Already, But Not Yet

The Christmas tree is St. Peter's Square is up,
but the Nativity scene is still under construction

There is a particular tension in Advent.  We are in wait for the coming of Christmas, the coming of Christ into the world, the incarnation.  But Christ has already come, his saving work complete.  Yet we are still waiting, there is a real anticipation, and not just for the celebration of Christmas.  Advent also brings to mind that we await Christ who will come again, and establish his kingdom on earth.  But this kingdom is already present; Christ is already present, in His Body, the Church.  Yet not fully, we still await the completion that will come with Christ at the end of time. 

Here are some picture from the Pope's Angeles Address today.

This is a tension that I have not experienced before quite as well as I have this semester.  Fernando and I have been in Italy for almost 5 months now, yet we just past the half way point of the semester last week.  Now obviously that’s because we didn’t start actual classes for a couple month into our time here, but that kind of logic unfortunately doesn’t work with my attention span.  It seems my whole body is just itching for Christmas and the end of the semester.  And with Christmas only two weeks away I see the light and the hope.  But because the semester is so late, unlike every semester that I have experienced before this, Christmas does not mark the end of the semester.  Now we still get a break, but we will return to three more weeks of classes plus finals. 

Already, but not yet.  Coming on these finally weeks until Christmas, in a special way, we can rejoice in the coming of Christ as man and the end of the beginning of our time here in Rome with all the good things that have happened and have been brought into our lives in these first months.  Still, while embracing that joy, we live in the tension that our time is not yet done, our work still needs to be completed. 

Image of Mary Immaculate in our chapel.

We just celebrated, on Thursday, the Feast of the Immaculate Conception.  This celebration of God’s special grace giving to Mary was a beautiful celebration here at the NAC.  Mary Immaculate is the patroness of the College as well as the whole United States.  So it was a special time for us to remember the people from whom we came, and to whom we will return, and hold them close in prayer.  It was a joy to celebrate that God saved Mary, a symbol of the Church, from sin from the moment of her conception.  Yet here too we see this tension.  The Church is Holy, like Mary, for Christ has already come to her and dwells among us.  But, those of us in the Church, like Fernando and I in this semester, still have work to do, for the kingdom is not yet complete, and we still struggle with our own sinfulness; we still await Christ coming with his loving gaze to make us holy and pure like Mary, His Mother. 

Let us pray for one another in this tension, that when Christ does return we will welcome it will all the more joy!