Schooler's Sagacity and Senility: Homilies from Fr. Bill

 

FIRST SUNDAY OF ADVENT

28 NOVEMBER 2021

 

            The Season of Advent is designed to be a time of preparation.  This Season enables us to prepare to celebrate the first coming of the Lord at Christmas.  We need this time to make spiritual preparations to celebrate this Mystery of the Incarnation, because our culture defines Christmas as a time to buy lots of stuff to boost our economy.

            But the Season of Advent is also designed to be a time to prepare for the second coming of the Lord.  This preparation is more difficult.  Instead of focusing on the new life of a baby in a manger, we are invited to focus on the end of our individual lives, or at the end of time.  Jesus speaks of this ending in today’s Gospel, when he points to the destruction of the Temple.  By the time the Gospel of Luke had been written, the Romans had demolished this beautiful structure and center of worship in Jerusalem.  In much the same way, our lives and our world will sooner or later be destroyed in ways that we cannot predict.           

            Jesus does not tell us to make these preparations to make us any more fearful than we already are.  In preparing for the end, we need to live in the present, confident of the Lord’s risen presence.  In the present, we can more readily give witness to Christ, especially in these dark days of division and conflict.  We can be vigilant in waiting for his coming by persevering.  The best way to persevere is to renew our commitment to be a faithful disciple.  Being a faithful disciple does not mean that we engage in periodic volunteer work on our own terms and at our own convenience.  Being a faithful disciple means a consistent and faithful gift of ourselves on God’s terms, even when it might be inconvenient to do so.

            We can give of ourselves only if we regard all that we are and have as gifts from God.  That is why prayer is the most important component of the three legs of stewardship.  The Season of Advent encourages us to use the time we have been given between the first coming of the Lord and his second coming to enter more deeply into a commitment to deepen our lives of prayer.  We do that not only when we gather at Mass as a community, but also when we gather in our homes with our families and friends.  Please listen to Toni Medaglia, as she speaks of her own prayer life and how it has affected her life as a disciple.