Patience
The word “patient” is repeated several times in the very short reading from St. James’ letter (5:7-10), which is the second reading for the Third Sunday of Advent.
True patience is required while waiting for the coming of the Lord.In our age of instant gratification, genuine patience has become a foreign, practically obsolete concept that we, as believers, ought to recover. It is patience that is lived out with firmness of heart. It is patience that is continuously tested by our imperfections as well as by those of our brothers and sisters. It is patience exemplified by the hardships that the prophets of old endured over millennia. Hence, we had better know exactly what the coming of the Lord is before attempting to work with God’s grace to live it out, patiently, as best we can.
Given the difficulty of describing supernatural realities like the coming of the Lord using human terms taken from our experience (which is limited by the confinements of time and space in which we live), we should not be surprised that the coming of the Lord is described using different genres, including the apocalyptic one. It refers to his third and final coming in glory.
Before anything else, of course, we should not speak of God as coming to or leaving us because, being God, he is omnipresent; he is everywhere already.
However, we speak of his first coming, referring to his being born in the stable of Bethlehem, 2000 years ago.
His second coming is rarely mentioned because it is the overlooked fulfillment of his promise recorded in Matthew 28: 20: “And behold, I am with you always, until the end of the age.” So, this second coming refers to the Lord’s ways of being present among us after his Ascension.
The Lord assures us that he is present in his people (Church) gathered in liturgical assembly “For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them.” (Matthew 18:20)
He is present as God’s Word: “Whoever loves me will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our dwelling with him.” (John 14:23) The Lord is present in the priest presiding over the Eucharistic liturgy as the priest acts in persona Christi. And, of course, the Lord is present in the Eucharistic species of Bread and Wine, his Body and Blood.
Thus, the patience which St. James urges all of us to develop is needed as we wait for the third, final, glorious coming of the Lord. Jesus, the Risen Lord, has already and forever, the fullness of glory and majesty proper of the Triune God. Nothing can be added to his glory. St. James invites us to live patiently with hope of seeing the Lord’s glory in all its fullness after we end our sojourn on this valley of tears.
What we are patiently awaiting is the glory and majesty of the “Total Christ,” i.e. the glory and majesty meant for the Body of Christ (Church) to be of the same degree and infinite intensity proper already of its Head, the Lord Jesus Christ. So, the final coming of the Lord is the coming to fullness of glory and majesty of all of us still living on this earth. It is already the glory given by the Father to his Son at the Ascension, rewarded to all the Saints in Heaven, and assured to the faithful departed who are undergoing purification.
St. James insists on patience because, distracted and allured by the passing things of this earth, we cannot imagine the glory that awaits us in Heaven. St. James insists on patience because even the most astonishing things in this world require time to achieve their intended splendor: from the precious fruit of the earth to real works of art, to the nine-month gestation of a baby, to genuine love to flourish.
Here is the definition of the glory for which we should long with patience:what we shall be has not yet been revealed. We do know that when it is revealed we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. (1 John 3:2)
God is love. (1 John 4:8) The Lord Jesus, the Head of the Mystical Body is love, pointedly described as love in action by himself when asked by John’s emissaries about his mission: Jesus said to them in reply,“Go and tell John what you hear and see: the blind regain their sight, the lame walk, lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have the good news proclaimed to them (Matthew 11:4-5) The Holy Spirit is love, and patient is the first attribute of love. (1 Co 13:4)
Hence, in humble recognition of how far we still are from being “love,” with the help of God’s grace, without delay, we should work hard towards our glorification, i.e., towards becoming love.
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This essay was originally published at Catholic Journal
