Dear Brothers and Lasallian Partners,

As we approach once again the beginning of another liturgical year in the Advent and Christmas seasons, I offer a few reflections on the significance these seasons may have for us.  Although the central reality of our Christian life is the Paschal Mystery of the dying and rising of Jesus and our participation in it, that Mystery begins to be fulfilled in the Incarnation—the eternal Word of God taking on our human flesh and existence.  That Mystery will be entirely fulfilled in the final coming of the Lord at the end of time.

We celebrate, then, the beginning and the end of this Mystery in the seasons of Advent and Christmas.  The end or fulfillment of this Mystery is the object of our consideration in the last few weeks of Ordinary Time and the first couple of weeks in Advent.  In this year’s reflection I would like to focus on that aspect of the Advent-Christmas seasons. 

Unlike the first Christians, we are not preoccupied with the Lord’s final coming, but it still has significance for us.  For Saint John Baptist de la Salle, the Lord’s final coming was an event to be feared even by those who were leading good Christian lives.  He says in his meditation for the First Sunday of Advent:  “It is not only the wicked who need to be afraid of the Last Judgment because of the evil lives they have led.  It will be a harrowing experience for the good as well as the wicked, says Saint Augustine.  For, asserts Saint Jerome, there will be few, in fact there will be none, in that general gathering who will not deserve to be reproved with severity and anger by the Judge.”

Here is one instance where our Lasallian heritage needs to be broadened and deepened by the wider tradition of the Church.  Without denying that there is a fearful aspect to the end of the world and the final judgment, we need to take account also of what the Church’s liturgy presents to us about the final coming of the Lord.  A few quotations from the liturgy of the first two weeks of Advent will serve to cast a light somewhat different from that cast by the quote from De La Salle:  “I rejoiced when I heard them say: let us go to the house of the Lord” (Response for Responsorial Psalm, First Sunday of Advent, Cycle A); “In joy, we wait for your coming, come, Lord Jesus” (Intercession, Evening Prayer I, First Sunday of Advent); “The mountains and hills will sing praise to God; all the trees of the forest will clap their hands, for he is coming, the Lord of a kingdom that lasts for ever, alleluia” (Antiphon 2, Morning Prayer, First Sunday of Advent); “Your light will come, Jerusalem; the Lord will dawn on you in radiant beauty.  You will see his glory within you; the Lord will dawn on you in radiant beauty” (Responsory, Morning Prayer, weekdays of the first two weeks of Advent).

So, there is a joyful, desirable aspect to the Lord’s coming that needs to be given expression in the Advent-Christmas seasons especially in the early part of Advent.  Although we don’t expect the Lord’s final coming in our lifetimes, we still need to nourish our hope for the ultimate and joyful fulfillment of God’s promised salvation not only for ourselves but for all with whom we associate—our Brothers, our families, our students, our fellow faculty members, and others.

This joyful, desirable aspect of the seasons can be strengthened by considering it in the context of the Lord’s coming not so much to us but with us to God as I attempted to explain last year.  If we consider ourselves as instrumental in the Lord’s coming, it would be easy to understand why we would earnestly desire the fulfillment of this coming.  Our prayer throughout Advent and even into the Christmas Season would be the ancient prayer of the Church, “Come, Lord Jesus!” by which we entreat the Lord to complete his coming, taking us with him, to his and our Father.

May these thoughts serve to stir up our hope, and may the blessings of these seasons be yours in abundance!

Fraternally,

Brother Stanislaus Campbell, FSC
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