When does a son remind his father “You are my father”? When he wants something. And so it is that, in the first reading on the First Sunday of Advent, the prophet Isaiah emphasises God’s fatherhood so that he might add an extra note of urgency to the prayer he is making on behalf of the people of Israel, who in the Old Testament are God’s firstborn (Exodus 4:22).
“You, LORD, are our father,” Isaiah pleads,
our redeemer you are named forever.
Why do you let us wander, O LORD, from your ways,
and harden our hearts so that we fear you not? (Isaiah 63:16b-17a)
Isaiah makes his request with great boldness because he recognises that only God knows our deepest desires and motivations – what Sacred Scripture calls the “heart” (see the Catechism, nos 368 and 2517) – and only God has the power to change our desires from within.
The prophet’s plea is especially suited to this First Sunday of Advent because this is the season when the Mass readings and prayers direct us to make room for Jesus in our hearts. Now is our chance to amp up our spiritual life – to pray more fervently, read the Bible, perform works of mercy, and make Confession – so we may prepare a home for the Redeemer for whom there was no room at the inn.
All that said, when Isaiah goes on to beg the Lord to “rend the heavens and come down, with the mountains quaking before [him]”, we may struggle to reconcile the image of a mighty God in the skies with that of the helpless infant in the manger. Yet even those petitions found their fulfilment with the Incarnation – though in a manner that Isaiah’s listeners could scarcely have imagined. The heavens opened at the moment that Jesus began his public ministry, when the Holy Spirit descended upon him as he arose from the waters of baptism (Matthew 3:16), and the mountains quaked at the moment of his death (Matthew 27:52).
The responsorial psalm likewise looks to the coming of the Messiah, the “Shepherd of Israel” (Psalm 80:2), whom the psalmist describes as the man of God’s right hand (Psalm 80:18). Here too, there is the expectation that this Redeemer who is to come will turn the hearts of God’s people back to him. But there is something more: the Shepherd described in the Psalm will bring Israel back to God precisely through giving them “new life” (Psalm 80:19). This prayer too will find its fulfilment in Jesus, the Good Shepherd, who “came so that they might have life and have it more abundantly” (John 10:11).
Whereas the Old Testament readings hope for a Messiah who is yet to come, St Paul speaks to us in our present state of waiting. On the one hand, the Lord has already answered the psalmist’s cry, “Let us see your face and we shall be saved” (Psalm 80:4). Through the Incarnation and, mystically, Jesus’s Real Presence in the Eucharist, the Lord has indeed shown us His face and given us the salvation He won upon the Cross.
But on the other hand, we too must “wait for the revelation” of the Messiah – only we await His second coming, not His first, for we know His name: “Jesus Christ” (1 Corinthians 1:7).
St Bernard preached at this time of the liturgical year (Sermo 5, In Adventu Domini) that between the first and second comings, there is in fact a third coming of Christ. This third coming “is invisible, while the other two are visible”, he says. It is a “hidden” coming: “in it only those on the path to God see the Lord within their own selves, and they experience salvation”.
Jesus in the Gospel addresses his disciples and all of us who have experienced his hidden entrance into our heart, telling us the attitude we are to have as we prepare for his return: “Be watchful! Be alert” (Mark 13:33). This admonishment might seem surprising in light of the Gospel from three Sundays ago: the Parable of the Ten Virgins (Matthew 25:1-13). After all, even the wise virgins, who ultimately entered into the wedding feast, got drowsy and fell asleep before the bridegroom’s coming.
Why, then, does Jesus warn us to stay awake? To answer that question, it is necessary to recall what action differentiated the virgins of the parable: the wise virgins brought oil for their lamps but the foolish ones did not. If we understand the parable in the manner of Church Fathers such as St Augustine, for whom the oil represents virtue (see Augustine, Sermon 43 on the New Testament), then it can be said that even while the wise virgins slept the sleep of death – as both the wise and foolish must do – the love of God burned within their souls. In that light, being watchful and alert for Jesus’s sake means guarding our heart so that Christ the King reigns in it uncontested.
Yet if we are indeed able to set Jesus as a seal upon our heart (see Song of Songs 8:6), it is only because He himself has taken the initiative to turn us to Him. He does this at every Mass, when He calls us with His Spirit to receive His Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity in the Holy Eucharist. In this way, he shows us the love of the Father, who continues at every Mass to answer Isaiah’s prayer to work “such [awesome] deeds for those who wait for him” (Isaiah 64:3).
Dawn Eden Goldstein is an assistant professor of dogmatic theology at Holy Apostles College and Seminary in Connecticut. Her latest book is Remembering God’s Mercy: Redeem the Past and Free Yourself from Painful Memories (Ave Maria Press)
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