BATAVIA—Mike Pacer, a member of Holy Cross Parish in Batavia, knows a little something about looking for different perspectives. The father of four, including diocesan priest Father Nathan Pacer, spent 14 years as a successful trial lawyer in Chicago — and then left.

 

He had heard a call from God to “just leave.”

 

So he and his wife Lori stepped out in trust to look at life through God’s lens and led their family in faith and service to the Church. As they taught their children, they saw a need for instilling faith-filled traditions like those their parents had taught them during Advent. 

 

In his new book “The Three Comings of Christ,” Pacer writes for families who are establishing Advent practices of their own, as well as any Catholics who want to go deeper in their preparation. The book is divided into 24 days with Scripture readings and meditations for each, with a twist: there are three meditations per day, each looking at the reading through the perspectives of the three comings of Christ. 

 

The reflections are short and flexible. Each set can be read at different times of day or all at once, read in place of family night prayer or with the addition of Advent hymns. Another option is to read the book over three Advents, focusing on a different coming each time. 

 

So what are the three comings of Christ?

 

They’re three guides for Advent meditation outlined by the abbot and mystic St. Bernard of Clairvaux: Christ’s first coming as man over 2,000 years ago; Christ’s Second Coming to us personally at the end of our lives and collectively at the end of the world; and Christ’s “third” coming to us at every moment of every day.

 

Combined, the three help us prepare for Advent in a deeper way and more importantly, keep us alert and attentive to Christ coming in our daily lives.

 

Though the book traces thousands of years of longing, from Christ revealed at creation, through parallels in Joseph’s betrayal and suffering, through Israel’s imperfect kings and Temple, it’s not about sinking readers into Old Testament history. 

 

That longing for the First Coming puts us in mind of the Second Coming; do we long for Him? Are we afraid or stuck in our shortcomings? And in seeing how God worked through centuries of His people’s failings to bring about salvation, are we encouraged to see and welcome God meeting us in our everyday messy lives? 

 

The beginning of the book says, “It is important to understand that the story of salvation history is a love story.” These questions reveal a story of great love — the love we were created to receive and give, a love given to us in new life and offered to us every day.