Be Thankful For Christ! The Beginning of Advent and Thanksgiving.....2015

As we approach the great feast of Thanksgiving as well as the beginning of Advent, we should be thankful for Christ, for the One who will ultimately bring fulfillment and completion to our fallen world. There is so much sad news and reasons for anxiety in the world and yet I just prepared a talk for Advent which gave me hope. The reason for my hope, after studying and delving into my religion books was the realization (the reminder) that Jesus who is the "Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end" will make it right, in God's time. I believe that.
Teihard de Chardin, the brilliant Jesuit theologian and scientist, wrote that the fulfillment of Christ "involves every fragment of creation from the Big Bang to the final culminating moment at the end of time, nothing left out." He referred to Christ as the Total Christ, the Cosmic Christ, the Universal Christ. So the Cosmic Christ is "pulling" all of creation to a future completion and fulfillment which we cannot see yet, so as Christians we should not get discouraged or give up hope. Our hope is in Christ.
St Paul had this cosmic sense of Christ when he wrote in the Letter to the Colossians, "He is the image of the invisible God, the first born of all creation. For in him were created all things in heaven and earth, the visible and the invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers; all things were created through him and for him. He is before all things and in him all things hold together...." (Col. 1: 15-17).
And so now that I have finished my talk on Advent, which I will deliver next week, I can think about making rice balls for Thanksgiving and getting the dinner right.
Happy Thanksgiving!
A Blessed Advent!
NJA