Waiting On Him Day and Night

Simone Riva - Normally, we look for consistency in what we do or in what we have, which is the same. Thus, our life never has that feeling, that experience of full certainty, which the word 'peace' indicates, that certainty and fullness, that full certainty, without which there is no peace, no joy. At most, we come to complacency in what we do or complacency in ourselves.

And these fragments of complacency in what we do or what we are bringing no cheerfulness and no joy, no sure sense of fullness, no certainty and no fullness. Certainty is something that has happened to us, happened to us, entered into us, encountered by us: the consistency of our person is something that has happened to us, 'One has happened to us. 'I live, not I, but it is this Christ who lives in me'” (L. Giussani, Familiarity with Christ, in A Presence in the Gaze. Spiritual Exercises of the Fraternity of Communion and Liberation, Rimini, April 24, 2015).

What effect does it have on us, today, to read on the calendar “First Sunday of Advent”? What novelty can it be, the beginning of Advent, compared to all the challenges that our lives and the world are full of? Who expects, from the beginning of such a time as this, the change of self and history? As always, the stakes are high, and we cannot get away with hiding behind the bet about the success of our plans, what we have or what we do.

Everything around us suggests another way, even if occasionally this suggestion happens dramatically: there is Someone to wait for. This is also revealed in today's Gospel: “There will be signs in the sun, the moon, and the stars, and on earth anguish of anxious peoples because of the roaring of the sea and the billows, while men will die in fear and expectation of what is to happen on earth. For the powers of the heavens will be shaken.

Then they will see the Son of Man coming on a cloud with great power and glory. When these things begin to happen, arise and lift your heads, for your deliverance is at hand” (Luke 21:25-28).

The cosmic movement, described by the evangelist Luke, has in Christ's presence its ultimate reason, and in the coming deliverance the reliable hope for “lifting your heads.” This is not a purposeless agitation, like those that make so many wait for Friday, but a real response to One who is about to come, and who kindles our expectation. As in any circumstance that demands a response, the only cause of death is fear because it nips any step in the bud.

Waiting remains the antidote to self-affirmation. Waiting as a method of life, not as moralistic patience for things to happen or work out. It is the waiting of Advent: for One who is already present. It might seem a colossal nonsense, but instead it remains the only possibility for not succumbing to our attempts, whether successful or not, accepted or rejected, understood or challenged, even prevented.

As Fr. Giussani recalled two days after the occupation of the Catholic University, “We can do our thing and take as our paradigm, without our noticing it, the paradigm offered by everyone else. It is from waiting on Him day and night that our speech, our actions are distinguished” (Adult Group Advent Retreat, Milan, Nov. 19, 1967, in A. Savorana, Life of Don Giussani, p. 391). 

Fr. Giussani, an educational genius, recognized that his students' naive participation in the occupation indicated a flawed approach and misguided expectations. In a 1967 retreat, he emphasized that they were at the forefront of a profound revolution that would never manifest itself in the external social reality they hoped for.

 It will never be in the culture or in the life of society if it is not first in us. If it does not begin among us, this self-sacrifice…. Not an offering to give, but a revolution of self, in conceiving of self without pre-concept, without saving something first.” Advent is the right time to verify what has “happened to us, happened to us, entered us, encountered us,” otherwise everything will soon become objection and scandal, including rejection by the world, which, by the way, Jesus had abundantly prophesied.

There is One waiting for us despite all our reactions. Definitely a different path than “without revolt, there is no freedom.” With this open challenge, we can prepare for Christmas.

The author has not revised the text and its translation.

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