"God established a time for his promise and a time for their fulfillment. The time for promise was in the time of the prophets, until John the Baptist; from John until the end is the time of fulfillment.
God, who is faithful, put himself in our debt, not by receiving anything but by promising so much. A promise was not sufficient for him; he chose to commit himself fin writing as well, as it were making a contract of hi promises. He wanted us to see the way in which his promises were redeemed when he began to discharge them. And so the time of the prophets was, as we have often said, the foretelling of the promises.
He promised eternal salvation, everlasting happiness with the angels, an immortal inheritance, endless glory, the joyful vision of his face, his holy dwelling in heaven, after his resurrection from the dead no further fear of dying. This is as it were, his final promise, the goal of all our striving.. When we reach it we shall ask for nothing more.
But as for the way in which we are to arrive at our final goal, he has revealed this also, by promise and prophecy.
He has promised men divinity, mortals immortality, sinners justification, the poor rising to glory.
But because God's promises seemed impossible to men, God not only made a written contract with men to win their belief but also established a mediator of his good faith, not a prince or angel or archangel, but his only Son. He wanted through his Son, to show us and give us the way he would lead us to the goal he has promised.
It was not enough to make his Son our guide to the way; he made him the way itself, that you might travel with him as leader, and by him as the way." St. Augustine
Here are a few words from Pope BEnedict on this Wednesday
""Our whole personal, familial and social existence passes through this dimension of waiting. Waiting is something that is present in a 1,000 situations, from the smallest and most banal to the most important, which draw us in completely and in the deepest way. Among these, we think of a husband and wife waiting for a child; of waiting for a relative or friend who is coming from far away to visit us; we think of a young person waiting to know his grade on a major exam or the outcome of a job interview; in romantic relationships, of waiting to meet the beloved person, of waiting for a letter, or of receiving forgiveness... One could say that man is alive so long as he waits, so long as hope is alive in his heart. And man is able to recognize that what he waits for and what he hopes for discloses something about his moral and spiritual "stature."
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