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Advent Sunday

"Arise, be enlightened, … for thy light is come, and the glory of the Lord is risen upon thee… The Lord shall arise upon thee … the Gentiles shall walk in thy light, and kings in the brightness of thy rising" (ortus).

(Is. lx. 1-3).

1st Prelude. A picture of the first streaks of dawn.

2nd Prelude. Grace to arise because the Light has come.

Point I. The Rising of Christ

The Church begins her new liturgical year with the words: "Ad Te levavi animam meam" – To Thee have I lifted up my soul ("Introit" for to-day) – as though she were straining her eyes to try to see something on the horizon. She cannot see anything very definite yet, but she is full of hope. Deus meus, in Te confido, non erubescam– My God I trust in Thee, let me not be ashamed, do not let me lift up my eyes in vain, she cries; and she keeps on looking. This will be her attitude all through the season of Advent, an attitude of expectancy, of waiting, of hope, of trust, of prayer. We know for what she is waiting – the Ortus Christi– the Rising of Christ. "The Lord shall arise upon thee" is the promise. "To Thee have I lifted up my soul" is her response. What is in her mind when she sees those first streaks of light? They are to her an earnest of what is coming, an earnest of the Advent of her Lord. St. Bernard says that His Advent is threefold, that He comes in three different ways: (1) In the flesh and in weakness, (2) in the spirit and in power, (3) in glory and in majesty.

The Church knows how much these three Comings mean to her children, and so at the first sign of dawn she forgets the long weary night, and calls to each one: "Arise, be enlightened for thy light is come, and the glory of the Lord is risen upon thee." "Behold the Bridegroom cometh, go ye forth to meet Him."

Let us then begin our Advent in the spirit of the Church. Let us arise once more as she bids us, rouse ourselves that is, to look with her at the dawn, while we say to ourselves: "Behold He cometh leaping upon the mountains, skipping over the hills. Behold He standeth behind our wall, looking through the windows, looking through the lattices." As we look we hear the voice of our Beloved, He is speaking to His Church. What has He to say as soon as He comes in sight? "Arise, make haste, my love, my dove, my beautiful one, and come" (Cant. ii. 8-10). It is the same injunction: "Arise."

Point II. The Rising of the Church

If the Bridegroom is rising, it is evident that the Bride must do the same. He is rising to come to His Bride, she must rise to go to Him. How? By meditating on His Advents; by thanking Him once more for them; by asking herself what use she has made of them hitherto, what use she intends to make during this New Year that is beginning; by preparing herself for them; by remembering that as His Bride she has a very real share in each.

1. The past Coming, "in the flesh and in weakness." We shall think about this coming more especially at Christmas, for which the season of Advent is a preparation. "The bright and morning star" (Apoc. xxii. 16) will by then have risen in all its fulness. The Word will be made Flesh and once more we shall rise in the "quiet silence" of the night to worship our God "in the flesh and in weakness."

2. The present Coming, "in the spirit and in power" – His Coming in grace to the soul, to dwell with it by His Spirit. "In power" – because only He Who is omnipotent could work such a stupendous miracle as the miracle of grace. This miracle could never have been worked, had it not been for the first Coming. "The Word was made Flesh" that He might by His death redeem His people and restore to them the kingdom of grace which they had lost in Adam. This second Coming is to prepare us for the third.

3. The future Coming, in "glory and in majesty" when He shall "come again with glory to judge both the living and the dead," and when all will be forced to rise and go to meet Him whether they will or not. It is those, who have risen voluntarily to meet their God in His second Coming, who will have no fear of the third. The second Coming, then, the Coming in grace, is the most practical one for us as we begin our Advent, and upon it we will meditate in our third point.

Point III. The Dwelling of the Blessed Trinity within us

This is what God's Coming in grace means – a soul in the state of grace is the host of the Blessed Trinity, neither more nor less. "We will come to Him and will make our abode with him," (St. John xiv. 23) and from the moment that grace enters, the soul becomes the abode of God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Ghost.

It was at the moment of Baptism that our souls were raised to the dignity of being hosts of God Himself. What happened then? God added to the natural gifts with which He had endowed man supernatural ones, summed up in the gift of grace. What is that? A participation in His own life, something which makes us "partakers of the Divine nature." (2 Pet. i. 4). He created man thus in the beginning, for He meant man always to possess supernatural as well as natural gifts. He meant always to live with man and talk and walk with him in the paradise of his soul; but Adam chased out the Divine Guest and lost this miraculous privilege for all his children. God, however, could not rest content to be outside the souls which He had created solely that He might live in them, and He devised a way (the first Coming of Christ) by which He might get back to the dwelling which He cherished so much. We need not follow the beautiful story of the Redemption through all its wondrous steps, we know it well enough; we will take it up at Baptism, when the divine gift of life which Adam lost was restored to the soul, when God came back to His chosen dwelling, and the soul regained its responsible position of host to the Blessed Trinity. When Satan had noticed that the soul was left exposed, that it was a human soul only, with nothing divine about it, he naturally had taken possession, as he does of all empty houses; (St. Matt. xii. 44) so at Baptism the Priest said: "Depart from him, thou unclean spirit, and give place to the Holy Ghost." Where the Holy Ghost is, there are also the Father and the Son. The Blessed Trinity, then, waits to take possession of each soul, waits to come back to Its own, waits to restore the privilege that man had at the beginning.

Thus the new creation takes place, and the soul is no longer a human soul only, but divine, for the Divine Life within has made it one with Itself. Does man realize this privilege and rise to it? No! For the greater part of Christians we are obliged to say: No. As soon as they come to years of discretion, they invite back the unclean spirit and chase out their Divine Guest. What base ingratitude! And what folly! But God, who is rich in mercy is not repelled by such conduct; His one thought is to go back to His Temple which has been so profaned, and the scheme of Redemption included a method, (the Sacrament of Penance,) whereby, if man would, he could drive out the devil and invite back the Divine Guest. Is God angry? Does He upbraid? Does He allude to the past and throw doubts on the future? No, He loves, and all He asks in return is love. Such is our Guest!

Now what is my side of this great question? I am, or if I am not, I can be, a Temple of God. God is living within me. How much do I think about it? I often talk about recalling the Presence of God, but it is His Presence within me that I have to recall. I make Acts of Contrition, of Love. To Whom? To the God within me. Do not let me forget that my heart is an altar where I can, whenever I will, adore God. He is there to walk with me and talk to me as He did to Adam of old. He wants me to live side by side with Him, and talk to Him as naturally as I do to my friend.

Let me try this Advent, as one of the best ways of preparing for the Coming of Christ at Christmas, and for His Coming in judgment, to realize what the supernatural life means, what God in me means, what it means to be the host always of God Himself. The realization will transform my life, will alter my point of view, will change me from a mediocre Christian into one who is filled with a great idea and who is occupied with it every moment of his time – an idea which is ever stimulating him to aim higher. God in me– then I am never alone, my life is intimately bound up with God's life. I am a partaker of His nature. O my God, forgive me for having thought of it so little; help me to rise to my great privileges. I thank Thee for letting a few streaks of Thy Divine Light reach my dark soul, and by the time that the Sun of Justice has risen in all His splendour this Advent, may my soul be flooded with the new light which the realization of the Divine Presence within it, will surely bring.

Colloquy with God within me.

Resolution. To realize this truth to-day, and every day more and more.

Spiritual Bouquet. "We will come to Him and make our abode with Him."