If somebody were to ask you what does Advent mean you would probably say straight away: 'Coming'. And you would be right. Advent is all about coming, and coming at different levels. Coming implies expecting and waiting. We don't like waiting, most of us, but Advent waiting is a special time of waiting - it is a waiting in joyful hope for the promised coming of the Lord.

It is worth taking some time out to think about waiting. It is at the very heart of life. We wait on God and we wait on our friends. There is a waiting process at the heart of nature - parents wait patiently for nine months for the birth of their child, farmers have to wait to see the seed sown come above ground, grow and ripen. The acorn takes time to become the oak and the apple tree to produce the apple. The creation keeps us waiting and in the patience of waiting we learn our dependence.

We speak of 'God's good time' and in our relationship with God we learn that we ourselves have to wait too. Rome wasn't built in a day and we do not become holy overnight. Think of the long years of waiting between the promise of a Saviour to Adam and Eve and the eventual announcing of his coming to Mary. There is mystery in waiting. The Psalm tells us, 'the Lord delights in those who wait on his love'.

If you ever have the good fortune to visit Rome or Ravenna in Italy, you will find in some of the mosaics there an empty throne. This throne awaits the final coming of Christ to take possession of his Kingdom. This is the coming prepared for in Advent. God's Kingdom is about people not things. It is a Kingdom of the heart. God's time is not in a straight line, rather it goes round and round. 

The Lord's possession of us grows with each celebration of Advent, and we learn to look forward to the final coming when he will present the Kingdom to his Father. In the meantime we pray 'May your Kingdom come', not waiting passively but working together to bring it about.

Sr Maria Joseph Malone, OP