Dear Brothers and Sisters,
Advent means coming. When Christ returns as he promised, to live again his birth as a man, as a child, in history, and his coming when he is proclaimed in the Mass. He does not come with a stick or with demands or to punish. He comes to love. To enter us and to make us new, to give us a new heart and a new spirit. He comes to love us. Do you believe this?
And why do we react with fear often when we hear of his second coming? I sense because we doubt. We don’t believe what we heard in the gospels. He paid the price for our sins, all of them. Christ paid for them all, absolutely. We say and we sing in the Eucharist, Maranatha, come Lord Jesus. Come soon, come to help me.
It could be that we are asleep, and we did not listen or did not understand. But everything is forgiven. We should accept it in the Sacrament of Reconciliation during these four weeks of Advent. We do not need to do anything. There is nothing we have to do for his coming. We don’t know when it will be, but for sure he will come.
It could be that we are stuck in our sins, in our selfishness and he comes to bring us joy and peace. How wonderful the Lord is! He does not make any demands on us. He wants only to love us.
So, what should we do? As the gospel says, stay vigilant, wait for him, be awake, all of which is to love him, as your parents waited for you during those nine months, or when you came home a little tipsy when you were a teen-ager, or when you came home for the first time for Thanksgiving. They loved you! Do you at times see Christ in the others, in your sickness, or the old age of your parents, or in the difficulty of your child.
Do you see Christ there or do you think again that he is punishing you? He comes to console you, to give you peace, to get your attention. He comes to make us new if you want. If you everything is fine in your life, he will leave you alone. The thief will steal from you even if you are asleep, but Christ will respect your freedom. He will not force himself on you.
Hopefully you hear him tonight in the Scriptures or in the preaching or in the Eucharist itself. He makes himself so little for you and me. He can enter us physically. He goes into our garbage to clean it up if we allow him. That he becomes so little for us, which is such a great act of love. He wants to fill us with his purity, with his peace.
Christ enters us out of love to change us, to make us like himself. We need to wait, to watch, to pray. One day we can say like St. Paul, it is not I who lives, but it is Christ who lives in me. When you are chaste it is because Christ came to you. When you are generous it is because Christ entered you. When you no longer speak badly of people it is a result of having the spirit of Christ, not the spirit of the world. He provides for you so that you can provide for others. He forgives you so that you can forgive others. Do you see?
We truly need that he come in order to transform us. Our hearts should be waiting. Make just a little effort these four weeks to show that you want him to come and overcome that bad habit or that sadness or anxiety. He will transform us to be like him this Advent.
