“Grant your faithful, we pray, almighty God, the resolve to run forth to meet your Christ with righteous deeds at his coming, so that gathered at his right hand, they may be worthy to possess the heavenly Kingdom.”

These words in the opening prayer for Mass on this First Sunday of Advent are meant to inspire in our hearts the faith and hope that mark this season, which, as stated in The Catechism of the Catholic Church—“makes present the ancient expectancy of the Messiah, for by sharing in the long preparation for the Savior’s first coming, the faithful renew their ardent desire for his second coming” (No. 524). This prayer, which dates back to seventh-century Rome and Gaul, poetically expresses what it means to be a Christian, living in that period between the already of Christ’s first adventus, or “coming,” into our world, and the not yet of Christ’s second coming.

We praise Almighty God who seeks to stimulate within our hearts the kind of disposition that “cooperates with God in our own transformation” ( as stated by the USCCB commentary for the Proper Prayers of Advent from the Roman Missal) through prayer, penance inspiring repentance and conversion of heart, and, works of charity. The drama of this sacred season is marked by a sense of waiting, hopeful anticipation and vigilance, knowing that God always keeps God’s promises:

• As revealed in the first coming of Christ in the incarnation

• As emphasized in Christ’s words which remind us that he comes into our lives daily in word and in sacrament; in our relationships and interactions with one another; in the prompting of our consciences and our good intentions; and especially in our encounters with our sisters and brothers who are poor, lonely, suffering or abandoned

• And, as promised in what has been revealed about Christ’s coming again in the fullness of time at the end of days.

Ours is a lifelong journey towards that moment, known only to God, when Christ comes to meet us. Now, we cry out to God with the prophet Isaiah: “would that you would rend the heavens and come down “– and – “would that you might meet us doing right, that we were mindful of you in our ways! We are the clay and you the potter.” Do we really want God to “rend the heavens and come down?” Are we prepared for that moment? Are we prepared to allow ourselves to become vulnerable, to trustingly allow God to be God in shaping our hearts and our lives so as to live each day for the Kingdom of Heaven? Advent invites us to do just that.

Like our ancestors in the faith, we are living in a time in which the vulnerabilities of the human family have been exposed and it seems like we’re still plodding through a Lent that has yet to end. But, as the classic Christmas hymn, “Oh Holy Night,” reminds us—the “thrill of hope” in God inspires “a weary world” to rejoice during this season of waiting and expectation. We light the first candle on the Advent wreath, which signifies our vigilance. It is the flame of faith that has not been overcome by the darkness, and which reminds us that our lives, here and now, participate in the eternity of God’s plan of salvation, won for us already in Christ. That awareness gives us strength and rekindles within us the fire of hope that inspires us to cry: “Come Emmanuel,” and we prepare each day for that moment, so as to “run forth to meet Christ with righteous deeds,” the fruit of having cooperated with grace, because as St. Paul reminds us: we “are not lacking in any spiritual gift as [we] wait for the revelation of our Lord Jesus Christ,” who will “keep [us] firm to the end.”