Look Forward

Details: 23 November 2011

Advent

There are many liturgical texts which can help us focus our thoughts each year during the season of Advent on the reality of the coming of Christ. As we prepare to commemorate on Christmas, the Solemnity of His Nativity, His coming out of His eternal timelessness into our human space and time, during Advent we also ought carefully to remember and ponder His promise to return to us one day in glory on the clouds of heaven at the end of the world (Matthew 24:30). And then, of course, there are His "intermediate comings to us" to remember, especially in the Holy Eucharist (Luke 22:14-20) and in the persons of the poor and needy whose lives touch ours and for whose help He will hold us responsible when He returns to judge the earth (Matthew 25:34-46).

Among those traditional Advent liturgical texts, several can be found in the words of the Nicene-Constantinople Creed with which we profess our Catholic Faith at every Mass on Sundays and Holy Days. We say, for instance, "He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead and His kingdom will have no end." We conclude the recitation of the Creed by saying (in the new translation), "I look forward to the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come." The old translation simply says "look", but the Latin word "expecto" really has a deeper and richer meaning, which is better translated "look forward", and this new translation which makes it much more an Advent expression, echoes the phrase in the prayer after the "Our Father" when the priest, in the ordinary form of the Roman Rite, says, "as we wait in joyful hope for the coming of our Savior, Jesus Christ."

Last Judgment

The Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches, "The last judgment will come when Christ returns in glory. Only the Father knows the day and the hour. Only He determines the moment of its coming. Then through His Son, Jesus Christ, He will pronounce the final word on all history. We shall know the ultimate meaning of the whole work of creation and of the entire economy of salvation and understand the marvelous ways by which His providence led everything towards its final end. The last judgment will reveal that God’s justice triumphs over all the injustices committed by His creatures and that God’s love is stronger than death."

"The message of the last judgment calls men to conversion while God is still giving them the acceptable time, the day of salvation (2 Corinthians 6:2). It inspires holy fear of God and commits them to the justice of the kingdom of God. It proclaims the blessed hope of the Lord’s return, when He will come to be glorified in His saints and to be marveled at in all who have believed (Titus 2:13 & 2 Thessalonians 1:10). Since the Ascension, Christ’s coming in glory has been imminent, even though it is not for you to know the times of seasons which the Father has fixed by His own authority (Acts of the Apostles1:7 & Mark 13:32). This eschatological coming could be accomplished at any moment, even if it and the final trial that will precede it are delayed (Matthew 24:44; 1 Thessalonians 5:2; 2 Thessalonians 2:3-12)."

Saint Augustine

In speaking about the correct Christian attitude that should condition and characterize our celebration of Advent each year, Saint Augustine, the great Doctor of the Church and the Bishop of the North African city of Hippo, said, "Let us not resist His (Christ’s) first coming (by wickedly resisting those He has commissioned to preach His Gospel), so that we may not dread the second. What then should the Christian do? He ought to use the world, but not become its slave. He who is without anxiety waits without fear until His Lord comes. For what sort of love of Christ is it to fear His coming? Brothers, do we not have to blush with shame? We love Him, yet we fear His coming. Are we really certain that we love Him, or do we love our sins more? Therefore, let us hate our sins and love Him Who will exact punishment for them. He will come whether we wish it or not. Do not think that, because He is not coming just now, He will not come at all. He will come. You know not when. Provided He finds you prepared, your ignorance of the time of His coming will not be held against you."

In talking about the last judgment, Saint Augustine says, "Do you, because you are unjust, expect the Judge not to be just? Or, because you are a liar, will the truthful One not be true? Rather, if you wish to receive mercy, be merciful before He comes. Forgive whatever has been done against you. Give of your abundance. Of whose possessions do you give if not from His? If you were to give from your own, it would be largess, but since you give of His, it is restitution. For what do you have that you have not received? (Matthew 10:8). These are the sacrifices most pleasing to God, mercy, humility, praise, peace, charity. Such as these, then, let us bring and, free from fear, we then shall await the coming of the Judge Who will judge the world in equity and the peoples in His truth."

Encyclopedia

In writing about the liturgical season of Advent, the Catholic Encyclopedia says, "Because Christ has come once, He will come again. Indeed, He has never left, but is continuously present in His Catholic Church. For this reason, Advent is at once a celebration of His first coming and His presence in the midst of His Church as well as a looking forward to the full and final coming, when He will complete the work of redemption. The word Advent must, therefore, be taken in the fullest sense, past, present, and future. This is the basis for speaking of three comings of Christ. Since the time of Saint Bernard, Christian spirituality has maintained this way of approaching Advent, an approach that finds its best justification in the liturgy itself. For, between the first and second coming of Christ, the present coming in grace is constantly taking place, His coming by grace in men’s hearts, (to be born anew in that grace and in those hearts at Christmas). The Catholic Church not only prepares during Advent to welcome Him at Christmas time and to greet Him in the hour of His final triumph, but she rejoices even now in the possession and the presence of the Lord within her. (Intensely during Advent) but all through the year (the children of the Church) are summoned to prepare the way of the Lord, to hear the voice of Him Who even already now is in their midst, and to prepare for His second coming by living the mystery of Christ in the present moment."

Saint Bernard said that during every Advent, we who are Christ’s disciples must ask ourselves anew "Who it is that is coming? Where is He coming from and how is He coming? To what purpose and when and where does He come?" This kind of curiosity is "praiseworthy and salutary." We must "consider before everything else with the awed and wondering Apostle (Hebrews 7:4) Who it is that is coming. He is the Son of the Most High (Luke1:32) and co-equal with the Father, equal in majesty and equal in dignity. He comes from the Heart of God the Father, and into the womb of the Virgin Mary. He comes from the sublimity of heaven to the lowliness of our earth. He comes to love us, to call us, and to save us."