Dear Parishioners,
What is the deeper meaning of Advent? The word advent comes from the Latin adventus, meaning “coming.” We just finished the last 3 weeks of the liturgical year with Sunday Gospel readings about Jesus’ Second Coming and Judgment, so why on this 1st Sunday of Advent is the Church continuing to read about Jesus’ warning to remain vigilant about His future coming?
The “coming” of an infinite God in finite space and time is a great mystery. Perhaps a natural analogy would help: While we experience a distinct changing of the seasons over time (fall, winter, spring, summer), what we’re really experiencing is the natural effect of the earth’s continual and recurring orbit around the sun. In an analogous way, while we experience a distinct changing of the liturgical seasons over time (Advent and Christmas, Ordinary Time, and Lent and Easter), what we’re really experiencing is the supernatural effect of God’s continual and recurring “coming” in His Creation. God is always and everywhere present in His Creation—especially us who are baptized—but He wants us to experience his Presence distinctly and fully at each moment. The liturgical seasons help us punctuate these moments.
Just as the Jewish people in Jesus’ day were watching and being vigilant for the promised coming of the Messiah, so Jesus says to us in today’s gospel, “Be watchful. Be alert! You do not know when the time will come.” Indeed, Jesus will come again at the end of time, but He also enters and re-enters His Creation and comes to us liturgically and spiritually in a variety of continual and recurring ways, including the Eucharist, in prayer, in Scripture, in each other (the Body of Christ), in the hungry/ thirsty/ stranger/ naked/ sick/ imprisoned (last Sunday’s gospel), etc. This allows us to see the Church’s wisdom in selecting today’s gospel reading: to remind us that Jesus is continually “coming” to us, so let’s prepare for it at Christmas and when He comes again at the end of time.
During this Advent season, Jesus wants you and me to make more room for Him than we did last year, to invite him to “come again” into our hearts in a new and vibrant way. Let’s not allow our “preparation for Christmas” (decorating, buying gifts, etc.) overshadow our “preparation for Christ.” In one of his sermons on Advent, St. Bernard of Clairvaux said that we should “be aware that [Christ’s] spiritual coming is a hidden one… You need not sail across the seas or pierce the clouds or cross the Alps! No grand way is being shown to you. Run to your own self to meet your God! The Word is near you, on your lips and in your heart! (Romans 10:8)” In the last verses of the Bible, Jesus tells John, “Surely I am coming soon.” Let our Advent prayer be John’s response: “Amen. Come Lord Jesus!” (Revelation 22:20).
Peace in Christ,
Father Jim
