Every Thursday night at Moreau Seminary, the priests and seminarians of the house and their guests, gather for a candle-lit celebration of Evening Prayer called Lucernarium. In many ways, it’s reminiscent of the East Vigil in which the Church gathers in darkness to await the glorious light of the Resurrection.
At the end of this vigil, the final words that the cantor and congregation sing are: “May grace come and this world pass away – Amen, come Lord Jesus!”
I remember the first time I really heard and thought about this beautiful, yet haunting line. It struck me that we were praying for, asking for, looking forward to the end of the world! I almost couldn’t believe it. It seemed so foreign to the way I was accustomed to thinking about life, and even about my faith. Sure, I knew that Jesus would come again at the end of time – but to pray for it to happen soon seemed a bit much.
I don’t think our grandparents’ generation would have been so shocked that we pray for the Lord to come again soon, and for this world to pass away. Interestingly, for all its stress on history and tradition, I think that generation had a greater sense than we do that Catholicism isn’t merely about looking backwards into the past, but looking forward into the future. It’s not only about remembering Jesus’ life here on earth, it’s about longing and preparing for His coming at the end of time.
Forty years ago today, on the First Sunday of Advent 1969, the liturgical changes of Vatican II were implemented. Among other things, one of the most obvious changes was that the priest, who used to face with the people toward the East, toward the place from which the Son would rise on the day of glory, now faced toward the people.
Now there are many pastoral and theological reasons that recommend such an arrangement. But there are downsides as well, and there were benefits to the former arrangement. Even before he was elected Pope, Cardinal Ratzinger wrote that: “the turning of the priest toward the people has turned the community into a self-enclosed circle. In its outward form, it no longer opens out on what lies ahead and above, but is closed in on itself.”
It’s a very real danger that our celebration of the Liturgy might contribute to our thinking that we are merely reenacting the Last Supper, and not facing together toward and preparing for, the Lord’s return. So we must constantly remind ourselves that even now, though the priest and people see each other’s faces, we are not really facing one another, we are all together facing the Lord Jesus and awaiting His return!
We need to recapture the sense of what we still pray at each and every Mass: “we wait in joyful hope for the coming our Savior Jesus Christ.”
Our readings today all make exactly this same point. Over the last several weeks, we have been hearing apocalyptic readings about the end of the world. And I’ve said that these readings were aimed at assuring us that the end of the world is not something to be feared, like Hollywood’s apocalyptic movies would have us believe.
And even today, on the First Sunday of Advent – the first Sunday of a new liturgical year, we hear again about the end of the world. But now the point is slightly different. The readings ask us to live our lives based on our looking not merely back to what Christ has done for us, but also with an eye toward the future – toward His return in glory.
We all know how an upcoming event; a wedding, a graduation, an examination, or a vacation from work; can shape the way we live our daily lives. We spend a lot of time thinking about the future event, and we make choices about when to study, what to pack, what gift to bring or food to prepare.
Today’s readings and indeed the entire season of Advent, stress Jesus’ second coming at the end of time precisely so that we can spend more time thinking about how this truth about the future should shape our daily lives.
In the Gospel, Jesus warns us that “carousing and drunkenness and the anxieties of daily life” may cause us to lose our focus on Jesus’ promised return. “Be vigilant at all times,” He tells us, “stand erect and raise your heads because your redemption is at hand!”
St. Paul’s Letter to the Thessalonians makes a similar point. Paul tells his listeners: “conduct yourselves to please God.” And he prays that they will be “blameless in holiness before our God and Father at the coming of our Lord Jesus.” He instructs them that a key element in being pleasing to God when the Lord Jesus comes again is to “abound in love for one another and for all.”
Friends, we are invited this Advent to recall our hope and longing for the second coming of Christ and to let this hopeful view toward the future order every aspect of our lives.
Advent is a precious gift of time, amidst the busyness of the school year and our hectic preparations for Christmas, to slow down – “to look with hope toward the future and to straighten out what is not yet right; to overcome that one struggle, that one area of darkness—to heal what we’ve broken, to forgive, to be less addicted, to be more chaste, to be more generous.”
We are all given these four weeks of Advent to bring Christ back into the very center of our lives, to pray and to live as if this Advent were our very last Advent.
“May grace come and this world pass away – Amen, come Lord Jesus!”
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