We proclaim your death, O Lord, and profess your resurrection until you come again. We often make this proclamation of faith during the Eucharistic prayer at Mass. What does it mean for us to proclaim the resurrection of Christ and our anticipation of his return to us?
A new liturgical year will begin on the First Sunday of Advent, November 29 ^th. As we come to the end of this current church year, our Church invites us to reflect on the ‘end times’ – our own personal end time which is death and that time when this world will pass away and Christ will return in glory. As Christians, we make the extraordinary claim of faith that Jesus Christ did suffer and die, but that he rose from the dead. He is, therefore, alive and he now reigns with the Father and the Holy Spirit, three persons in one God from whom our salvation comes. For us, Jesus Christ is not some historical person who left us a legacy of good works and an example of how to live life well. No, Jesus is the living God who has triumphed over death. Through our baptism in Christ, we share in his risen life now in the hope that one day we will enjoy the fullness of his risen life after death. We will share in the fullness of his risen life if we conform our lives to his life and teaching – if we are live as he lived.
Christ will come again. For most of us, Christ will come again in our deaths. We will see Christ in death and if we have lived in faithfulness to his life and teaching we will enjoy eternal life with him. We do believe, however, that there will be some point at which this world will end and in that moment Christ will appear once more to gather to himself all who have been faithful to his life and teaching. Some Christian denominations place a great emphasis on this apocalypse, this culmination of history, but for us it is best to focus on our own personal encounter with the Risen Christ that will come in death. Will Christ receive us as his own?
In our prayer this month, may we ask God for the grace to live now in the life of Christ so that when Christ comes again for us in death, we are ready to be received by Him.

Fr. Mark Hallinan, S.J.