Encounters of the Fourth Kind: Intro and Advent

By Fr. Ron Will CPPS

Welcome to this first of a series entitled “Encounters of the Fourth Kind.”

Many of you probably remember the science fiction movie out some years ago called “Close Encounters of the Third Kind.” If you went to the internet and typed in “Encounters of the first kind,” you would get the following information:

• An encounter of the first kind is a sighting of a disk-like object.
• An encounter of the second kind is similar but much closer than the first kind.
• An encounter of the third kind is the sighting of non-human beings.
• An encounter of the fourth kind is the encounter of human beings and non-human beings.

During this Season of Advent, we think about the experience of Mary when she had an angel of God announce to her that she was chosen to become the mother of the Son of God. That was an encounter of the fourth kind. It was an encounter of a human being, Mary, with a non-human being, an angel, but it was a very close and a very real encounter.

Advent prepares all of us for a personal encounter between human beings and God, a divine being, but who comes to us in a human being’s body.

This series will help us to be open to a personal encounter with the God-man, Jesus Christ, in places where we don’t normally look for him.

I invite you to take a few minutes right now to visit that home of Mary with me when the angel appeared to her.

Watch the video for a guided meditation.

You are witnessing a close encounter of the fourth kind. Continue to sit in silence for a couple minutes and experience that encounter yourself.

Then join me again next month, for another close encounter of the fourth kind. We will post a new video on the first Monday of very month.

God bless you.

All of the videos in this series can be found here: Encounters of the Fourth Kind.

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[Fr. Ron Will, a Precious Blood priest and spiritual director, is a graduate of Catholic Theological Union and Creighton University’s School of Christian Spirituality. He has a special interest in helping form intentional disciples of Jesus, encouraging others to go spiritually deep-sea diving to explore a deeper relationship with God, and walking with people as they dive into the ocean of God’s mystery actually experiencing God rather than simply dipping one’s toe into the water.]

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