On December 17 we enter the final stage of joyfully penitential preparation for the Lord’s manifold Advents. St Bernard (d 1153) preached in an Advent sermon that, in His first coming, Christ came in the flesh and in weakness; in His second, He comes for our rest and consolation; in His third, He will come in glory and in majesty. The second coming is the means whereby we pass from the first to the third.
In the liturgy of Advent, John the Baptist reminds us to “make straight His paths”. When we come to the Lord in death, or He comes to us at world’s end, He, our Judge, will make straight every path whether or not during this life we have striven to straighten it beforehand.
