It is a strange thing. At the beginning of our preparation for Christmas, the gospel is about the end of the world. And yet, it is not surprising. For what is already contained in a small beginning is most easily recognized in its great ending. What is truly meant by the arrival of the Savior with his great “advent, what has already happened there, is best seen in the completion of this arrival, which we commonly and somewhat mistakenly call his “second advent.” In reality, it is the completion of his one advent that is still in progress.
This is why our church’s Advent is not a mere remembering of something that has gone by, but people’s entry in faith and hope and love into a development that started when God himself stepped into the history of his world and made this history his own.
Scripture reference: Luke 21:25-33
Karl Rahner, The Mystical Way in Everyday Life, Orbis Books, 2010, p.1.
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