His Excellency,
The Most Reverend Edward K. Braxton, Ph.D., S.T.D.
Diocese of Belleville
November 30, 2025
First Sunday of Advent
Ss. Peter and Paul Parish, Waterloo
“Jesus Christ is Coming, Coming When He is Coming”
(This is the text as originally written. During the actual delivery, some passages were omitted and other comments were added spontaneously. Nota bene: This text has not been thoroughly proofread. Therefore, there may be errors in spelling, grammar and punctuation.)
Dear Sisters and Brother in Christ,
On Saturday, November 22nd, the 62nd anniversary of the assignation of her grandfather, President John Fitzgerald Kennedy, Tatiana Kennedy Schlossberg, 35, in “A Battle with My Blood,” a poignant essay in The New Yorker magazine, announced to the world that she is dying from a rare form of cancer, acute myeloid leukemia with a mutation called Inversion 3. She learned this a year ago just hours after delivering her second child, a daughter. In the essay, Mrs. Schlossberg describes the shocking impact of the news, her concern for her parents, especially her mother, Caroline Kennedy Schlossberg, whose storied family has endured such profound grief through the years, her fears that her children would not remember her, the heroic unsuccessful efforts of her physicians to find a cure, and her heartfelt experience of the universal questions, “Why? Why is this happening to me and to my family?” “Why won’t I, my husband, George Moran, and our children live out the happy lives that we thought was our future?”
Reading this moving essay at Thanksgiving and on this First Sunday of Advent invites us to meditate on life’s deepest questions. Have we lived our lives each day knowing everyday is Thanksgiving? Is excruciation human suffering, like Tatiana’s, random or is it part of an inscrutable design of Providence? Does belief in God, Jesus Christ, life as a Christian and belief in the life of the world to come provide real comfort and hope to families in the face of such shocking news, or is all of that eclipsed by the dark hole of a grief that cannot be spoken? Today’s Gospel, Matthew 24, 37-44 about the mysterious Second Coming of Jesus brings is face to face with such questions about the meaning of life.
When the disciples ask Jesus how we will know He is coming, Jesus stresses that no one knows when He will return saying, surprisingly, that He Himself did not know. Only His Father knows.
He reminds us of the epic story of Noah, his Ark and the great flood which destroyed everyone but Noah and his family.(Genesis 6-9). Jesus uses Noah’s story to tell us that, unlike the people in Noah’s time, who were not prepared for the flood, we need to be prepared for the unknown time of His return. We must be prepared for God’s judgment by staying spiritually awake and living faithful lives unlike Noah’s friends and neighbors, who abandoned their faith and focused only on things of this world.
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Why does the Church ask us to contemplate the great flood parable on this First Sunday of Advent urging us to keep watch and be prepared? Prepared for what?
“Ready or not, Jesus is coming!” For Catholics Advent and Christmas are a time to meditate on the threefold coming of Jesus. His coming in the past in His birth in the Incarnation of the Word of God made flesh in Mary’s womb. His coming to us personally in the life of the Church, in the Sacraments, especially the Eucharist, and, most important of all, at the hour of our death. And, finally, Christ coming in glory at the end of time to judge the living and the dead.
Many Catholics prefer to meditate on the birth of Jesus in history and pay little or no attention to the coming of Christ at the hour of our death, and the Second Coming of Christ at the end of the world. It is easier to imagine the lovely Christmas nativity scene of Mary, Joseph, the infant Jesus, the quaint shepherds, and the exotic magi in Bethlehem (which are all in the past) than it is to think about encountering Christ’s judgment at the hour of our death, or the powerful image of Christ coming in glory to judge the living and the dead at the end of world (which are all in the future).
This morning’s Gospel calls each of us to spend time during Advent praying and thinking about the meaning of the Second Coming of Christ. Christians have very different ideas about what the Second Coming means. Some small Christian sects are convinced the end of world and Christ’s return is going to happen in our lifetime. In September, rumors spread on TikTok that the Second Coming would begin between the middle and the end of the month. Some evangelical Christian content creators predicted that Jesus Christ would return on September 23rd to take his true followers to heaven, leaving the unfaithful behind. Videos about “the rapture” were viewed millions of times before the appointed date passed. Still, a 2022 Pew poll found that nearly four in ten Americans say they believe that humanity is “living in the end times.”
Other Christians believe the Second Coming of Christ is in the realm of the unknown-unknown, the unknowable future. It might be a million years from now. But since we do not know, they argue we need to prepare and live as if He were coming tomorrow.
A significant number of Christians are convinced that Jesus’ dramatic apocalyptic language about the end of the world, like the story of Noah’s ark, must not be taken literally. (“The sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light. The stars will fall from the sky, and the heavenly bodies will be shaken!”) They think Jesus is not describing specific things that are going to happen before He comes again. They do not think there is going to be a specific date when Christ will be revealed physically for all people everywhere to see Him judging the living and the dead. They believe Christ’s Second Coming will only be at the time of our individual deaths when he will judge each of us. They point out that St. Paul himself got it wrong when he thought that Christ would return in his lifetime. These Christians believe natural forces will bring about the end of the world when the sun’s hydrogen is consumed, or when climate change reaches its extreme, or when a massive asteroid hits the earth. I know a significant number of Catholics who argue that a literal Second Coming is simply unbelievable. It makes no sense to them.
Dear Sisters and Brothers in Christ:
I hasten to point out to them that the Catholic Church teaches clearly that the Second Coming is real. Jesus Christ will return in glory to judge the living and the dead, in a sudden unexpected event that will be known by everyone. It will mark the consummation of the universe and the human race. It will be the full manifestation of God's victory over evil, and the establishment of His eternal kingdom. The Catholic Church rejects beliefs in a secret “rapture,” “the left behind,” or “reincarnation.” The Church believes at the Second Coming all of the dead shall be raised and experience God’s final judgment of the entire human race. I urge them not to hastily replace the teachings of the Church with their “common sense” or “gut feelings.”
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Our secular culture does not want us to “waste our time” thinking about Christ’s coming past, present, or future in Advent. Many scientists argue that it should be apparent to anyone who knows anything about biology that the resurrection of the dead is a scientific and biological impossibility and the idea of Christ returning in glory is nothing more than wishful thinking. The shopping malls urge us not to think about the Christmas Holy Days at all. Forget about “Joy to the World the Lord is Come!” and think only of shopping days and Holidays! We should forget Christ and think only about the Winter Solstice and “Dashing through the snow in a one-horse open sleigh.”
But what about Tatiana Kennedy Schlossberg and the distressing Thanksgiving -Advent story she tells us about facing her last Thanksgiving, Advent and Christmas and her ultimate questions which are also ours? (Is ‘life a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing?”) “Happy Holidays” and “Seasons Greetings” will give her no comfort. But what if, what if the story of this Jesus Christ who was born in history, this Jesus Christ who will come at the end of time, and this Jesus Christ who will come to each of us at the hour of our death, really IS the Greatest Story Ever Told? Such is our Catholic Faith! Will not the truth and the hope of Advent surely bring some comfort to this courageous wife and mother and to us all?
When asked how she reconciled her Catholic faith with so many “tragic” deaths in her family, Tattiana’s great grandmother, Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy, from the abundance of her Irish Catholic faith said, “I accept it all as God’s will and providence. God has filled my life with so many graces - the gift of my Catholic faith, my large, wonderful family blessed with intelligence, talents, wealth, power, influence to allow them to do good in this world, and so much happiness. If I accept these gifts from God, why shouldn’t I accept His gift of the cross, his gift of suffering. Look at how His Son, Jesus Christ suffered for us all! I see it all as part of God’s plan which here on earth we cannot understand.”
Rose Kennedy’s Advent faith may not speak to you. All the more reason to put aside some of the shopping days, decorating days, and cooking days before Christmas to think about and pray about Jesus’ words: “So you also must be ready, because the Son of Man will come at an hour when you do not expect Him.” (Matthew 24, 44)
Ready or not Jesus Christ is coming, coming when he is coming!
Praised be Jesus Christ.
Both now and forever. AMEN!