Advent is a time for taking stock of our lives and actions in light of the kingdom of God which entered human history with Christ, but still awaits completion. Our expectation of the coming Lord demands that we anticipate in our actions the kingdom with which he has identified himself and will bring to us.
Advent calls us to anticipate takes on democratic characteristics when it is applied to the political world. It demands a striving for human and civil rights based on the idea of divinely-ordained human dignity. It means a socialization of the economy, not in the sense of a nationalization and centralization, but an accounting of the human costs of any economy. It means a just distribution of opportunities for work and profits.
Advent calls human beings to recognize that we are members of the "great community of creation" which will also be made whole at the Eschaton. During the Advent season, we are asked to "look through" the first coming of Christ to his second coming; we are thus called to anticipate in our actions the coming kingdom of God. Since all of creation awaits the kingdom for its fulfillment and redemption, we are called to work for the ecological peace of God's whole creation. In such a way we are working "for the kingdom."
Advent calls us to reorganize and recenter the church on the kingdom of God; it calls us to evangelization and liberation of ourselves, others and nature. A church that is truly awaiting Christ's coming and anticipating it through its actions attempts to "bring liberty to the oppressed, human dignity to the humiliated and justice which is their due to people without rights."
to prepare themselves worthily to celebrate the anniversary <../cathen/03724b.htm> of the Lord's coming into the world as the i ...