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How to live Advent well? Escrito por: Cankin Ma |
“It wasn’t exactly what I expected.” Perhaps after finishing a movie or a series that promised a lot, or leaving a show, we must have heard or said that phrase more than once. Beyond the specifics of those experiences, it is easy to recognize that what we expect directly affects what we experience in our “here and now.”
To wait—and with it to watch—is one of the verbs that characterizes the time of Advent . For Christians, the central event of history is the coming of the Son of God who saves us. Advent directs our gaze toward this reality in two senses: what has happened and what will happen .
Yes, Advent is a preparation-waiting to celebrate Christmas. Our Savior became a little child to redeem us, to manifest the sweetness of the presence of “God with us” (Mt 1:23). At the same time, it is a preparation-waiting for the second coming of our Lord.
Images for each Sunday of Advent
The Sunday Gospels of this Advent give us several images that invite us to watch and wait.
- On the first Sunday , Jesus tells us in the last discourse of the Gospel of Saint Matthew: “Be on the alert, for you do not know on what day your Lord will come” (24:42).
- On the second and third Sundays we have the figure of John the Baptist. On the one hand, encouraging his listeners, “repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come” (Mt 3:2), adding, “I baptize you with water for repentance; but he who comes after me is mightier than I, and I am not worthy to carry his sandals. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire” (Mt 3:11). On the other hand, in his final hour, needing Jesus to manifest himself and declare whether He is “the one who is to come, or should we expect another” (Mt 11:3).
- On the fourth Sunday , the figure of Joseph, who, in continuity with the great Patriarchs of Israel, is invited to walk in the light of faith, is seen. Like his predecessors, he “did as the angel of the Lord had commanded him” (Mt 1:24).
One of the Prefaces of the Advent Masses indicates these attitudes and invites us to look with the same expectation at Him “whom all the prophets announced, the Virgin awaited with ineffable motherly love, John proclaimed already near and then singled out among men” (cf. Roman Missal).
In conclusion
Thus, in the key of waiting and vigilance, we can read the instructions that the Lord Jesus gives us regarding this Advent for each one of us . They are not generic indications or a sort of recipe on how to live this time, but an invitation to discern and examine the signs that God gives to each one in his concrete reality, in the present time.To answer how to live Advent well, we must open our ears to welcome what God wants to tell us in this time of grace . We have already seen the meaning of some of the Words that will be addressed to us in these weeks; let us be open to welcome the others, beginning with the Liturgy, and through it, in all the dimensions of our lives.
