Advent, a time of mercyThe Advent motto is well known: God is coming! And we could say that God cannot not be with his children, the human beings, that is why he has stayed with us forever, but in a sacramental way. God is with us in the EucharistBut at the same time he will come, no longer sacramentally, but with his glorious, triumphant body... And it is obvious that his definitive coming is ever closer. We Christians do not cease to implore his coming with a most beautiful act of faith. We want Christ to come and to reign. We say it in the "Our Father": "Thy kingdom come".
God has already established his kingdom. Christ himself must be in every Christian. St. Paul understood this very well at his conversion, when Christ himself said to Saul when he asked him who he was: "Who are you?I am Jesus whom you are persecuting" (Acts 9:5).. From then on, Saul began to understand that the faith of Christians is faith in a person who already lived in them.
God is near! God is coming! But... how do we welcome him? The words of St. John's prologue are harsh when he writes: "He came to his own, but his own did not receive him" (Jn 1:11-12). And in another passage of the Gospel, it is the same Jesus who "escapes" a somewhat enigmatic and sad words in the style of those of the prologue of St. John: "But when the Son of man comes, will he find this faith on earth?" (Lk, 18:8).
Advent is a time of joyful waiting. Waiting marks the penitential part of this time and joy is the experience of the nearness of God, a God who wants to be with men, because "it is my delight to be with the sons of men" (Proverbs 8:31).
Our faith is full of contrasts: God gives us the salva from sinthe light in the darknessthe grain that dies to give fruitthe death necessary for the lifewhere there is an abundance of sin overabundant grace... These are contrasts full of hope. Because our God never stops "...mercy".because he loved us first, because he loved us "primerea"... Error, confusion and astonishment arise when instead of seeing contrasts we see contradictions. And from contradiction to discouragement there is little distance to travel. That is why Advent is a time of light. The Christian attitude before the coming of God, and I am not only referring to a future coming, but to a daily coming, to a God who does not stop coming to meet us every day, should be one of welcome. May our whole life be an Advent.
Advent, a Marian season
The time of Advent is also a very Marian time. It is Mary who makes the first coming possible. Mary's womb is the first tabernacle of history; it is Mary who not only opens the gates of heaven (even if the keys are held by St. Peter), but who is the door of eternity in time. Mary, with her "fiat"makes the impossible possible: the mixture, the coexistence of God with men. But a God who at the same time divests himself of his divinity so that the covenant he wants to establish is truly a covenant between equals, between men, overcoming the ancient covenants that were not perfect because there was an infinite disproportion between the parties. St. Paul reminds us of this in his letter to the Philippians: "The covenant that he wants to establish is truly a covenant between equals, between men.Christ, in spite of His divine condition, did not flaunt His category of God; on the contrary, He stripped Himself of His rank and took the condition of a slave, passing for one of many."(Phil 2:6-7). There is no longer any distance between the parties in the New Covenant. This is why this covenant will be definitive and perfect, because God allies himself with his equals. Not only does he ally himself with us, but he involves us in his mission and makes us co-protagonists in his covenant.
I was saying that Advent is a Marian season because our Mother is the Ark of this beautiful covenant, full of contrasts, because it is a covenant of Blood and Life.
How wonderful is our faith! With faith, our life takes on a new, hopeful, missionary light. The mission is to bring the joy of faith to all the roads of the earth. Therefore, a Christian without light is an oxymoron, a Christian without light is not a contrast, but a contradiction, but a contradiction that can be repaired by penance.
We would like to ask our Mother to teach us to wait for with faith at Love, that is, to teach us to live in a continuous Advent.
