The coming, or Advent, of Jesus is at once simple and threefold. It is simple, for it is the one same Son of God that is coming; it is threefold, because He comes at three different times and in three different ways.

‘In the first coming,’ says St. Bernard (1090-1153), ‘He comes in the flesh and in weakness; in the second, He comes in spirit and in power; in the third, He comes in glory and in majesty; and the second coming is the means whereby we pass from the first to the third.’

Similarly, Peter of Blois (1135-1203) explained: “There are three comings of the Lord; the first in the flesh, the second in the soul, the third at the judgement. The first coming was humble and hidden, the second is mysterious and full of love, the third will be majestic and terrible. In His first He is a lamb; in His last, a lion; in the one between the two, the tenderest of friends.” In vain would the Son of God have come, two-thousand years ago, to visit and save mankind, unless He came again for each one of us and at every moment of our lives, bringing to us and cherishing within us that supernatural life called grace. The Church, therefore, during Advent, prays that She may be visited anew by Him who is her Head and her Spouse.