As a priest, I think people assume that my favorite book to read is the Bible. Fair enough. I do enjoy reading the Bible. Each time is a new experience of encountering God’s Word and God’s Love revealed to me. But the Bible is not my favorite book to read.

Now, you may be shocked. “Is Father saying there is a book better than the Bible!?” Usually, people recover quickly from this shock and follow up with “Well, what is your favorite book?” I think they expect me to say something by Thomas Aquinas, John of the Cross, Francis de Sales, etc. However, none of these is correct either. My favorite book is Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.

Alice is a young, innocent girl who is simply trying to figure out how life works. In my mind, she represents all of us, working our way through life, coming up on roadblock after roadblock, trying to communicate herself to others when others have little interest in her. Alice is the quintessential Christian missionary: in the face of so many roadblocks, so may scandals, she never gives up hope, never loses herself (although she almost does on several humorous occasions) and continues to meet others where they are. Alice’s phrase that has entered our common parlance today is “Curiouser and curiouser.” It is this curiosity, this drive to continue to explore and encounter the people and places of her world, that moves Alice forward, when all she really wants to do is go back home and tell her cat Dinah all she has seen.

For most of us, though, any of the predicaments in which Alice finds herself would have been more than enough for us to throw in the towel and try to climb back out of the rabbit hole. 

The roadblocks would have been too tall, the logic of Wonderland too confusing. We would be like the Jews and the Gentiles St. Paul speaks of to the Corinthians. Christ Crucified was too much for them to handle. God-in-the-flesh, Love-stronger-than-death was too tall a roadblock, a logic too confusing.

How many times in your life have you thought a problem was too complicated to address?

A scandal is not something that shocks us, but rather something that leads us astray from our beliefs. A scandal is a roadblock to our worldview. Something that makes us question our approach to life. Christians, like Alice, should never be scandalized, because we have already encountered the biggest scandal in human history! It is Jesus Himself Who is the scandal! Jesus has already changed our world! 

It makes no sense that the Almighty God, Creator of the universe, from the largest galaxy clusters down to the smallest interactions of electrons loves you. In all that has been, is, and will be, God loves you is quite frankly insane.

How does this wreck our worldview? It should cause us to question our culturally-conditioned assumptions about who is loveable and who is not, or who is trustworthy and who is not. When we, like Alice, find ourselves at a tea party with a Mad Hatter, a March Hare, and a Dormouse, we Christians should have the wherewithal to remember our manners.

Have you ever been in a situation that made you question and then have to defend the truth?

I can speak only for myself, but, at times, it is hard to trust in the unconditional love God has for me.

I find it easier to make a list of the reason why not to love me than the reasons to love me.

And yet, the scandal of Jesus is that He loves me before anything is put on that list. He loves me simply because I am. This is a love which we find nowhere else, a love that defies all logic.

I convince myself that I don’t deserve God’s love or His blessings. In one sense, I am right. If the love God has for us was merely contractual, “you do this for me and I do this for you,” all of us would find it impossible to live up to the divine demands. And yet, God’s love is greater than this.

God, utterly perfect in Himself, decided to have His Love overflow and create the universe. At the center of it all, he created man and woman.

However, when we chose ourselves against God, we cut ourselves off from His Love.

At this point, God could have shaken his head and started over again. But He didn’t.

Like the great Lover that He is, He pursued us, softly and gently. He made covenants with our ancestors, promising his Love time and again. And we were never able to remain faithful. Finally, He sent His Son, Jesus, the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity, utterly perfect in Himself. He entered into time and space, and united to Himself a fallen human nature. God became man, so that we might become God.

Jesus taught us what love is. He performed miracles to demonstrate His divinity, and the healing that He brings to us. On the Cross, beaten, bloodied, alone, and exhausted, Jesus demonstrates the length that God goes to pursue us, to heal us, to bring us back to Himself.

The Cross defies all logic.

The Cross stands in contradiction to all of our fears and anxieties. It is a perpetual reminder that God’s love is always greater than we can imagine. This is the scandal of Christ, that we are worth the life of the infinitely perfect God!

How often do you stop to acknowledge this infinite love being poured out for you?

As Christians, we live within this relationship of unconditional love. We live within this great scandal. As we grow in our faith, we recognize more and more the Love that cares for us and sustains us every day. With the growing assurance of His Love, we can lean into one of the most common encouragements the Bible gives us: “It is I. Do not be afraid” (John 6:20). Jesus says this as He walks on the water toward the disciples in the boat.

The seas are choppy, the wind is howling, but Jesus calmly reminds them that the most important thing is the He is with them.

As we grow in our conviction that Jesus’ presence and love are always with us, always surrounding us and building us up, we can overcome our fears. We can share the message of the Gospel, even when it may be challenging, because we have overcome the roadblock that prevents us from accepting the incredible Love of God. St. Paul instructs Timothy, his disciple: “I charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus: […] proclaim the word; be persistent whether it is convenient or inconvenient” (2 Timothy 4:1-2). For Alice, she must finally tell the Queen of Hearts “You’re nothing but a pack of cards!”

We learn that love heals us, that love gives us the drive to keep going, to have the same reaction as Alice has to her world. We look around and say “curiouser and curiouser,” but never lose the drive to bring others to an encounter with Jesus and His saving Love.