| Friends, the parable about the ten virgins in today’s Gospel speaks about waiting for the Lord’s Second Coming and the arrival of his kingdom.
The Resurrection of Jesus from the dead signaled to the early Christians that Jesus inaugurated a new world that was turning back the power of sin.
Somehow, they knew that the old world, though it persists, has been broken. It’s been defeated. And now what are they doing? They’re waiting for the definitive arrival of the new world that Jesus has instituted.
Christianity, in a certain sense, is a religion of fulfillment. The Lord has come; the Incarnation and the redemption have taken place. It’s happened. But, in another sense, Christianity is permanently a religion of waiting, because we wait in joyful hope for the Second Coming of the Lord. We wait until this salvation has been fulfilled.
That’s why there’s a permanent Advent quality to Christian life. We wait in joyful hope for the coming of our savior. And since it’s hard to wait, we need the virtue of patience. |
