Every year, Advent makes us realize that once again we have become too attached to this world and have become too embedded in the present. We have forgotten that this world will come to an end and that nothing will remain as it is. Advent makes us look and look into the future. It is, like the present, full of both light and darkness.
But our future is Jesus Christ! He is the One who came and who will come again; He is the One who continually comes. And Christians are waiting for His day, His Advent. Advent means: coming, coming of God to man. God meets us: He gives us the present, the present time as a time of grace, as a path to the future. “I am the way,” says Jesus, the Incarnate God who entered our reality. Advent reminds us that Christians are people full of gratitude and blessed impatience. As Saint Paul says, we are to be grateful for the gifts of the Spirit: for faith and hope in the “revelation of our Lord Jesus Christ.” We should wait impatiently for His coming, we should go out to meet Him and pursue Him persistently. And the degree of our holy impatience depends on the greatness of our faith and love. Their everyday testimony is faithfulness. Can someone be faithful who almost never puts off meeting the Lord until after a saint “NEVER”?
Advent calls us to vigilance: “Be careful and watch, for you do not know when this time will come,” says today’s Gospel. To be vigilant means to see clearly the reality in which we live and the reality towards which we are heading. It is Christ who is already among us in His word, sacrament and brother.
Advent announces that God is close, very close. You can meet Him. We, humans have no yardstick with which to measure His immeasurability; we have no hands to grasp Him; we do not have concepts that could capture His essence and help us understand Him. But He gave us a heart capable of seeking and finding Him. God is close, although hidden.
The time of Advent, which begins today, calls us to return to God’s ways, so that the coming Lord will not find us lost in the wilderness, in dark alleys and blind paths.