Is intelligent life in the universe common as dust or scarce as hen’s teeth? Popular opinion, influenced perhaps by the statistical probabilities in a very large universe, certainly seems captivated by the former assumption. Fiction literature, drama and sometimes scientific writings as well mostly assume that the widespread existence of intelligent, extraterrestrial life is a secure fact. The only question seems to be when they will make contact if they have not already done so in ancient history (or walk among us now!). The fictional aliens are given forms limited only by the creativity of makeup artists and provided with special powers and advanced technologies limited only by the wizardry of special effects.

If I were to be asked by writers of science fiction (no one from Hollywood has called yet), I would suggest that it would be more realistic, adventurous and engaging to base science fiction stories on the assumption that there are no aliens conveniently about to intervene in the human story. Cannot a human future be imagined without the simplistic, facile introduction of these wholly fictitious alien beings? Perhaps there will be men on Mars and intelligent creatures elsewhere in the galaxy but they will have come from right here, and they will be human beings.

I suspect that the fact that the secular imagination shrinks away from this approach reveals an instinctive fear of being truly alone in this big universe. If there is no God to fill up the vast emptiness, at least let somebody be out there. It is too bracing a thought that when we look out into the night sky no one is looking back at us, that there are no coded messages hastening toward our planet for our radio telescopes to "hear". Even though it is a perfectly sound and realistic assumption, it seems nowadays very radical to take the stand that the only signs of intelligent life in the universe are those that emanate from this planet, this solar system, this galaxy.

Theologians call this the "scandal of particularity." This refers to the fact that God does not deal in a statistically uniform and constant way with creation but uses particular times and places and above all particular people and persons in order to touch the whole of His created order. The season of Advent draws us into this scandal–or better, this mystery–and Christmas and Epiphany celebrate its most glaring manifestation in a Child born to a young human girl in a little town of Judea when Quirinius was governor there. But this little event was for the sake of the entire universe and is the pivot of all time. In that night when Mary brought forth her first born Son this third planet from an ordinary sun located on the edge of an ordinary galaxy became a super nova flashing forth the love of God to the rest of the whole universe. Our tiny earth is the "white hole" from which streams this transforming love of the Father who recreates the universe from the inside out.

Exactly what the Bethlehem star was is often debated, but as far as the rest of the universe is concerned the earth itself is the miraculous star which has suddenly shone forth with a mysterious new light signaling a great joy. In the spectrum of divine love this little planet shines brighter than the sun, and all other stars pale before its light. It has flashed forth to the furthest galaxy and quasar not with the speed of normal light but with the immediacy of divine love. The heavens now reflect back to us a new beauty because of what has been revealed here.

The earth is Bethlehem to the rest of the universe. It is that obscure, easily overlooked place which nevertheless has become great because of what God has done in it. In Hebrew Bethlehem means "House of Bread." Here and nowhere else in the universe there exists the unique substance of bread. Here the Son of God gives himself as bread for the life of the world. Here in the Bread of the Eucharist the whole universe is sanctified and shares in the life of the Holy Trinity.

To the rest of the universe we human beings are the shepherds "in that region", figures standing within the extended crèche which our world has become. We are not external spectators to the event of Christ’s coming but live, as it were, in the center of the great glory that has shone around about us. The angelic message that begins "be not afraid" is for all the people of this globe, and for them it is only a short distance to "go over . . . and see this thing that has happened."

All we of this earth are also the magi, the wise men--the intelligent life--in the universe. We are intelligent not merely because we do cleaver things or can make complicated tools and machines, but because in us alone there is a free will. Only here are there inquiring minds able to search diligently, creatures who can be summoned on a spiritual journey and led by signs, beings with the necessary freedom of spirit that allows them to rejoice with exceeding great joy or to fall down and worship.

The Copernican revolution displaced the earth from the physical center of the universe, but we nevertheless remain the intelligent center of the universe. Only here are the stars given names, do questions of the origin, structure and destiny of creation arise, is the complex diversity and enormous expanse of reality comprehended together with the conviction that there is a unity and a single great plan. The earth is the hub which conceptually holds the entire universe together.

If it can be said of new scientific theories and ways of conceptualizing both the microcosm and the macrocosm that they "change the universe," how much more has the universe been changed by the appearing of the grace of God in the person of Jesus Christ. We often dismiss the Biblical world view as primitive, limited or naive, but modern cosmology has not so much dismissed as it has deepened what the inspired writers struggled to express. The modern perspective makes us hear with reawakened awe that the Son of Mary is, in some mysterious absolute sense, the Logos, the creating, ordering "Word", that "the world (cosmos) was made through Him" (Jn 1:10), that "he reflects the glory of God and bears the very stamp of his nature, upholding the universe by his word of power" (Heb 1:3).

May the Gospel of Christmas, the brightness of which we have only begun to perceive, once again illuminate our hearts, our human history and the entire creation. Blessed Advent and joyous celebration of the holy Christ Mass!

Sincerely,
Fr. Richard G. Herbel