It is hard for us to admit that there are some things that are just beyond us. As humans we want to understand those things happening around us. One of our favorite questions is: why? At about five or six years old, little kids begin to realize that they can drive their parents crazy with the "why?" game-- every answer can be met with the response "why?", until the parents finally say "just because." But wanting to understand, to know "why" is part of our DNA, I think. It is what drives us to invent things, and to solve problems. It is also something that gives us a certain level of control. If we know why something happened, we feel that we can have some ability to make that thing happen again, or avoid having that thing happen again. And yet, there are some things we just can't understand, hard as it is for us humans to accept. Scientists are still trying to figure out how gravity works, for example. They can measure it, but no one really knows the "why" of how things are attracted to other things. Today's Gospel (Lk 21: 29-33) has some elements we don't understand either. Jesus says that "all these things" that He has been describing-- including "the Son of Man coming in a cloud with power and great glory"(verse 27)-- will happen before the existing generation will pass away. Sure, some of the things Jesus has described happen within a Biblical generation, which is 40 years (not the 20 we usually imagine), like the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem. But Jesus did not come again in glory in a cloud within 40 years, even though lots of people thought that would happen. Two thousand years later Jesus' coming is still delayed. So what is going on here? Doesn't Jesus know what He's talking about? Was He mistaken? Do we somehow misunderstand Him? Some commentaries limit the "all these things" to which Jesus refers to simply the fall of Jerusalem and the destruction of the Temple. That fits with history, but it does some violence to the language Jesus uses. In context He doesn't seem to be limiting His prophesy to just "some" of the things He has previously described. Maybe we engage in that kind of linguistic trickery because we're so desperate to tell ourselves that we understand, but it doesn't seem very intellectually honest.. We know from other portions of the Gospels that Jesus says He does not know "the day or the hour" of His return (Mk 13:32). Only the Father knows that. So, Jesus says, we should be alert always. Obviously we get into very deep water very quickly here. Are we saying Jesus makes a prediction that is wrong? How can it be that the Father knows something that the Son does not? Is Jesus description that He will come in glory in a cloud somehow a metaphor for the fact that He is present among us now, in the Eucharist and in the people we encounter? For me, at least, the answer is that there are things we just don't know, and probably can't know, and that's ok. We contemplate, and seek to go deeper into the mysteries of the Trinity and Jesus' return. That contemplation does two things: it draws us closer to Christ, and it reminds us that we are not in charge. We are limited, and there are things we can't know. And that's how things are supposed to be.