Speaking of the Blessed Virgin appearing at Fatima, Portugal in
Light of the World, the Holy Father gave this insight: "In our rationalism, and in the face of the rising power of dictatorships, God shows us the humility of the Mother, who appears to little children and speaks to them of essentials: faith, hope, love, penance." As we bring Advent to an end I can't help but point out again the necessity for us not only to recognize, but to live the penitential dimension of this holy time; a time we prepare not only for our celebration of the Nativity of the Lord, but for when we go to meet him. We also do penance because, as the Holy Father goes on to say, the evil at work in the dictatorships of the twentieth century, to which Fatima was God's response, is still at work in the world today, just "in another way. He goes on to say that "the power of evil is restrained again and again, that again and again the power of God himself is shown in the Mother's power and keeps it alive." Hence, [t]he Church is always called upon to do what God asked Abraham, which is to see to it that there are enough righteous [people] to repress evil and destruction."
Then coming around to Advent, he discusses the necessity for every age to "open itself to the presence of the Lord" in the recognition that here and now we "stand under the Lord's judgment." It is normative for us to speak "only of a twofold coming of Christ - once in Bethlehem and again at the end of time," but the Holy Father reminds us that "Saint Bernard of Clairvaux spoke of an
adventus medius, of an intermediate coming," which is how Christ "periodically renews his intervention in history."
Maranatha - Veni sancte Spiritus, veni per Mariam
