Only in the fullness of time

[CyrilSebastian]

In Shorter Christian Prayer, one of the Evening II Intercessions for Christmas states:
Awaited from the beginning of the world, you came only in the fullness of time.

Please explain only in the fullness of time.

 

[hazcompat]

1. St Paul, as we heard in the second reading, writes: “When the time had fully come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law … so that we might receive adoption as sons” (Gal 4:4-5). From the very beginning time was joined to the name of Jesus. This name accompanies him in his earthly life immersed in time, but without his being subject to it, since in him is the fullness of time. Indeed, God brought fullness to human time by entering with it into man’s history. He did not enter as an abstract concept. He entered as a Father who gives life — a new life, divine life — to his adoptive children. By the work of Jesus Christ we can all share in the divine life: children in the Son, destined to the glory of eternity.

St Paul then goes more deeply into this truth: “And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, ‘Abbe! Father!’” (Gal 4:6). In us, human beings, the divine sonship comes from Christ and is brought about by the power of the Holy Spirit. The Spirit comes to teach us that we are children and at the same time to make this divine sonship effective in us. The Son is he who with all his being says to God: “Abba! Father!”.

Here we are touching on the culminating point of the mystery of our Christian life. In fact, the name “Christian” indicates a new way of being, to be in the likeness of the Son of God. As sons in the Son, we share in salvation which is not only the deliverance from evil, but is first of all the fullness of good: of the supreme good of the sonship of God. And it is the Spirit of God who renews the face of the earth (cf. Ps 103 [104]:30). On the first day of the new year, the Church invites us to become ever more deeply aware of this. She invites us to consider human time in this light.

ewtn.com/library/PAPALDOC/JP97101B.HTM

Peace