The Great Mystery of Advent by Dom Guéranger
O.S.B.
This, then, is the mystery of Advent. There are three comings of
Our Lord; the first in the flesh, the second in the
soul, the third at the judgement. The first was at
midnight, according to those words of the Gospel: At
midnight there was a cry made, Lo the Bridegroom cometh!
But this first coming is long since past, for Christ has
been seen on the Earth and has conversed among men. We
are now in the second coming, provided only we are such
as that He may thus come to us; for He has said that if
we love Him, He will come unto us and will take up His
abode with us. So that this second coming is full of
uncertainty to us; for who, save the Spirit of God,
knows them that are of God? They that are raised out of
themselves by the desire of heavenly things, know indeed
when He comes; but whence He comes, or whither He goes,
they know not. As for the third coming, it is most
certain that it will be, most uncertain when it will be;
for nothing is more sure than death, and nothing less
sure than the hour of death. When they shall say, peace
and security, says the Apostle, then shall sudden
destruction come upon them, as the pains upon her that
is with child, and they shall not escape. So that the
first coming was humble and hidden, the second is
mysterious and full of love, the third will be majestic
and terrible. In His first coming, Christ was judged by
men unjustly; in His second, He renders us just by His
grace; in His third, He will judge all things with
justice. In His first, a lamb; in His last, a lion; in
the one between the two, the tenderest of friends.
The Holy Church, therefore, during Advent, awaits in tears and
with ardour the arrival of her Jesus in His first
coming. For this, she borrows the fervid expressions of
the prophets, to which she joins her own supplications.
These longings for the Messias expressed by the Church,
are not a mere commemoration of the desires of the
ancient Jewish people; they have a reality and efficacy
of their own, an influence in the great act of God’s
munificence, whereby He gave us His own Son. From all
eternity, the prayers of the ancient Jewish people and
the prayers of the Christian Church ascended together to
the prescient hearing of God; and it was after receiving
and granting them, that He sent, in the appointed time,
that blessed Dew upon the Earth, which made it bud forth
the Saviour.
The Church aspires also to the second coming. This
coming takes place, each year, at the feast of
Christmas, when the new birth of the Son of God delivers
the faithful from that yoke of bondage, under which the
enemy would oppress them. The Church, therefore, during
Advent, prays that she may be visited by Him who is her
Head and her Spouse; visited in her hierarchy; visited
in her members, of whom some are living, and some are
dead, but may come to life again; visited, lastly, in
those who are not in communion with her, and even in the
very infidels, that so they may be converted to the true
light, which shines even for them.
