Homily for 1st Sunday of Advent Year A 2019-2020
Isaiah 2:1-5; Romans 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 amazed at how much my nephews, Raphael and Anthony keep growing. One year they can barely speak and the next time I can't stop them asking me all manner of questions. One year I buy them shoes or some other gift and I have to buy another one the next year because they grow so fast.
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 he continued to grow in wisdom, stature and in favour before God and man.
Scripture and Theology
But to grow in wisdom, stature and in favour before God and man, we need help. We need the help of God. For our spiritual growth is like the growth of my nephews or 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. This growth happens because this plant receives 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 us advance on the journey to heaven.
As Christians we have two focal points of our salvation marked by the Christmas season when we focus on the First Coming of Jesus and the Easter season when we focus on his death and resurrection. But before each of these seasons we put on a tailgate party of sorts. The Season of Lent is the Catholic way of tailgating for Easter, while the Season of Advent, which we begin today, is the Catholic way of tailgating for Christmas. And so, 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.
So, what does Advent tail-gating, the season we begin today look like? Actually, true Advent tailgating should be sober, not as rowdy as the Football tailgating. It is a time to prepare for the coming of the Lord at Christmas, preparing both spiritually as well as some of the ordinary considerations.
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.
Another way to put it is that Advent gives us a chance to do a dress rehearsal for the kind of waiting for the Lord that we must do every day of our lives.
Christian Life
Unfortunately, Advent is often given short shrift even by us Catholics. 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 around back from a friend's house, I turned on the car radio. I was surprised to hear my favourite New Orleans station, Magic 101.9 already playing Christmas carols. “We have not yet even begun Advent, and we are already celebrating Christmas,” I asked myself? Also, 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 we will have really animated but quite malnourished children.
We Christians need such a message of waiting, expectation and hope. Our lives will be better, if we take time to think about the future for which we have to wait. 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, learning how to wait.
- 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 we should 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 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
In about four weeks we shall be back here for Christmas Mass. I invite you on that day to look back over the Advent season and ask yourself:
- Have I tailgated with the enthusiasm of the child who looks forward to getting there but also with the patience and hope of the adult who knows that we are not yet there and must wait and watch soberly and patiently?
- Has this Advent made me a more patient and hopeful person?
- Has this Advent helped me to grow closer to the Lord and my neighbour?
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