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WE WILL PREPARE OUR HEARTS FOR THE GOD WHO COMES
Waiting for the coming of Christ in his Word, preparing our hearts to listen, to encounter Him and to open ourselves to that encounter transforming us.
We begin this new liturgical year with Advent, a time that invites us to renew our listening to the Word and to prepare our hearts for the God who comes, the Lord who draws near.
St. Bernard tells us of three comings of the Lord. "In addition to the first and the last, there is an intermediate coming. The former are visible, but this one is not. In the first the Lord appeared on earth and lived among men, when, as he himself says, they saw him and hated him. In the last one they will all contemplate the salvation that God sends us and they will look at the one they have pierced. The intermediate coming is hidden" ... " He comes spiritually, manifesting the power of his grace; in the last he will come in the splendor of his glory" (St. Bernard Abbot, Sermon 5 on the Lord's Advent, 1-3).
We are called to be attentive every day to this intermediate coming, one that happens to us every day, in which Christ comes to manifest to us the power of his grace and his love. We are called to be attentive, to renew ourselves, to prepare our hearts to be conquered by Christ, to allow ourselves to be overcome by him in love.
And how do we stay awake, awake? In the first place, waiting for the coming of Christ in his Word, preparing our hearts to listen, to encounter him and to open ourselves to that encounter transforming us. Christ himself invites us by saying, "When you go to pray, go into your room, and when you close the door, pray to your Father" (Mt 6:6). It is time to persevere constantly in lectio, to truly make room for the coming of Christ, to incline the ear of the heart to listen to what the Lord wants to say to us today, illuminating our day to day, changing our gaze.
Also waiting for the coming of Christ in the community, by faith, we know that if Christ dwells in each one, he also dwells in my brother, in each one of us, in whom I am close. In this season of Advent we are called to prepare our hearts to receive the Christ who is in the other, especially in the most lonely and needy of our families, communities and in whom the Lord is showing us, because, as St. John tells us, "There is no greater love than this, to lay down one's life for one's friends"(Jn 15, 13) .
Waiting for the coming of Christ within us, Christ is knocking at our door, but it happens that we have so much to do that we are not able to open it to him, especially in these days when the environment does not help us to live this Advent, full of tasks and worries, when in reality, as Jesus himself says to Martha: "there is need of a few, or rather, of one" (Lk 10:42).
Let Christ conquer our hearts! Change our outlook! The Liturgy, the readings of this season come to our aid, they invite us to be vigilant, attentive to the manifestations of God in our lives: "Let us therefore arise at once, for Scripture wakes us awake, saying, 'It is time to awake from sleep"(RB P 8).