Today is the first day of the liturgical season of Advent
during which the Church prepares, by prayer, fasting, almsgiving, in the Mass
and other forms of expression, for the return of our Savior at His second
coming in which the first coming in His incarnation reminds us.
St Charles Borromeo, bishop, once said that “In her concern
for our salvation, our loving mother the Church uses this holy season to teach
us. She shows us how grateful we should
be for so great a blessing, and how to gain its benefit: our hearts should be as much prepared for the
coming of Christ as if He were still to come into this world.”
Indeed, one of the ways the Church prepares us is through
the readings in the Mass.
This coming Sunday, the second Sunday of Advent the Church
chose Scriptures that accentuate our need to be instructed so that we are
prepared for this unexpected return. As
was prophesied, Jesus His coming, and as we see in the New Testament Readings
He will return. And so we are instructed
by our past through our traditions and Scripture in passages that speak of the
voice crying out in the desert proclaiming “Prepare
the way of the Lord, and make straight his path” (Mark 1:3) as
John the Baptist did.
But in the third Sunday of Advent the Church changes gears
so-to-speak. Instead of looking at our
lack of perfection, or our failures the Church points to the fact that the
battle is already won so as to re-invigorate our hope of salvation. Jesus defeated death and therefore we are to
“Be strong and fear not!” (Is 35:4)
as the first reading says. The Gospel
reading of that day tells us to rejoice because we are clothed with the
garments of salvation as procured by Jesus and proclaimed by John who came “to testify to the light, so that all might
believe through Him.”
In the last Sunday before Christmas, the fourth Sunday of
Advent, the Church show us that we are to be assured of the imminent coming of
our Lord by giving us a sign, that a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and they shall name him Emmanuel
(which means ‘God with us’). This
coming of the Son of God is found in the incarnation narrative, where He was
conceived in her womb and bore a son that she was to name Jesus. He will be great and will be called Son of
the Most High, and the Lord God will give him the throne of David his father (Luke 1:31-32). God is
indeed ‘with us’. The Lord God has come,
and the Lord God will come again.
So let us begin our preparation of His second coming as we
celebrate His first. For the first week
of Advent the Church reminds us to wake up and be alert. And so we are to work out our salvation by
becoming spotless, by being perfect as the heavenly Father is perfect. This goal is extremely difficult to attain
and yet we know that the longest journey begins with a single step. And so I challenge you to persevere and to do
what is good and right. As a first step
of this journey, will you take responsibility for the freedom God gives
you? Will you make a space within each
day of Advent to go off with Jesus, listening in the silence for the Word?
God Bless
Nathan
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