During the first years of the church, just after the Ascension of Jesus Christ, many Christians believed that the second glorious coming of the Messiah would come shortly, and for that reason, they thought that it was not worthy to continue working hard, since the Lord would soon come in glory to put an end to this world.
    This way of thinking is call “millenarian” vision because it usually becomes popular at the beginning of a new millennium. Its modern version can be found in the famous series of fictional novels called Left Behind. According to this series of books, the end of the world is near.

    We, Catholics, don’t think like this. We firmly believe in the admonitions of the Lord — which we have read in the Gospel for the first Sunday of Advent — where he insists that “we don’t know the day nor the time” when his second coming will happen.
    However, Catholics are always waiting for the Lord, because we know for sure that sooner or later, he will come. And for this reason, before the beautiful Christmas season, the church begins the liturgical year with Advent.

    “Advent” comes from a Latin word that means “coming,” “arrival” and “event;” it means, it is the arrival of someone special, someone decisive for our lives.
    Catholics believe that the Lord is about to arrive. Even more, that he is constantly arriving. The Lord comes to our souls always in the mystery of the Eucharist. He visits us, as the Gospel of Matthew describes in chapter 25, in our brothers and sisters who suffer material and spiritual poverty and need.     Finally, Matthew says that Jesus arrives again in the world, to be the “God-with-us” in Christmas.

    For this reason the season of Advent is above all, a time of “preparation.” But we don’t mean only an external preparation, like the one we see these days in the streets: Christmas ornaments, retails sales everywhere, beautiful messages and the neutral greeting “happy holidays.” For us, Catholics, it means to prepare our spirit so that we will be “ready” for the coming of the Lord.

    If we pay attention to the readings that have been proclaimed at the last two Sunday masses, and the ones we will continue to hear until Christmas, we will see that the church invites us insistently to prepare our heart and our soul that the Lord Jesus will find in us the love and shelter, he didn’t find in Bethlehem, where, after being rejected from every house, he had to be born in a stable.

    There are some ways to prepare for the coming of the Lord that are simple but valuable. Above all, prayer. Let us make a special effort to get closer to God during these days by visiting him in the Blessed Sacrament in our parish, looking for him in Sacred Scripture and in books of prayers and devotions, in personal and direct prayer.

    Then we can also seek penance and forgiveness: how many fights, arguments or resentments do we have unresolved? These days before Christmas are a special time for us to free ourselves from hatred and vengeance, and to forgive as well as to ask for forgiveness. This is a good time for us to take refuge in the Lord’s mercy, asking forgiveness for our sins through the sacrament of confession.

    Another important means is charity. Amidst the shopping frenzy that marks this time, let us pause to think more about those in need, and less about ourselves. We all want to give a gift to a loved one, or to receive a gift ourselves. However, Jesus calls us to think about the poor, the abandoned, those who are sad and those who need not only a material gift, but also gifts that sometimes cost us more, such as our time, our patience and attention, our affection or our prayer.

    If we follow this simple path of personal conversion, we can be assured that we will be “preparing the way” of the Lord for this Christmas, and when the great day without a definite date at the end of time arrives, we won’t be “left behind.”

    May Our Lady of Guadalupe, whose feast day we celebrate in a few days, be our patroness and companion in this path towards Christmas.