But centuries ago, St. Bernard of Clairvaux introduced the idea that there is a third coming which occurs in the present time and which directly involves us. He says:

There are three distinct comings of the Lord of which I know, his coming to people, his coming into people, and his coming against people. He comes to all indifferently, but comes not into all or against all. His coming to people and his coming against people are too well known to need elucidation. But concerning the second advent, which is spiritual and invisible, listen to what he says himself, “Whoever loves me will keep my word, and my Father will love that one and we will come to that person and make our dwelling with that one” (John 14:23). Blessed is the one with whom you, Lord Jesus, make your abode! (Third Sermon for Advent)

Others have developed this notion of a present coming of Christ and connect it with participation in Jesus’ dying and rising. For example, in the 19th century Cardinal John Henry Newman observed:

. . . He watches with Christ, who, while he looks on at the future, looks back on the past, and does not so contemplate what his Savior has purchased for him, as to forget what he has suffered for him. He watches with Christ, whoever commemorates and renews in his own person Christ’s cross and Agony and gladly takes up that mantle of affliction which Christ wore here, and left behind him when he ascended. And hence in the epistles, often as the inspired writers show their desire for his second coming, as often do they show their memory of his first, and never lose sight of his crucifixion in his resurrection. Thus, if St. Paul reminds the Romans that they “wait for the redemption of the body” at the last day, he also says, “If so be that we suffer with him, that we may be also glorified together” (Parochial and Plain Sermons).

In the latter part of the last century Thomas Merton wrote:

Meditating on the past and future Advents, we learn to recognize the present Advent that is taking place at every moment of our own earthly life as wayfarers. We awaken to the fact that every moment of time is a moment of judgment, that Christ is passing by and that we are judged by our awareness of His passing. If we join Him and travel with Him to the Kingdom, the judgment becomes for us salvation. But if we neglect Him and let Him go by, our neglect is our condemnation! Meditation on the first Advent gives us hope of the promise offered us. The remembrance of the third reminds us to fear lest by our fault we fail to receive the fulfillment of that promise. The second Advent, the present, set in between these two terms, is therefore necessarily a time of anguish, a time of conflict between fear and joy. But this is a salutary struggle! It ends in salvation and victory because it purifies our whole being (Seasons of Celebration, pp. 76-77).

In recent years, going beyond some of the notions in a threefold coming, a commentator on the Gospel according to St. Matthew noted that really, following this account of the Gospel, we should speak of one coming of Christ which has past, present, and future dimensions:

The real clue to the evangelist’s tradition is to be found in Dan vii 13. . . . We must note carefully that the cloud-rider . . . comes to the Ancient of Days. There is but one coming, and it was this coming which, misunderstood, produced the vocabulary of a second parousia in the early post-NT writers. What we appear to have in Matthew is an understanding which proceeds from the ministry of Jesus . . ., through resurrection-exaltation, looks to the kingdom of The [Son of] Man as identified with the continuing community [the Church], and then bids [all] fix their gaze on that End when that kingdom . . . will be given up by the Son to the Father, whose kingdom will be for eternity. The [Son of] Man’s “coming” in Matthew is properly to be understood of that coming spoken of by Paul in I Cor xv, where The [Son of] Man delivers up to the Father his own kingdom, which will indeed be the End, and the time of judgment (W.F. Albright and C.S. Mann, Matthew [New York: Doubleday, 1971] xcvii).

Since the coming of Christ, then, can be seen not just as a coming among us but as one coming in which he takes us with him with our cooperation to his Father, it is clearer how we may be said to be not just recipients of the gifts of his coming but active participants with him in gathering others, especially the young people whom we serve, to join in his and our coming to the Father.

The mystery of the Incarnation, especially the birth, infancy, and childhood of Jesus, have always had a special emphasis among the Brothers since the beginning of the Institute. Undoubtedly, this is due to our mission to serve the young and to see Christ in them. This mystery, however, can never be disassociated from Christ’s redemptive death and resurrection. St. Paul, quoting a Christian hymn of his time, makes the point that the self-emptying of the Son of God becoming human reaches its climax in Jesus’ death and resurrection-ascension and that the attitude of Jesus throughout must be ours:

Have among yourselves the same attitude that is also yours in Christ Jesus,
Who, though he was in the form of God
Did not regard equality with God
something to be grasped.
Rather, he emptied himself,
taking the form of a slave,
coming in human likeness;
and found human in appearance,
he humbled himself,
becoming obedient to death,
even death on a cross.
Because of this, God greatly exalted him
and bestowed on him the name
that is above every name,
that at the name of Jesus
every knee should bend,
of those in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
and every tongue confess that
Jesus Christ is Lord,
to the glory of God the Father. (Philippians 2:5-11)

St. John Baptist de La Salle at least alludes to the same unity of Incarnation and Redemption, if not to a single coming, when he writes in his meditation for Christmas Eve:

For how long has Jesus been presenting himself to you and knocking at the door of your heart, in order to make his dwelling within you and you have not wanted to receive him. Why? Because he only presents himself under the form of a poor man, a slave, a man of sorrows.

. . . Would you not keep him company, regarding him as God by paying attention to his holy presence, and regarding him as man by meditating on his sufferings and his passion?

Reflection on this unity and on the meaning of the present dimension of the one coming of Christ can lead us not only to treasure more deeply the grace we enjoy of participating in his coming to his and our Father; but also, to acknowledge that by being ambassadors of Jesus Christ, as De La Salle puts it, we draw others to Christ by our own self-giving with and in him so that together with him and with those whom we serve we may enter the fullness of the Kingdom of his and our Father.

Fraternally,

Brother Stanislaus Campbell, FSC
Visitor