Scripture: Is.2:1-5; Ps.121; Rom.113:11-14; Matt.24:37-44.

Composition of Place: I see myself standing humbly before the Lord who loves me.

Grace I/we seek: I ask for the Grace to experience myself as a pilgrim, and even perhaps to accompany young people in the creation of a hope-filled future.

The readings announce the coming of the Lord. They ask us to ‘be awake’, to engage all our senses, and especially interior senses, that we can see what the Lord is doing and how he is bringing about the fulfilment of his promises. (Matt.24:37-44)

They invite us to ponder the very nature of God who is active within history as its Lord. Who is this God for whom we are waiting? Who is this God who is faithful to us and his creation? In rich and vibrant imagery, the prophets capture the beauty and the glory in which the God who is coming ‘recreates’ all that God has made and especially we who are made in his image.

The future is not just a time; it is the event of God who is coming towards us. History has its ‘telos’ its final purpose in which all created relations come to their fulfilment in Christ. We are entrusted with this saving knowledge and asked in our own time to live this future time, ‘in the light.’ It means that the untruths, the false narratives, the distortions and exploitations, will all be exposed in the light of God’s justice (Rom.13:11-14), all those innocent ones who have suffered, whose lives have been used and then discarded as of no account, Now, their voices heard; they come not from a past but from a future for in God’s eyes their lives have an infinite value and their names are names that are known. God keeps their memory and in Christ they are raised as his friends.

The future that God gives, and the prophet sees, is not only an end to all wars, but the abolition of fear.

To us is the invitation, ‘come let us go up to the mountain of the Lord.’ To leave behind all that hinders us and become pilgrims walking ‘on his paths….. in the light of the Lord.’

In Advent God gives us time to renew body and soul; to recover perspectives and to establish once again the true and lasting values that shape and govern our lives. (Matt.24:37-44).

There is a sense renewal and fulfilment in the readings, especially the psalm. Although the prayer is for Israel it could also be for the Church, ‘for the sake of the house of the Lord our God….’

The offer is one of peace: to have the grace of peace, the ‘shalom’ of the Lord, coming to rest within us, to be ministers of that peace to others. (Ps.121)