Why Not the Sunday of Awe?

Dec 14, 2025

In the Christian tradition, the four Sundays of Advent are Hope, Peace, Joy, and Love. Each has a candle on the Advent wreath connected to it (purple, purple, pink, purple). There are some out there who feel that the order is locked in place but that has never been me. In fact, at RJC this year, we are doing Hope (purple), Peace (purple), Love (purple), and Joy (pink) for our order. But on Sunday morning as I read Fr Richard Rohr’s reflection on awe1, I wondered about why we can’t have a Sunday of Awe during Advent? He begins the message by quoting Abraham Joshua Heschel:

The roots of ultimate insights are found … on the level of wonder and radical amazement, in the depth of awe, in our sensitivity to the mystery. (from God in Search of Man)

Then Rohr’s words:

I believe the basic, primal, foundational spiritual intuition is a moment of awe and wonder. We say, “God, that’s beautiful!” Why do we so often say “God!” when we have such moments? I think it’s a recognition that this is a godly moment. We are somehow aware that something is just too good, too right, too much, too timely. When awe and wonder are absent from our life, we build our religion on laws and rituals, trying to manufacture some moment of awe. It works occasionally, I guess.

The whole reflection is worth your time.

I raise the question of the “Sunday of Awe” because when I read the stories leading up to the Christmas story (birth of Jesus), I see a whole bunch of “awe” moments. An older couple who thought they could not have a child getting pregnant (Elizabeth and Zechariah). An encounter with an angel in the temple leading to months of an inability to speak (Zechariah). A teenage girl somehow having the courage to say yes to God (Mary). A teenage boy standing up against societal pressures to stay engaged to that same girl (Joseph). Shepherds in the fields hearing the big news first via a choir of angels in the sky. Are hope, peace, joy, and love in those? Absolutely. But awe feels to me like it is central to all of it. So why not the Sunday of Awe? Or maybe the Christmas Eve of awe?

Saturday night, I had a bit of an awe experience. We were still in the middle of a hefty (at least as defined by Cincinnati standards) snowstorm and it was bitterly cold out. I was taking Scout out for her final “business” before we headed to bed and I saw the colors of some of our Christmas lights reflecting off the freshly fallen snow. It was an awe moment even as I was a bit impatient for Scout to find “her spot.” I came inside, grabbed my camera and tripod and responded to my wife’s question of what I was doing by saying, “There’s a photograph waiting for me outside!”

Rohr ends the reflection with this:

Healthy religion, which always makes space for Mystery, gives us a foundational sense of awe. It re-enchants an otherwise empty universe. It gives people a universal reverence toward all things. Only with such reverence do we find confidence and coherence.

The snow and cold has also provided for some other beautiful “awe” moments the last 48 hours or so. Enjoy.