By Gordon DeMarais

“But when the fullness of time came, God sent His Son, born of a woman, born under the law, so that He might redeem those who were under the Law, that we might receive the adoption as sons and daughters. Because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, crying out, “Abba! Father!”

- Galatians 4:4-6

What does the fullness of time mean? There’s a familiar passage from Ecclesiastes (3:3-11) that gives context to this idea of “the fullness of time”. After giving a litany of times -- “A time to be born and a time to die, a time to plant and a time to uproot”, etc. -- there’s this line, “[God] has also set eternity in the human heart”.

This tells us, that even though we live in time, there’s something in us that is oriented towards the eternal. God has put eternity into our hearts and minds and the fullness of time that St. Paul talks about in his letter to the Galatians has something to do with this relationship between eternity and time. The fullness of time is in fact the moment in which eternity enters into time.

Now we need to remember that this eternity that enters into time is not some empty, impersonal, abstract force or energy. The fullness of time is the one who is eternal, God.

Scripture tells us that time is fulfilled by the very fact that God, through the Incarnation, comes down into human history. “God sent His Son born of a woman”. Eternity isn’t some impersonal reality; eternity is God who is personal and relational. As this passage from Galatians says, He's Abba, He’s a Father who sends His eternal son. There’s a relationship here.

Last week, we reflected on the experience of an infinite longing in our souls. We long and seem unfulfilled by everything aside from God because we’re created for the eternal. As St. Augustine says, “our heart is restless until it rests in you”. We’re searching for the eternal one, but it’s not just us who searches. God reveals Himself to us as a God who searches for us. He is longing for us more than we long for Him.

Remember the parable of the lost sheep: the shepherd goes out and searches for the one lost sheep so that he can return him to the fold. That’s our Heavenly Father and this is what is at the heart of the meaning of Incarnation, that God comes to us and searches for us.

Advent, as we’ve been reflecting on, means the coming and arrival. Our Father is coming to us in the sending of His son and He so desires to make His home in us, to fill that infinite longing of our hearts with Himself and His love.

So let’s, in faith, pray that God would give us the grace to make room in our hearts -- to find space in our hearts to welcome His presence and to experience the fullness of time as He comes to us and resides in our hearts.

Let’s pray

Thank you God for being a Father who desires to have a relationship with me as your [son/daughter]. Thank You Father for longing and searching for me. You have gone out into the world and come to me -- I am so grateful. Lord I pray that You would open my heart with the power and grace of the Holy Spirit, so that I would recognize You as Father, receive You as Father, and cry out to You as Father. Lord help me in these days of celebration, to enter more deeply into the mystery of Your love for me through Your coming in Your Son Jesus. Father, I long for You, help me to long for You as You long for me.

By Gordon DeMarais

"Rejoice in the Lord always. I shall say it again: rejoice! ...The Lord is near. Have no anxiety at all, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, make your requests known to God. Then the peace of God that surpasses all understanding will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus."

-  Philippians 4:4-7

I’ve heard it said more and more these days, that Christmas is for kids. For the rest of us perhaps, it’s lost its magic. Christmas is no longer the joy-filled, happy time it once was. But is this true?

St. Paul doesn’t think so, as we can see in this Sunday’s reading from Philippians. Paul envisions that this season would be filled with great joy and peace.

Wouldn’t it be a wonderful life if we had no anxiety at all, no sadness, no fear, no discouragement? This is something we all long for. In our desire to escape the boredom, sadness, emptiness, and loneliness that can so often accompany the daily experience of life, we end up over-commercializing Christmas. We find ourselves focused on our shopping lists, perfecting our decorations, and juggling a calendar of events. But this approach to Christmas doesn’t bring us the joy and peace that we long for. Our vision becomes too small, focusing on passing pleasures that distract us instead of truly addressing the core of our longing.

What we long for is what Paul talks about: a peace that surpasses all understanding and an indescribable, unspeakable, and inexpressible joy. Our Lord desires this for us and offers it to us. He loves us with an unfathomable love. His love is a love that overcomes everything -- it is the only reality that can fill our empty souls.

What a gift it is that the Church has a whole season dedicated to this longing of the human heart! Advent invites us to refocus our gaze, to enlarge our vision and see the true answer to our longing: the love of God made manifest in Christ Jesus.

He comes with a steadfast love and mercy that is renewed for us every morning. Nothing can separate us from the love of God that comes to us in Christ Jesus. As we open wide our hearts to Him, this season will truly be one of indescribable joy and an all-surpassing peace.

Let us pray,

Lord my heart is made for You, it longs for You. Grant me the grace this Advent to refocus my gaze on You, to set aside the busyness of the holidays and fix my eyes on You. May the joy and peace of Your love take root in my heart in new ways. Jesus, you are the desire of my heart, help me to desire You.

by Gordon DeMarais

In the early church the Christians would often greet each other with the Hebrew word, Maranatha, which means "come Lord Jesus". We know that the early Christians found themselves living amongst a culture that was at odds with the way of life they were trying to live. It was a time of great difficulty, persecution, and suffering. So in greeting each other with "Maranatha", it was meant to be an encouragement. They were in a sense saying, "The Lord is coming, take hope, take courage, don’t be discouraged or give into despair". The early Christians lived with great hope, rooted in the truth that nothing can separate us from the love of God, not even death (Romans 8).

Our situation today is similar to the situation that the early Christians faced. The Christian way of life is under attack and there are many natural reasons for us to be discouraged, to be afraid, or to give way to misery. It can be easy for us to feel alone sometimes, to think, "no one really understands the kind of suffering that I’m going through. No one really knows me, and if they did would they even love me?"

I experienced this kind of aloneness a couple months ago and the Lord broke through in my prayer and said to me, "You are not alone. You have never been alone. From the time you were knit together in your mother’s womb I have been there. There is nowhere that you can flee where I am not present. Even if you go to the depths of Sheol, that very dark place, still I am there with you. You are not alone."

You see, the Lord is very near to us, He’s nearer to us than we are to our very selves. And He says, "Do not fear, for I am with you" (Isaiah 41:10). This truth that God is near to us gives us cause for hope and is at the heart of Advent! We see this in the first reading from yesterday:

 "Jerusalem, take off your robe of mourning and misery; put on the splendor of glory from God forever…Up, Jerusalem! Stand upon the heights; look to the east and see your children gathered from the east and the west at the word of the Holy One, rejoicing that they are remembered by God" (Baruch 5:1-9)

The invitation that the Lord extends to us in this Advent season is to put off mourning and misery, because we have a Father in heaven who loves us, who comes to us, who saves us, who remembers us, who is with us always, and who is returning to make all things brand new.

Let us pray,

Maranatha. Come Lord Jesus. Lord, help me to know Your presence within me. Help me to know the depths of Your love for me. May I always turn to You to be my refuge, my hope, my consolation, and even my joy in the midst of difficulty. Lord Jesus, You are near to me, help me to know You are near.

By Gordon DeMarais

"For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him."

- John 3:16-17

Happy New Year! As we head into the new liturgical year, I’ve been reflecting a lot on the well-known Bible verse, John 3:16, which speaks of Jesus’ coming into the world.

You see Advent is the season of coming. It comes from the Latin word "adventus", which literally means "the arrival or coming". John 3:16, then, is a fitting verse for this season. It tells us not just that Jesus comes, but that He was sent. God the Father sends Jesus because He so desires a relationship with us. God desires communion with us: that we would know Him, and in knowing Him experience the fullness of joy, peace, and hope for which we were created by Him.

During this time of year the Church invites us to reflect on the four last things: death, judgement, heaven, and hell. These can sound frightful and sobering (like the Gospel from the 1st Sunday of Advent), but the truth is, the Lord does not give us these words to cause us to shrink back or cower from Him in fear. That’s the temptation I experience, taking me down a road of thinking that I need to actually do something to please God for Him to love me.

"I have to pray more, and God will love me. I have to grow in virtue and God will love me. I have to serve more and God will love me". But that way of thinking is a wrong conception of who God is and it’s a wrong understanding of who I am. You see, when we fall into this mindset and pattern of relating to God as an "athletic Christian," we can begin to envision Him primarily as a judge and a law giver who metes out punishment and rewards according to how we behave.

Now I’m not saying we shouldn’t pray or strive to obey God. We should. But God doesn’t love us more because we pray or obey. The Father loves us. Period. His love for us is not contingent on what we do or accomplish.

Jesus tells us in John 3:16-17 that the Father so loves the world, that He sends His son into the world not to condemn it but that through Him we might be saved.

Jesus comes to us now as a gift from the Father, that we might know Him, that He might dwell within us by the power of the Holy Spirit, and that we might enter into this relationship of love with our heavenly Father. And that’s my prayer for you and myself this advent season.

Let us pray,

Father, thank You for desiring a relationship with me. Thank You for sending Your Son to save me and Your Spirit to dwell with me. This Advent I pray that I would know more of who You are and understand more of who you have created me to be. I repent of the ways I have let my relationship with You be motivated by fear of judgement or expectation of a reward. May my relationship with You be built on love and not duty. Jesus, I love You, help me to love You.