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Dom Prosper Guéranger wrote in his The Liturgical Year:
The whole world is in expectation of its Redeemer; come, dear Jesus, show Thyself to it by granting it salvation. The Church, Thy bride, is now commencing another year, and her first word is to Thee, a word which she speaks in the anxious solicitude of a mother for the safety of her children; she cries out to Thee, saying: ‘Come!’ No, we will go no farther in our journey through the desert of this life without Thee, O Jesus! Time is passing quickly away from us; our day is perhaps far spent, and the shades of our life’s night are fast coming on; arise, O divine Sun of justice. Come! guide our steps and save us from eternal death.
In the sacramentaries of the ancient Church we find that the liturgical year commenced with the Feast of the Nativity. That is not a bad choice, since the entrance of the Incarnate Word into the dimmed light of this fallen world is arguably the pivot point of human history. It was the “fullness of time” (Gal 4:4). Later, as our understanding of the Person of Our Lord deepened through the Christological controversies which had to be resolved, the liturgical year would begin with a season, several Sundays of preparation also having a Marian dimension. The Council of Ephesus (431) confirmed the Nicene Creed on the divinity of Christ and called Mary theotokos, “God-bearer”, not just “Christ-bearer”. The Council of Chalcedon (451) solemnly defined that Christ had two natures, human and divine, united in one Person without confusion, change, division or separation. As our Faith grew in understanding, so too was the impulse to pray so as to reflect that understanding.
The longing of Christians for their Savior incites us to celebrate His Birth. That longing also moves us to desire His return. Indeed, we desire the Lord intensely in all the ways in which He comes to us. St. Bernard of Clairvaux (+1153) remarked in a sermon for Advent that Christ comes in three Comings. In the First Coming, Christ came in flesh and weakness. In the Second Coming at the end of the world He will come glory and majesty. St. Bernard also teased forth a Third or Middle Coming marked by spirit and power. He cited John 14:23 where Jesus said:
If a man loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him.
Building atop St. Bernard’s foundation, we can look more closely at Christ’s Third, or Middle Coming.
I propose that He comes to us in the Middle way in the words of Sacred Scripture. The Church recognizes the transformational encounter with Christ in Scripture by providing indulgences for reading Holy Writ with devotion for a period. Another way the Lord comes to us is in a person in need of corporal and spiritual works of mercy:
‘Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brethren, you did it to me.’ (Matt 25:40)
Christ comes to you in the person of the priest. By priestly ordination a man becomes “alter Christus… another Christ” who acts “in persona Christi… in the person of Christ”.
This is why the priest, as he forgives you your sins, says, “I absolve you”, not “Christ absolves you”. At the two-fold consecration during Mass the priest says, “this is my Body… my Blood”. Indeed, the consecration during Holy Mass is yet another of the Middle Comings, for at the priest’s words, Christ comes “Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity” to our altars.
Pius XI wrote in his 1935 encyclical Ad catholici sacerdotii that
the priest, as is said with good reason, is indeed “another Christ”; for, in some way, he is himself a continuation of Christ. “As the Father hath sent Me, I also send you,” is spoken to the priest, and hence the priest, like Christ, continues to give “glory to God in the highest and on earth peace to men of good will.”
His citation of the hymn of the angels at Bethlehem to the shepherds calls to mind that those shepherds were of the priestly cast because the lambs were destined for the daily, tamid sacrifice in the Temple.
Finally, the most profound sense of the Middle Coming of Christ must be your reception of Christ in the Eucharist at Holy Communion.
Ven. Fulton Sheen wrote that Jesus was the only person ever born in order to die. The Cross cast a shadow already upon his crib. His birth in the first place looked backward to the Fall of Man. It therefore looked forward to Calvary and the Cross. And if to the Cross, then to the Tomb, the Resurrection and Ascension. His First Coming also heralded His Second Coming. The Christian living in hope knows this interiorly. It is entirely consistent, therefore, that the season of Coming, Adventus, should also be about the Parousia.
In the Gospel for this Sunday from Luke 21:25-33 we connect our preparation for the joy of Christ’s First Advent imbued with the humility of His Passion with His return in glory and majesty. In looking both back to a historic moment in time at Bethlehem and forward to the East of glory we are urged to lift up our heads. In the early Church, our forebears would end the Masses with “Amen, veni, Domine Iesu!… So be it, come, Lord Jesus!”
On this 1st Sunday of Advent we begin our Holy Mass with the Introit Ad te levavi from Ps 24/25:1-3. Here is the RSV rendering:
To thee, O Lord, I lift up my soul.
O my God, in thee I trust,
let me not be put to shame;
let not my enemies exult over me.
Yea, let none that wait for thee be put to shame;
let them be ashamed who are wantonly treacherous.
Make me to know thy ways, O Lord;
teach me thy paths.
I am mindful of the words of the Lord in Luke 21 when He foretells the destruction of Jerusalem and the end of the world (v. 28):
Now when these things begin to take place, look up and raise your heads, because your redemption is drawing near.
As we begin this new liturgical year of grace, lift up your heads. Redemption is indeed drawing near. Let the words of the repenting King David in the Introit guide your first tasks in this new season and year: lift up your soul.
Don’t wait. Go to confession. Meet with Christ coming to you in the person of the priest. With Christ’s own power to forgive he will unbind you from the guilt of your sins and wash you clean and whiter than snow in the saving Blood of the Lamb. Echoing Guéranger’s words at the top:
Go! Guide your steps and be saved from eternal death.
