Homily
for the 1st Sunday of Advent
29 November 2015
29 November 2015
We
begin this new liturgical year this weekend with the same hope that we approach
in every new venture or period of our lives. There are the many unanswered
questions of what this year will bring, and how we will respond to the joys and
challenges that will be placed before us.
However,
we need to be asking ourselves the following questions about our spiritual
life:
Ø Have
we allowed the Lord to work in us so that we have increased in love for one another
and for all?
Ø Have
our hearts become drowsy from carousing and drunkenness and the anxieties of
daily life?
Ø Are
we truly vigilant at all times for the coming of the Lord?
This blessed season
of Advent that we now enter into isn’t just about putting up lights, baking
cookies and wrapping presents. Rather, Advent – especially the first half of
the season – is meant to prepare us for the terrible and wondrous Day of the
Lord, when Christ will come again in glory and judge the living and the dead.
Advent is a time of preparation, but not directly in the way our society views
these “pre-Christmas” days. The season of Advent is that time in which we
prepare our heart and soul for the coming of the Lord on that great day.
Upon reflecting on
our readings for this week, the ancient poem of the Dies Irae kept popping into my head. That great reminder from the
old Requiem Masses talks about this day that we to be preparing for – this day
of judgment; this day of God’s wrath. Yes, in our Gospel, Jesus reiterates the
importance for us to be prepared for His coming in glory, recognizing, Himself,
that it is to be a terrible and wondrous day.
However, it is to be
just more than a day and judgment and a day of wrath.
The Day of the Lord
will also be a day of mercy.
If we take to heart
the question posed earlier drawn from Saint Paul’s First Letter to the
Thessalonians, and reflect upon it in the light of the Gospel, we come to
realize that the only way we can increase and abound in love is to not allow
our hearts become drowsy through carousing, drunkenness and being overwhelmed
by the concerns of daily life. Our society, especially during this time of
year, is constantly asking of us to help those who may not be able to help
themselves as they would like. (In a way, this is signified by our Angel Tree.)
Yet, while we DO provide for those who are need, we also allow the frustrations
of the season to overwhelm our hearts, and the carousing and drunkenness of the
season veils our ability to truly prepare for the Lord’s coming.
If we truly open our
hearts to the movement of the Lord, then those moments of carousing,
drunkenness and feeling anxious would be replaced by the anticipation of a
joyful hope that the Lord would make His presence known, right here, right now.
Casting aside all that veils the heart from ecstatically waiting for His
return, we truly begin to recognize His presence with us: in Word, in
Sacrament, and in others. And in recognizing that presence, we no longer dread
that day of judgment, for we recognize that Christ’s coming again in glory will
be the ultimate sign of God’s Divine Mercy.
The Lord desires for
us to be with Him – not just in this life, but, ultimately, for eternity. It is
this life He gives to us that we are to prepare – to be in advent – for His
return. This is why our hearts must not become drowsy; this is why we are to
remain vigilant. In our practice of increasing our love for one another and for
all, we increase our practice and share of the mercy which God has bestowed and
will continue to bestow upon us in this life. This day of judgment, this day of
wrath which so many people may dread is truly to be anticipated by the Church,
since it is, at its very base, the day of God’s mercy.
As we prepare to
enter into the great Jubilee Year of Mercy next week, we are given the hope
that on the Day of the Lord, we will experience the fullness of God’s mercy
that we foretaste here on Earth. But, also in preparation for the Jubilee Year,
in preparation for the terrible and wondrous Day of the Lord, our hearts cannot
wane in the obligation that we are to be “Merciful Like the Father” – that if
we hope to experience the fullness of God’s mercy, we, too, must show mercy.
This is how we increase and abound in love for one another and for all; this is
how our hearts remain vigilant, not becoming drowsy from all that life throws
at us.
During these coming
weeks, we ought not to become preoccupied in putting up the lights, baking the
cookies and wrapping the presents. Our preoccupation needs to focus upon our
desire to be children of the Father, disciples of Jesus and co-workers with the
Holy Spirit. Our preoccupation in the spiritual life ought to move us to desire
the ecstasy of experience God’s mercy and, in return, being merciful to others.
Our preoccupation ought to be vigilance in anticipating the Day of the Lord, so
that this day of judgment and day of wrath will truly be, for the one who waits
for the Lord, a day of mercy.
And, so, my dear
brothers and sisters, I ask you once again:
Ø Have
we allowed the Lord to work in us so that we have increased in love for one
another and for all?
Ø Have
our hearts become drowsy from carousing and drunkenness and the anxieties of
daily life?
Ø Are
we truly vigilant at all times for the coming of the Lord?
May this season of
Advent be for each of us a season of joyous anticipation for the coming of the
Lord. May this season of Advent be for each of us an encounter with the Divine
Mercy of God.
Enjoy the journey . . .
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