"We are infinite souls inside finite lives and that alone should be enough to explain our incessant and insatiable aching."

Ronald Rolheiser

This is why I - and many of you - have a proclivity toward melancholy.

This is the sadness that lives deep down in our souls; that we feel in our bellies.

This is why waves of darkness sweep over us at seemingly random moments.

This aching is not a deficiency. It is not a defect, a shortcoming, a flaw, a fault.

It is a sign of the truest thing about us humans.

We are infinite souls inside finite lives ...

therefore, we ache.

And if it is true, then what is it we are aching for?

Infinite lives.

This is the hope at the very heart of Advent.

That our Creator, who is infinite, became finite, so that you and I can discover the antidote for our incessant and insatiable aching.

Amen and amen.