December 10, 2024 // Diocese

Christ Is Coming, and With Him, So Does Our Hope in Eternity

Todays Catholic

By Deacon John Burzynski

Gaudete! Rejoice! The readings for the Third Sunday of Advent are all about rejoicing!

The Prophet Zephaniah instructs us in today’s first reading to “shout for joy, sing joyfully … the King of Israel, the Lord, is in your midst. … He will rejoice over you with gladness, and renew you in His love.”

St. Paul tells the Philippians in the second reading, “Rejoice in the Lord always, I shall say it again: rejoice! … The Lord is near.”

Why all of this rejoicing in the middle of an Advent season of expectant waiting and preparation? Because the Lord is nigh, He is near, He is at our very door! On the Third Sunday of Advent, we pivot from an Advent of hope, preparation, and expectation of Christ’s Second Coming, the focus of the first two Sundays of Advent, to a hope, expectation, and preparation for the Nativity of Christ on Christmas Day. Both events, Christ’s Nativity and His Second Coming, are events to look forward to and to rejoice in spiritually preparing for, events to hope and long for in joyful expectation of the fulfillment of Christ’s promises of salvation to humanity. Mother Church, in her wisdom, has given us this four-week Advent season to prepare in joyful expectation for Christ to enter more fully into our lives, both now and at the end of time.

Instead of joyfully focusing on preparing for Christ’s Nativity and Second Coming and allowing Christ to enter more deeply into our lives, many of us instead have an Advent season filled with expectations of another kind. Like me, you probably have an Advent leading up to Christmas Day full of expectations of office Christmas parties, family holiday get-togethers, and expectations of finding that perfect gift for that special family member or friend. Accompanying all these events is the ever-present hustle and bustle of the “Christmas season,” a season that for many of us actually begins well before Christmas, and a season that often tends to set us on edge and stress us out with unrealistic expectations and with desires for that “perfect Christmas” of Hallmark movies.

I’d like to suggest that during the remaining week and a half of Advent, we pause and instead focus during this Advent season on diving deeper into prayer and relationship with Christ, seeking to find what His birth and Second Coming will mean for each of us. We can try to attend Mass more frequently during Advent, maybe once or twice during the week. We can look to Christ in Eucharistic adoration and during Holy Hours. We can rejoice in the cardinal virtue of hope, which allows us during Advent to anticipate the coming of Christ on Christmas Day, to hope and anticipate peace on earth, goodwill toward men, and anticipate and taste just a bit of the Kingdom of God here on earth. This Christian virtue of hope promises not to stress us out or introduce false expectations of happiness and joy; instead, it fills us with an awaiting, expectation, and rejoicing in what we are sure in faith is an expected result – union with Christ, both at Christmas and at the end of time.

In His first coming in the flesh, Christ experienced in human weakness; He came to die for us, but our rejoicing in hope rests in the fact that at Christ’s Second Coming He will come in power and glory, to bring us not death but instead bring us eternal life. His first coming in the Nativity was to initiate a new era, a new time in salvation history; His Second Coming will end time and usher in our hoped-for salvation for all eternity in the Kingdom of God. This hope during the Advent season promises not to disappoint; this hope provides us with a peace and assurance that Christ will come, that all our expectations will not only be met but exceeded, and that we will one day enter eternal life in peace with the Lord.

Take some time during the remainder of this Advent season to quietly pray for Christ to more deeply enter your heart, to more deeply enter your life, to bring you the hope, peace, and joy that His birth and Second Coming will provide to each of us as His faithful. The December stresses and holiday preparations can wait just a couple of weeks longer, in favor of awaiting with joy the coming of our Savior.

As we are instructed in Sunday’s entrance antiphon, “Rejoice in the Lord always, again I say, rejoice. Indeed, the Lord is near.” He is near, in the manger, in our daily lives, and in anticipation of our joyful reunion with Him for all eternity.

Deacon John Burzynski serves at St. Matthew Cathedral in South Bend.