First Sunday of Advent
Lectionary: 2
Reading 1
You, LORD, are our father,
our redeemer you are named forever.
Why do you let us wander, O LORD, from your ways,
and harden our hearts so that we fear you not?
Return for the sake of your servants,
the tribes of your heritage.
Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down,
with the mountains quaking before you,
while you wrought awesome deeds we could not hope for,
such as they had not heard of from of old.
No ear has ever heard, no eye ever seen, any God but you
doing such deeds for those who wait for him.
Would that you might meet us doing right,
that we were mindful of you in our ways!
Behold, you are angry, and we are sinful;
all of us have become like unclean people,
all our good deeds are like polluted rags;
we have all withered like leaves,
and our guilt carries us away like the wind.
There is none who calls upon your name,
who rouses himself to cling to you;
for you have hidden your face from us
and have delivered us up to our guilt.
Yet, O LORD, you are our father;
we are the clay and you the potter:
we are all the work of your hands.
Responsorial Psalm
R. (4) Lord, make us turn to you; let
us see your face and we shall be saved.
O shepherd of Israel, hearken,
from your throne upon the cherubim, shine forth.
Rouse your power,
and come to save us.
R. Lord, make us turn to you; let us see your face and we shall be
saved.
Once again, O LORD of hosts,
look down from heaven, and see;
take care of this vine,
and protect what your right hand has planted
the son of man whom you yourself made strong.
R. Lord, make us turn to you; let us see your face and we shall be
saved.
May your help be with the man of your right hand,
with the son of man whom you yourself made strong.
Then we will no more withdraw from you;
give us new life, and we will call upon your name.
R. Lord, make us turn to you; let us see your face and we shall be
saved.
Reading II
Brothers and sisters:
Grace to you and peace from God our Father
and the Lord Jesus Christ.
I give thanks to my God always on your
account
for the grace of God bestowed on you in Christ Jesus,
that in him you were enriched in every way,
with all discourse and all knowledge,
as the testimony to Christ was confirmed among you,
so that you are not lacking in any spiritual gift
as you wait for the revelation of our Lord Jesus Christ.
He will keep you firm to the end,
irreproachable on the day of our Lord Jesus Christ.
God is faithful,
and by him you were called to fellowship with his Son,
Jesus Christ our Lord.
Alleluia
R. Alleluia, alleluia.
Show us Lord, your love;
and grant us your salvation.
R. Alleluia, alleluia.
Gospel
Jesus said to his disciples:
“Be watchful! Be alert!
You do not know when the time will come.
It is like a man traveling abroad.
He leaves home and places his servants in charge,
each with his own work,
and orders the gatekeeper to be on the watch.
Watch, therefore;
you do not know when the lord of the house is coming,
whether in the evening, or at midnight,
or at cockcrow, or in the morning.
May he not come suddenly and find you sleeping.
What I say to you, I say to all: ‘Watch!’”
MY BROTHERS AND SISTERS,
Last week we were challenged to recognize who was our master and to whom we owed our servitude. Did our answer lay in the spiritual realm and with God or did it have its home within worldly things? The answer, as Christians, should have been obvious. With that understanding, we are then expected to act accordingly. Coupled with that is a particular expectation regarding our conduct and there is also an expectation on how we are to be treated as God’s servants. This expectation has not been forwarded to us in some sort of social contract, but instead is something promised to us by God. Jesus told us through his disciples that, “Do not let your hearts be troubled or afraid. You heard me tell you, “I am going away and I will come back to you.” These were some of the last words that Jesus shared with them. There is no reason to doubt what he said. Instead, we should commit ourselves to a constant state of preparation with an understanding that Jesus will come again in all His glory to judge the living and the dead. This event can serve as a focal point where we can build a solid foundation of faith and create a joyful life for ourselves with the Christ Experience being vital to its proper application.
Being watchful and alert doesn’t mean that, because we are waiting expectantly for the return of Jesus, that all of our energies, time , and effort are transfixed on this one event. This was not Jesus’ intent when He revealed this part of the Divine Plan. God is beyond time and space; Jesus is omnipresent throughout Creation. We will miss experiencing our lives with Him if we do not live life in the moment. At the same time, the understanding that part of our lives must also be spent preparing for eternity. When we find ourselves preparing anything, it naturally gets better as a result. It becomes more perfect as it gets closer to completion. Our lives, (including all thoughts, actions, and emotions), are no different. Preparing for an unknown event in the future affects who we are in the present and we become closer to Jesus as a result. We then are able to get to know Him better and are able to be transformed into a more perfect person. When we prepare, we can see how things are changing for the better before us: things become more organized, and things tend to make more sense. Instead of a bunch of individual puzzle pieces, the picture starts to come into focus. We start to understand it more and we become more comfortable with it. We can further trace our progress by looking back to the beginning, when the picture might not have been as noticeable as it is now. Seeing our progress gives us encouragement and hope. We have the capability to become new creations every day by acknowledging both our successes and failures. Nobody is perfect. It is the striving for perfection and the understanding of our ultimate destination that will bring about a difference in our lives.
There is a longing within all our hearts. St. Thomas Aquinas teaches that we have a natural desire for God and are naturally drawn to Him. There are those who will resist this, replacing it with other things to quell that desire or mute its effect in their lives, creating an alternate origin of this desire, thus separating themselves from their creator. What we focus on will determine what defines our lives. What we think about and do will shape us. Advent offers an opportunity for us to bring our focus on what matters the most: our relationship with Jesus Christ. It is here that we can find validation and answers to the many questions that we might have. Our relationship with Jesus Christ can enrich all our experiences and make everything better. Those who think that their lives are completely fine without a spiritual aspect to it are missing out. Being the Son of God and the gate that we pass through to experience the Father, means that just by accepting Him superimposes the Christ-Experience on our personal experiences and lifts them up to the highest of heights. This prepares us for an encounter with the Father through which all things were brought into existence. Nothing can substitute that which the Father offers us and that is how we can truly experience hope.
Deacon Tom
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