Advent
The Church's liturgy helps us move from the ordinary season of the year to Advent with a certain continuation. Like the last days of the liturgical year, Advent is characterized by the anticipation of the Lord's return. The three words of the last days of the liturgical year: - Be alert! stay awake! pray! - are a fundamental guideline for how to live Advent. We will hear
the same words in the antiphon to Psalm 24: To You, Lord, I raise my soul, my God, I trust in You: let me not be disappointed. Our commitment to living the Advent season with attention, vigilance and prayer lies at the heart of this turning to God with trust and the hope not failing to disappoint.
Advent is a time of wakefulness
Advent leads to a deeper awareness of life over time: Time is short! It is a time of preparation to accept the mystery of the Incarnation.
What does the mystery of the Incarnation mean? God completely different from man becomes completely like him. He who is beyond time - as the Greek Fathers say - begins to live in time; The God who always IS, through the Incarnation becomes, in a sense passes from being to not to be, from transcendence to immanence. These are truly great secrets. Isaiah, in his prophetic vision, speaks of a distant God who becomes near. God withdrawal from us because, as St. Augustine said - when we understand Him, he ceases to be God, and at the same time He allows man as if to embrace Him. This is what Incarnation means: God allows man to "hold Him". Man needs to get used not so much to the idea but the experience of the incarnation of God, which destroys all human patterns.
The Word - Logos - enters time (cf. Jn 1). The Eternal God, who was always God, becoming Flesh, making Himself limited in space and in time, reveals not only Himself, but also reveals a man, who, on the one hand, is capable of accepting God who reveals himself, and on the other hand, not. This contrast can be seen especially in the Gospel of St. John: Jesus - the Messiah is expected, desired, but at the same time he is unexpected. God reveals himself through the Incarnation, but humanity closes itself to Him. It is as if the light provokes darkness! Or a love that reveals itself as if it provokes hatred! This is the secret of the dual economy: the revelation of God and the Counter-Economics of not accepting Him.
The mystery of God's entry into history, which is at the same time man's desire, but at the same time it shows his closure to God. During Advent and Christmas, we will be accompanied by Advent Preface, which is a rich compendium of biblical theology. One of them says that while knowing God in the flesh, we are simultaneously caught up in love for the invisible. As St. Irenaeus said, God allows himself to be seen in the flesh, while allowing man to become like God. Also St. Paul writes in Ephesians that from the beginning we were in the mind of God who chose us from the ages. He called us to be on his model, who became flesh like man: out of love he destined us to be his sons through Jesus Christ (cf. Eph 1: 4).
In the teachings of the prophets, in the psalms, life is a short time, the existence of the universe is nothing, but it is precisely in this short time that the double mystery of God and man is revealed; Everything depends on it. From “this little”, God's and human’s realities intertwine in it. When we think of time in the sense of the future, we think of the many days ahead, but the real time that belongs to us is only the present. Day after day also passed in the life of Jesus Christ, time was running out.
As the Gospel teaches us, the wisdom of grasping God lies in the wisdom of grasping the present time. God is not to be accepted in the future, but we can accept Him with love or reject Him today. His eternity is in here and now. By lovingly accepting God’s present in our present, we can transform it into eternity. In Jesus, through His grace, through His word and work of salvation, we have acquired the ability to live in time, to enter eternal life, to become like God. This statement may seem blasphemy, but it is what the Fathers of the Church say.
It is difficult to understand, but we have time to slowly enter into God's mystery. In this case too, we encounter difficulties because human nature is marked by limitations and sin. However, Jesus teaches us how we can draw from the Eternal God who lives in our history. He teaches us to look at the time of life from God's point of view, in the Holy Spirit. Time, the history of each person can be of great value if only the glass of fresh water will be given to the thirsty. It means a complete revolution in our actions; in the way we think. It is extremely important to reflect on the responsibility we have for the way we live time so that it becomes an opportunity to become like God, just as God's entry into time becomes an opportunity for Him to become a real man.
Advent time of waiting
Advent is an invitation to vigilance, attention and conversion, but above all it means joyful anticipation. We experience fasting, vigilance, and prayer in the spirit of joyful waiting for someone who comes and changes our fate. Hope grows in expectation like a light illuminating the darkness. John the Baptist becomes a crying voice announcing the Bridegroom's coming. The waiting also takes place in silence, as in the life of Joseph, because only through silence can one enter the mystery. Likewise, Mary, by accepting grace, through her fiat, which expresses her obedience, teaches us to obey the Word in faith. Through the coming of God in Jesus, we have become children of God, children of the Resurrection, and we carry the Holy Spirit within us. We have been given a new life and we can say that we have entered the process of deification through the Holy Spirit. But we also have the great task of deifying history. Reflection and meditation on the mystery of God and man can help us become aware of what has already happened in us.
Advent is a time of silence
Perhaps the best time to understand what the humanity of God is in Jesus and what the deification of man is in Him, is the time of silence. The Incarnation is like a secret of silence. It happened silently. God entered history unnoticed. Each of us is invited to be silent not only externally (silence, listening, waiting and prayer in waiting), but also internally; to a silence that is nourished by hearing the Word. Otherwise, our Advent silence will be just an ordinary facade, a pantomime. We need to allow Advent to transform us by introducing us to listening to the word of God. Advent liturgical texts are rich in content: readings, antiphons, chants. We need to listen to the voice of the Lord in communion and in a spirit of solidarity with all of humanity, which may not be expecting His coming, being unaware that He may come at any moment, what's more, He is already at the door and knocking. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and dine with him, and he with me (cf. Rev 3:20).
Until Tomorrow
fr. george