Called to Belong

A Reflection on the Gospel for Sunday, December 21st, 2025:
Fourth Sunday of Advent

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Romans
​11:1-11

From Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ, called to be an Apostle, set apart for the Gospel of God, which God promised beforehand through his Prophets in the holy Scriptures: the Gospel concerning his Son, who was descended from David according to the flesh and was declared to be Son of God with power according to the spirit of holiness by resurrection from the dead, Jesus Christ our Lord.


Through Christ we have received grace and apostleship to bring about the obedience of faith among all the Gentiles for the sake of his name, including yourselves who are called to belong to Jesus Christ.
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To all God’s beloved in Rome, who are called to be saints: Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

Pause. Pray. Reflect. 

We have all experienced a coincidence. Normally, we remark upon it with benign surprise, then shrug and forget it. I was telling a friend about one such coincidence when she stopped me mid-story and said, “God-incidence.” Her widened eyes and slow nod make me smile when I picture them in my mind even now, but I take her point. Many coincidences are actually God-incidences, God's presence in everyday life inviting us to make a connection, to think differently or more deeply.

I recently had a God-incidence.

I was driving alongside a lake, listening to the radio and admiring the beautiful scene spread out before me, when I heard the host of a program introduce a story about Canadians in their 20s and 30s who are returning to faith. The producer of the story, herself a young and searching Christian, began to talk about why she had recently started attending church after years of being away. My ears perked up and, as I listened, my heart filled with hope.

Like so many of the people she’d interviewed, she spoke of her longing to be part of a community, of searching for peace and comfort, of connecting with something bigger than herself and feeling grounded. Disappointed in the failed experiment of secularism, she and other young adults are looking for meaning and purpose in their lives. They want their hearts to be touched, and they’re turning to Jesus to fill that void. And He is welcoming them in numbers greater even than their parents’ generation.

This leads me to the God-incidence.

I had been struggling with my reflection for this Sunday’s Second Reading. Later that day, however, with the radio program still swimming lazily around in my mind, I read Saint Paul’s words again: “Through Christ we have received grace and apostleship to bring about the obedience of faith among all the Gentiles …, including yourselves who are called to belong to Jesus Christ.” Then it struck me: these 20- and 30-somethings are being “called to belong to Jesus Christ.” They are being welcomed into a new life, a new life that Saint Paul celebrates with the image of creation (Jesus in the flesh, descended from the House of David) and resurrection (Jesus overcoming the emptiness of death). In this new life, these young adults are being called to be saints with a new lifestyle, a new value system shaped by Jesus’ values and not the world’s.

Well, I can tell you my heart is brimming over! Nearly two thousand years ago, Christ, through the writings of Paul, called all to belong — and here was a concrete reminder that this call is still going out and, more importantly, being answered by a new generation. Coincidence? Not a chance! This is a God-incidence.




Donna Davis