Numerous Advents

Christi nascentis diem anniversarim exspectamus; qui nobis in proximo videndus, Domino annuente, promittur. Hoc sane gaudium nostrum tale videtur exigre Scriptura, ut spiritum noster levans se super se, Christo venienti quodammodo occurere gestiat: et desiderio se extendens in anteriora, impatiensque morarum, jam videre contendat futura. Ego namque non solum ad secundum adventum, sed etiam ad primum arbitror pertinere, quod tot locis Scripturarum i monemur occurrere. Quomodo, inquis? Quia videlicet sicut secundo adventui occurremus motu et exsultatione corporisl sic et primo occurrndum est affectu et exsultatione cordis. Scitis enim quia resumptis in resurrectione corporis novis, secundum doctrinam Apostoli, rapiemur in nubibus obviam Christo in aera, et sic semper cum Domino erimus. Sic nec modo desunt nubes, quae spiritus nostros, si nimis non fuerint pigri terraeque affixi, sublevabunt ad altiora; et sic cum Domino erimus, vel hora dimidia. Agnoscit, ni fallor, experientia vestra quod loquor, cum aliquando vocem dederunt nubes, id est, sonerunt in Ecclesia prophetarum, vel apostolorum voces, ad quam sublimia sensus vestri, quasi vehiculo nubis, fuerint subvecti; et eo usque nonnunquam excesserint, ut gloriam Domini quantulumcunque mererentur speculari. Tunc, ni fallor, vobis innotuit veritas illius sermonis, qum Dominus de illa nube pluit, quam quotidie ponit ascensum vobis: Sacrificium laudis honorificabit me: et illic iter, quo ostendam illi salutare Dei. Ita ergo sit, ut ante adventum suum Dominus veniat ad vos, et antequam mundo generaliter adveniat, familiariter invisat vos. Non vos, inquit, relinquam orphanos: vado, et veniam ad vos. Et quidem pro merito cujusque, vel studio, creber est ad unumquemque iste Domini adventus, hoc tempore medio inter adventum primum et novissimum, conformans nos adventui primo, et praeparans novissimo. Ad hoc nempe venit modo in nos, ne primo adventu frustra venerit ad nos, vel ne in novissimo veniat iratus adversus nos. Hoc siquidem adventu satagit reformare sensum superbiae nostrae, configuratum sensui humilitatis suae, quam primo veniens exhibuit; ut perinde reformet corpus humilitatis nostrae, configuratum corpori claritatis suae, quam denuo rediens exhibebit. Prorsus optandus omnibus votis, et expetendus studiis adventus iste familiaris, qui nobis gratiam impertiat adventus primi, et gloriam promittat novissimi. Guerricus Ignaciensis, De Adventu Domini, Sermo II Source: Migne PL 185.15d-16d

We are waiting for the anniversary of the day of the Christ's birth, which soon we shall see, which was promised with the Lord's approval. It seems that Scripture would have us joyful, so that our spirits are lifted up, eager to hurry to the approaching Christ, and while reaching out to what is to come its desire is impatient with the delay, and seems in dispute with what is to be. I think that all the passages in Scripture which exhort us to hurry, refer not only to the first advent but even to the second. How is this, you ask? Because as at the second coming we shall run with all eagerness and joy in the body, so even at the first we should run with all happiness and exultation of heart. You know that at the resurrection, with the putting on of the new body, according to the teaching of the Apostle, we shall be taken up into the clouds to meet Christ in the air, and so we will always be with the Lord, 1 but even now there is no lack of clouds which will carry off our spirits to the heights if we are not sluggish and bound up in worldly things, and so we we will be with the Lord, if for half an hour. If I do not err, your own experience knows what I am speaking about, when sometimes the clouds thunder, that is, when in the Church the prophets or the apostles give forth their voices, and your minds are swept up to high things, as transported on clouds, and not a few have gone further, so that they have merited to look a little on the glory of the Lord. Then, if I do not err, the truth of the word is made known to you, which the Lord rains down from the cloud that he appoints to raise us up every day. 'The sacrifice of praise shall give me honour, and there is the path by which I shall show forth the salvation of God.' 2 Therefore it may be that the Lord will come to you before His advent, and before He comes to the whole world, He will come to you in particular. 'I shall not leave you orphans,' He said, 'but I go and I shall come to you.' 3 And whether for merit or for zeal, the advent of the Lord to us is not uncommon in the time between the first and the second advent, conforming us to the first and preparing us for the last. For certainly He comes to us now, lest it is in vain that He came to us in His first advent, and lest He comes against us in anger in the last. In this middle advent He comes to reform our proud minds and to shape us to the sense of His humility which He showed in His first coming, so that He may reform the body of our humility into the likeness of His own glorified body, which He shall show when He returns again. 4 The wish of all our prayers and the striving of our zeal should be this personal advent of His, which bestows on us the grace of the first advent and promises the glory of the last. Guerric of Igny, from the Second Sermon on the Advent Of the Lord 1 Thes 4.16 2 Ps 76.18, 103.3, 49.23 3 Jn 14.18 4 Phil 3.21