We are still in the middle=adventus medius, but coming closer

I said the “triumph” will draw closer. This is equivalent in meaning to our praying for the coming of God’s Kingdom.This statement was not intended—I may be too rationalistic for that—to express any expectation on my part that there is going to be a huge turnaround and that history will suddenly take a totally different course. The point was rather that the power of evil is restrained again and again, that again and again the power of God himself is shown in the Mother’s power and keeps it alive. The Church is always called upon to do what God asked of Abraham, which is to see to it that there are enough righteous men to repress evil and destruction. I understood my words as a prayer that the energies of the good might regain their vigor. So you could say the triumph of God, the triumph of Mary, are quiet, they are real nonetheless. —Light of the World, p. 166, A Conversation With Peter Seewald



Whereas people had previously spoken only of a twofold coming of Christ—once in Bethlehem and again at the end of time—Saint Bernard of Clairvaux spoke of an adventus medius, an intermediate coming, thanks to which he periodically renews his intervention in history. I believe that Bernard’s distinction strikes just the right note. We cannot pin down when the world will end. Christ himself says that no one knows the hour, not even the Son. But we must always stand in the imminence of his coming, as it were—and we must be certain, especially in the midst of tribulations, that he is near. —POPE BENEDICT XVI, Light of the World, p.182-183, A Conversation With Peter Seewald