First Sunday of Advent / Msgr. Owen F. Campion
The Sunday Readings
This weekend begins the Church’s year. Advent is usually seen simply as a time to prepare for the feast of Christmas, and in the current American culture, a tempered, penitential season seems out of order.
Actually, the season is for us a new beginning. Advent summons us to consider the coming of Jesus into our own hearts. It calls us to prepare ourselves for the final coming of Jesus at the end of time.
Christmas symbolizes these additional occasions of the Lord’s arrival into our hearts. Advent is a penitential season. With the help of God’s grace, we must focus upon Jesus, uprooting our tendencies and vices that separate us from God.
Jeremiah is the source of the first reading for Mass this weekend. His theme, as it was the theme of all the prophets, was that God’s people could expect no peace or joy in their lives until they wholeheartedly returned to God.
In this reading, the prophet notes the sad state of affairs for God’s people. Misery is their lot. Sin has produced this unhappy situation.
Always merciful, good and protective, God will send into their midst a Savior, a descendant of King David. This Savior will bring justice.
St. Paul’s First Epistle to the Thessalonians supplies the next reading. It is an appeal to the Christians of Thessalonica (now the Greek city of Saloniki) to love each other. This love will signify inwardly following the Lord. Paul ends his message by earnestly exhorting the Christian Thessalonians to live their lives in a way pleasing to God.
St. Luke’s Gospel gives this weekend’s liturgy its third reading. It is forthright, even stark, as is typical of Luke’s Gospel. Quoting Jesus, it states that suddenly and overwhelmingly will come signs in the sky in the sun, moon and stars. Nations will be in anguish. The seas will roar. People will die of fright.
Amid all this great drama, Jesus will come in might and in glory. The Lord’s arrival will be an occasion to rejoice. He will bring final redemption.
All actively anticipate the Lord’s coming by praying and sacrifice.
This Gospel was written when, for Christians, the world was a difficult place to be. Certainly, the culture was against them. The political authority was also turning against them. With Jesus, truly devoted followers prevailed.
Reflection
Christmas, in cultures around the world, is soft and lovely. It is the acclamation of life itself, and of redemption, even as it recalls the earthly birth of the Son of God to Mary in Bethlehem. But Advent is somber.
In much of the United States, days are cold. Nights are long. It almost is as if nature itself tells us that life can be less than delightful. This is reality.
The Church uses Advent to teach us a lesson. Earthly life will end. It always changes.
As St. Luke’s Gospel so bluntly says, as Advent says, Christ one day will confront us all. It may be a personal meeting. It will be at the end of time, in some manner yet unknown, but about which the Scriptures offer such colorful hints.
It will be for us a great day, if we have followed the Lord in our own lives. Jeremiah looks to such a day of salvation and victory.
On that day, good will stand starkly opposite evil. Victory will come if we chose the side of right and of God, even when days are cold and nights are long. We need strength to choose what is good. Evil is powerful. It lures us to death.
God will strengthen us, but we must ask for this strength. Our request must be sincere, honest and uncompromised to be authentic.
Advent reminds us God’s love and light warm and brighten our hearts, whatever the season. †