With the Advent Season we begin a new one. During these Sundays of Advent the Scripture readings will lead us to consider "the last things" or what is often called "Christian eschatology," a Christian answer to the question: "What happens after our death?"

In the biblical context eschatology includes:

• The resurrection of the dead,
• The last judgment,
• Rewards ("Paradise" meaning "Garden of delights" from the Persian language) and
• Punishments ( Hell or Gehenna) and
• The fullness of God's kingdom. The latter has to be understood

One way to grasp how the New Testament approaches eschatology is to use the terms "already" and "not yet." It implies that "Church and its Sacraments" are the beginning of God's Kingdom, of our liberation, but not its fullness. We are not arrived there yet!

What does the "not yet" mean for us? How should it affect our faith and lives? We are urged by the Bible to be always on guard, vigilant and watchful. We are to act always as if JESUS were to come very soon, today, in our time.

We are to conduct ourselves always as if we were to face our judgment in the next moment. This is not a stance of anxiety or fear. Rather it is a stance of hope, trust and confidence that what God has begun in Jesus' life, death and resurrection (the "already") God will surely bring to a glorious completion in the future (the "not yet").

Through Jesus' death and resurrection, or “Paschal Mystery” we have already been freed from domination by sin and death and freed for life in the Holy Spirit. And so we can now stand beside Jesus and address God as "Our Father," as we look forward in hope for the fullness of God's kingdom. As a PILGRIM CHURCH journing through time, we live between the times of the "already" and the "not yet," and we continue to cry out in prayer "Thy kingdom come!"