January 2009
REFLECTION by

Bro. James Zakowicz, O.C.D.

What Are We Waiting For?

For the last four weeks of Advent we have been waiting with eager expectation for the birth of Christ.  Christmas has come and gone; the New Year is under way; everyone’s lives are getting back to normal.  On January 12 even the Christmas season will transition to “Ordinary Time.” 

So, now what is there to wait for?

Every year we remember the three comings of Our Lord:  in the weakness of our human nature at birth; in the power of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost; and in glory at the end of time.  If we simply think of the first two comings as past events that leaves us with only one more to wait for – the Last Judgment.  But we know that with God all time is one.  Christ’s birth has changed history, our past, present and future.  Therefore, the three comings are integrally connected in the divine present, the eternal “now.”

For the Jews, the act of remembering goes beyond just the cognitive ability to recall a past event; it makes the event somehow real in the present.  Interestingly, the word for remember, zakar, is related to the word for “male.”  In the Hebrew imagination, the role of the father is to pass on the memory of the covenant from one generation to the next.  How does a father make himself remembered?  By procreating, i.e., having children. 

At the creation of the first man and woman, God is imaged as the all-powerful and creative father to the first couple who will pass on their familial relationship with God to their children and through them to the whole human race.  At Christmas, we celebrate God the Father’s sending of his only Son to save us; Jesus’ name literally means “Yahweh Saves.”

Another name for Jesus is Emmanuel, “God-With-Us.”  Pope Benedict, in a recent Advent homily focuses on St. Paul’s blessing of the Thessalonians:  “May the God of peace make you perfect in holiness, may he preserve you whole and entire, spirit, soul and body, irreproachable at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.”  He notes that the phrase “at the coming” should literally be translated “in the coming” (en te parousia); Christ’s coming is a continuous action, even in the present.

The Holy Father explains:  "In effect, this is exactly what we live in the liturgy: celebrating the liturgical seasons, we actualize the mystery -- in this case the coming of the Lord -- in such a way as to be able, so to speak, to 'walk in it' toward its full realization, at the end of time, but already drawing sanctifying virtue from it from the moment that the last times have already begun with the death and resurrection of Christ."

Let us continue walking in the hope that comes from Emmanuel coming daily among us in prayer, the sacraments, and in each encounter with other persons made in the image and likeness of God. 

What are we waiting for?