Keep Advent in Advent

Homily for 1^st Sunday of Advent Year A 2013-2014

Isa 2:1-5 • Rom 13:11-14 • Matthew 24:37-44

Introduction

As we begin a new Church year, I would like to reflect on growth.  Whenever I go back home to Uganda every year, I am always amazed at how much my nephew, Raphael, grows.  In just one year he had grown from a helpless baby crying and eating all the time, to an active little person taking their first steps and trying to say a few words.  When I see him next, he will be about three years old, and I cannot wait to play with him and have an actual conversation with him.

The Christian life is also about growing.  We grow spiritually.  We grow in our knowledge of the Lord.  We grow in loving God and our neighbour.  Even Jesus, according to Luke’s gospel, when he returned with his mother and father to Nazareth, after they had lost and then found him in the Temple, we are told that continued to grow in wisdom and age and in favour before God and man.

Scripture and Theology

To grow in wisdom and age, in favour before God and man, we need help.  We need the help of God.  For our spiritual growth is like the growth of a plant, especially a tree.  The really strong trees take years, even decades to grow.  A tiny seed becomes a seedling; the seedling slowly becomes a plant; the plant then grows a stem with branches; and these in turn grow flowers which become the fruit that we harvest.  Of course this plant needs nutrients, especially water and fertilizers.  But the plant also needs a change in seasons: the Spring to germinate, the Summer to grow, the Fall to shed its leaves and the Winter to hibernate.  And then the cycle starts all over again, as the tree grows taller and stronger.  Without the variety of seasons, the tree would remain stunted and would never grow.

That is why we in the Church also have liturgical seasons: Advent, Christmas, Lent, Easter and Ordinary Time.  As we grow in our Christian faith, each season has something to give us, something to focus our attention, something to help advance on the journey to heaven.

·        In Advent we focus on the Second Coming of Jesus.

·        At Christmas we celebrate the First Coming of Jesus.

·        During Lent we focus on penance and conversion.

·        At Easter and for 50 days after, we celebrate the Resurrection of the Lord.

·        And then during the Ordinary Time of the Year, we focus on the general themes of our Christian faith.

Like the different climates of the Spring, Summer, Fall and Winter provide plants and trees with different nutrients for their growth, so do the different seasons of our Church year, give us different spiritual nourishments.

Christian Life

Today, we start the season of Advent.  Unfortunately, Advent is given short shrift.  Everybody, even non-Catholics know about Christmas and Easter, they even know about Lent.  But poor Advent is ignored, like the middle child.

On Thanksgiving Day, as I was driving to a friend’s house in Mississippi, I turned on the car radio.  I was surprised to hear my favourite New Orleans station already playing Christmas carols.  “We have not yet even begun Advent, and we are already celebrating Christmas,” I asked myself?  I did not have the courage to visit any stores on Black Friday, but I am reliably informed that in most stores, the Christmas decorations are already up.

To be fair, though, we Catholics cannot impose our Church calendar on non-Catholics radio stations or businesses; they don’t have to celebrate Advent and they can pretty much play whatever music they want, whenever they want.

But we Catholics want to grow in our spiritual life, we cannot just skip over Advent and jump straight to the Christmas joy.  As parents, we don’t let our Children skip over the meat and vegetables and go straight to the cake and ice-cream; if we do they will end-up really happy but quite malnourished children.

Advent has something important for us to think about for four weeks before Christmas.  For while Christmas reminds us of the joy of the First Coming of Jesus, Advent points us to the hope of the Second Coming of Jesus.  Jesus lays it out very clearly, that he is coming back, on a day or an hour you do not expect.  “As it was in the days of Noah, so it will be at the coming of the Son of Man.”  These people were going about their day to day tasks of eating, drinking and getting married; and then suddenly the Flood came.  Jesus says, so will his return be.  “Two men will be out in the field; one will be taken, and one will be left.  Two women will be grinding at the mill; one will be taken, and one will be left.”   The advice of Jesus is this: “Therefore, stay awake!  For you do not know on which day your Lord will come.”  This second coming will find some already dead and these will rise and get their just desserts.  Those, who will still be living, will get the surprise of their lives, and they too will get their just desserts.

We Christians need such a message of waiting, expectation and hope.  Our lives will better, if we take time to know where we are going.  Our journey to God will have direction, if we take time to consider where it is leading.  These four weeks of Advent, as we prepare for Christmas, tell us where we are going by focusing on the end-times, so that our present times can be lived well.

During these four weeks of the Advent season, we are given many tools to help us focus our minds on this goal of our lives.

·        The readings we hear during this season will keep reminding us: “Jesus is coming back!”  And so will the homilies, which will keep hitting our heads with this message of preparation, waiting and hope.

·        We also change the colour from green to purple, a penitential colour, which reminds us that part of our waiting for the Second Coming is by doing penance and living lives of conversion to the Lord.  In fact many people try to go to confession during this time.

·        Besides, during this time, we do not sing the hymn of the Angels, the Gloria, a reminder that we are still waiting for the full glory of the Lord, at his Second Coming; what we have now is only a glimpse of the real one.

·        And then we have the Advent Wreath, with its circular shape and five candles.  The circular shape represents the eternity of life with Jesus and the Father, for which we hope.  The four candles in the outer circle, lit one after another each week, represent the progressive movement towards the joy and glory of Christmas, represented by the fifth white candle in the middle.

Advent truly has something to offer us, as we grow in the Lord.

Conclusion

There is a campaign with the slogan, “Put Christ back into Christmas.”  I have another campaign and of course a slogan to go with it.  My slogan is “Put Advent back into Advent.”  Please join me in my campaign, the campaign of the Church, by not glossing over these four weeks of Advent or by not turning them prematurely into a prolonged Christmas season.

Even as we go about our Christmas shopping, Christmas card mailing, let us focus on preparation, waiting and hoping for the Second Coming.  Let us do as the prayer, which we shall hear the priest say over the next four weeks, says: that the Lord “may teach us to judge wisely the things of earth, and hold firm to the things of heaven.”  Let us judge wisely the things of earth, and hold firm to the things of heaven.