Advent and the Second Coming

Hello, you guys! As the Christmas season is upon us, so is the Advent season. I know that Advent is already halfway over, but I wanted to say something about Advent and what it is for. I recently watched a video by Fr. Mike Schmitz on Advent (I’ll include a link at the end of this post), and I also listened to a really good homily at my parish that was also about the Advent season. I think that I should share some of the ideas I heard with you!

I’m sure we have all heard something to the effect of, “Advent is for preparing our hearts and souls for Jesus’ coming,” and we usually assume that they are referring to Jesus being born on Christmas. They very well might, but Jesus was already born, so how exactly can we prepare for his birth?

The easy answer is: We shouldn’t ONLY be preparing for his birth. Of course we do, like setting up a nativity creche in our homes or going to Christmas mass to celebrate his birth. That’s all fine and dandy, but what we really should be purging our hearts and souls for is His Second Coming.

The Bible says that nobody will ever know when Jesus will come again, so we must be ready. We must be vigilant in making all that we do for God’s glory. The purpose of Advent is to make more room in our lives for Jesus. If he were to come back today, would you put down whatever you are doing to go welcome Him, no matter how important? Would you jump up and down with joy and point him out and say, ‘That’s Him! That’s Jesus!’? Or would you be sitting on a computer or a video game, or be in the middle of something and say, ‘Hang on let me finish this’?

This Advent, try to look at your life and find the places where God is missing. Try to make more room in your life for him, so that if he wanted to just sit down and talk to you, you would let him.

I hope that all of you have a wonderful Advent and Christmas season!

Fiat Voluntas Dei (God’s Will Be Done)

-Thérèse

Fr Mike’s video: