them with an openness and an attitude of discovery that allows them to experience the blessing of wonder in all kinds of situations. Unfortunately, as we grow up, we tend to lose the holy and healthy curiosity of childhood, and we begin to practice a more pernicious and problematic form of curiosity, which leads to nosiness and voyeurism, rather than to wonder. This “adult” form of curiosity is not interested in receiving and loving the world around us, but in using and manipulating it for our own selfish ends.
I mention this because it seems to me that, in this Sunday’s Gospel, John the Baptist demonstrates the holy and healthy curiosity often exhibited by young children. Having been imprisoned by King Herod for his preaching, John must have been confused by the reports he got about his cousin Jesus. Earlier in the narrative of the Gospel of Matthew, John had been hesitant to baptize Jesus because he recognized in Jesus someone greater than himself. He must have hoped that Jesus would be the expected Messiah who would forcibly overturn the world as they knew it and act decisively to redeem Israel.
But, sitting in prison, John must have heard that Jesus was not getting ready to lead a military revolt to overthrow the Romans and those who were unfaithful to God. Instead, Jesus was going around preaching, healing, and interacting with the “wrong” sort of people. Jesus wasn’t acting like the Messiah that John was probably expecting. But, instead of resenting or rejecting Jesus for not conforming to the expectations that he had, John responded with a holy and healthy curiosity, sending some of his disciples to Jesus to ask him, “Are you the one who is to come, or should we look for another?”
Notice that John didn’t ask, “Why are you not doing what I expected you to do? Why are you letting me languish here in prison, instead of getting me out and starting the revolt we’ve been desperately waiting for?” Instead, John asked his question in a way that revealed an openness to the possibility that God might reveal his faithfulness and love differently from what John thought God would or should. John didn’t want to use or manipulate Jesus for his own purposes, but, instead, was willing to have his own outlook changed and broadened by God. And by showing his disciples that even he needed to discover more fully the ways of the Lord, John helped prepare the way for the full revelation of God’s plan for redeeming and restoring not only Israel, but all of humanity.
As we continue our Advent pilgrimage to Christmas, John can help us to prepare the way for the Lord in our lives and in our world by reminding us of the holy and healthy curiosity with which we need to respond to the presence and action of God. Like John, we have our own expectations and ideas of how God should act in our lives. Perhaps we want him to be a kind of “snow plough” parent who clears all obstacles from our path. Maybe we think that God should give us plenty of room to do “our thing” and not make demands of us.
But what if we approached any discrepancies between our expectations and God revelation with a holy and healthy curiosity, like John the Baptist, rather than with suspicion and resentment? How would our lives be different if we were more open to God and his ways of acting, which always surpass our limited ways of thinking? What if we experienced the challenges and mysteries of life not as occasions to criticize or condemn God, but as opportunities to discover the limitless goodness and greatness of God? Such a “reframe” would allow us to live and interact with each other and with the world around us with a freedom, receptivity, and generosity that would liberate us from the prisons into which we so often lock ourselves.
Perhaps, that is why, as we will celebrate at Christmas, God, entered our world as a little child, totally open and receptive to us; to help us rediscover and regain the holy and healthy curiosity that allows us to marvel and wonder at the infinite wisdom, generosity, and love of God.
Peace,
Father Leo