Entering the Season of Threefold Coming

Advent begins. But not as our culture often imagines it – not primarily as a countdown to Christmas, not as premature celebration with nativity scenes and festive cheer. The Church invites us into something older, deeper, and far more urgent.

Historically, Advent emerged in the 4th-6th centuries as a penitential season, sometimes lasting as long as Lent – a time of fasting, prayer, and preparation. Not preparation for a birthday party, but preparation for an encounter. The ancient Church understood what we often forget: Advent is fundamentally eschatological. It orients us toward the end, toward the coming that matters most, toward the moment when all things will be revealed.

The medieval theologians spoke of the Triplex Adventus Domini – the threefold coming of the Lord. This is the full reality Advent asks us to hold:

Adventus in carnem – the coming in flesh. This is the past, the historical incarnation at Bethlehem. God entered human history as a vulnerable child. We remember this. We prepare to celebrate it at Christmas. But this is only the first movement.

Adventus in mentem et cor – the coming into mind and heart. This is the present, the sacramental and mystical coming. Christ comes to us now – in the Eucharist, in the Word proclaimed, in the stranger at our door, in the quiet movements of grace in our daily lives. This is the most intimate advent, the one that requires our most vigilant watchfulness.

Adventus in maiestate – the coming in majesty. This is the future, the Parousia, the final return when Christ will come as judge and king, when all things will be made new. This is the coming that pervades the First Sunday of Advent especially – not comfort, but urgency. Not sentimentality, but sober wakefulness.

Our culture wants to collapse all three advents into the first one, turning the season into a nostalgic celebration of a baby’s birth. But the liturgy refuses. The First Sunday of Advent confronts us with apocalyptic urgency: Stay awake! The Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect.

This Sunday, we stand as watchmen in the predawn hour. We learn the quality of attention required to live in all three advents simultaneously – remembering the past, encountering the present, preparing for the future. We discover that true watchfulness is not anxious scanning but awake, oriented, expectant love.

The readings this week reveal multidimensional movement: nations streaming toward God’s house, time itself advancing, the flood coming, the day at hand. We learn to discern which movements to join, which to prepare for, which we cannot control. And in the center of all this movement, we discover peace – not as the absence of motion but as the still point that allows us to move rightly.

Resources for First Sunday of Advent

Biblical Background: The Quality of Watchfulness
An in-depth exploration of Isaiah’s vision, the pilgrimage psalm, Paul’s urgent call to wake from sleep, and Jesus’ teaching about the days of Noah. We examine the story of the Grigori (the Watchers who failed their post), the multidimensional movements in the readings, and the progression from knowing your direction to belonging to God’s household to staying awake with expectant love. Includes the INTRODUCTION TEXT, which you are welcome to read aloud before the Liturgy of the Word.

Prayers of the Faithful
Eight intercessions reflecting the themes of watchfulness, hope, and the triple advent – for Pope Leo and Church leaders, for our community of faith, for those who have lost hope, for those in need, for those who keep watch through their work, for ourselves to remain open to Christ’s presence, for peace, and for the faithful departed.

Watchman’s Vigil: A Somatic Meditation
A guided post-communion experience (or personal Advent practice) that places us in the embodied reality of the watchman in the predawn hour. Through awakening all five senses and introducing the breath prayer “Light…Life,” we learn to hold past, present, and future together in our very bodies, breathing the names of what we await.