Advent is a time of waiting for Jesus' Christmas coming. It recalls the thousands of years that humanity waited for the Messiah. Life is also a time of waiting — waiting for Jesus to come in life, at death, and at the end of the world. We seem to be perpetually waiting, in a never-ending Advent.

However, sometimes we don't have to wait for long. Isaiah prophesied that in "a very little while" the Lord would manifest His transforming and healing power (Is 29:17). "Will not God then do justice to His chosen who call out to Him day and night? Will He delay long over them, do you suppose? I tell you, He will give them swift justice" (Lk 18:7-8). We give the impression that we're so fast and God is so slow. Actually, it's the other way around. If God wasn't waiting on us, He would have given us "swift justice" by now. Then we would all be in heaven, and there would be nothing more to wait for.

The Lord must wait for us much more than we must wait for Him. In fact, when we do have to wait for Him, it's because He's waiting for someone else. So to keep from holding God back any longer, we should cooperate with God in those hundreds of things He intends to do now, or at least in "a very little while." Our disobedience is holding up everybody else. Repent of keeping God and humanity waiting.

Rescript:  †Reverend Joseph R. Binzer, Vicar General of the Archdiocese of Cincinnati, June 4, 2009

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