During my first year of priesthood, I would keep the livestream of St. Francis' tomb pulled-up on my desktop (you can find it on the webpage of the Basilica in Assisi). The live video of his real grave all the way in Assisi would be full screen whenever I left the office: pixelated vigil candles flickering in the dark.
         Waiting.
         When I’d come back to the office, before doing anything, sometimes I would just stare, waiting for Francis to move. It always made me think of the resurrection of the dead. That last day. The first day of new heavens and a new earth.
          I can't wait. I can’t wait to meet Francis face to face, without any masks. I can imagine a sunrise, not long from now, waking me up at Ascension Cemetery at 45^th and Woodlawn. I can imagine a good stretch and brushing some Kansas dirt off my pants. My back up against the same hedgerow I used to build forts in. I look East. At that very same moment, Francis' bare feet soak in some morning dew as they're swung out of bed for the first time in a millennia.
         The throb in his lower back isn’t there anymore. The wounds in his hands are still there though.
Light is gushing through them.
          Smiling at each other, we realize we have the same song stuck in our head, a new song, neither of us have ever heard before. His humming of it sounds like flowing water. The robins and morning stars are singing the same tune. I feel a pulsing stillness. I don’t even notice that the usual sounds of sirens and cars aren’t there anymore, the static of news, the vibrating of phones, or creepy songs about seducing a santa baby.
          That all burnt up forever. The old order has passed away.
          Instead, I hear a pulsing stillness.           The smell in the caressing breeze is hard to describe. It’s like the incense we’d burn at church, but strangely like Dad’s fresh cut grass at summer twilight, yet, without the bitterness of cutting or burning. To my left, the kid I picked-on in 5^th grade waves at me. I wave back shamelessly. He’s holding the hand of his daughter. She’s the first child I ever baptized after being ordained. (true story). I realize I’m holding someone’s hand as well, warm and smooth. It’s the unborn child I buried yesterday. He’s taller than me and has wild flowing hair. I’ve never met him before, but I know him. I know him.
           He only lived 12 weeks invisible in his mom’s womb, but I’ve known him “like a thousand years.” He laughs.
           And together, we take a step toward the promised dawn.            Peter proclaims: “According to his promise we await new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells.” We pray: “Thy kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven.” We will hear: “at midnight there was a cry ‘Behold, the Bridegroom, come out to meet him.’”
           Are you afraid of this Day of the Lord, this Second Coming, or are you longing for it, waiting for and hastening the coming of the day of God?
           We Christians aren’t afraid! We aren’t afraid of the end of the world. We aren’t afraid of tomorrow. We aren’t afraid of today. We have a certainty of what’s to come. A certainty that permeates the present moment. We have a yearning-hope shining in our eyes. We are an Advent people!
           All the nights of the year we look for the Day of the Lord. We long for the One known as the Dayspring: the One who baptizes with fire. We wait for His promised new heaven and new earth. Soon, tomorrow, maybe this Christmas, our King, “like a thief” in the night, like the Sun, will burn away all that is not love and true and beautiful. He will burn away all the accusation that’s like a virus in my heart, all the complaining and lack of trust.
           If most of my life is complaining or using others for my own comfort, may I repent this very day and turn towards the King. Or, yes, may I be very afraid of being burnt up with the rest of the darkness. But we Christians are different. We actually have a hope blazing in our eyes. Not because some nice guy once told us to be nice to each other. That it stinks here, but if you’re nice now, after you die, you’ll get to play a harp in front of an old white guy for the rest of infinity. (That sounds horrifying!)
           We Christians are different than everyone else because we have seen with our own eyes concrete facts of this new heaven and new earth breaking into our own time and space.
            Thinking of this last week, I see a sad young man and wife bury their little one in a prairie cemetery. They are hopeful and at peace, when they should be decimated.
            I see a 71-year-old man (whom I recently baptized) unafraid and at peace as he dies from Covid complications.
            I see his wife and daughter with a joy and certainty in their eyes, when they should be consumed by grief.
            I see a busy president of a school motherly preparing a meal for a busy priest and his spoiled associate. On HER birthday.
            Last night, St. Nicholas filled my shoes with wine.
            I see a lovely, but scared, daughter of God go to confession for the first time in a long time and leave alive and transformed.
            I see a grown man tremble with tears in his eyes as he approaches to receive in his mouth this coal of fire I’ll bring down from the Altar of the Lamb.
            John says on the last page of the Bible:
I saw a new heaven and a new earth…And I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven, from God, as beautiful as a bride all dressed for her husband. I heard a loud voice from the throne, and this is what it said: “Look! God has come to dwell with humans! He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them and will be their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or weeping or pain anymore, since the first things have passed away.” The one who sat on the throne said, “Behold, I am making all things new…”
           “Jesus, may every sunrise remind me of this new heavens and new earth. Come, Jesus! May every Eucharist remind me of your victory, the true state of things. Reality is a wedding feast!”
           Do you remember waking up this morning? Remember the sunrise? Were you excited for the day? To think, I’ll wake up soon and walk out of the ground at Ascension Cemetery at 45^th and Woodlawn. And it’ll be just as real of a memory as the memory of waking up this very morning.
           And I’ll see you, and you’ll see me, even more clearly than you see me now. With no masks of any kind.
           And we’ll all be together. forever. I can’t wait.
           “Come, Lord Jesus. Come!”