Homily: 1st Sunday of Advent – Cycle B
Friends,
we have entered into this new year of grace, starting, as we always do, with
the season of Advent. Every year, the
main theme of the opening of this season is always the Second Coming of Christ:
when we remind ourselves that our Savior, Jesus Christ, who has already saved
us through his life, death, and resurrection, will return one day return to
bring forth the fullness of his kingdom for all eternity. Too easily, the season of Advent can be
reduced to a preparation for the celebration of Christmas, the first coming of
Christ. Advent, of course, is a
preparation for that celebration, but it is always placed in the context of our
realization that our joy at his first coming must always remind us that he is
coming again. Thus, our readings on this
first Sunday of Advent point us to this theme of readiness for his coming.
In
our Gospel reading, Jesus admonishes his disciples to remain vigilant for the
day of his return. He uses the example
of the head of a household who leaves for an extended trip and entrusts the
care of the household to his servants.
He expects that his servants will be good stewards of the household
while he is gone, and that he will find his household in as good or better
shape when he returns than when he left it.
The unknown day and hour of his return would have been common in that
time, as there was no way to estimate consistently how long a trip might
take. Thus, the servants had to remain
ready—meaning, faithful to their
duties—so as not to be caught derelict when their master returned.
It
should be no stretch of the imagination to understand that this is exactly the situation
with which our Lord Jesus has left us.
At his ascension, Jesus left to his disciples the task of building up
his kingdom here on earth with the promise that he would one day return to reign
over it, in its fullness. To us, it
seems as if Jesus is long-delayed in his return. Thus, we need these yearly reminders to
examine ourselves to see if we are truly prepared for him to come and, if not,
to begin again to make ourselves ready for his return.
The
prophet Isaiah, in the first reading, reminds us that we almost certainly are
not ready for his coming. When Isaiah
looked at the people of his time, he saw so many of them proclaiming to be
faithful to the Lord in their lives, yet living in ways that would incite the
Lord’s anger towards them. Thus, Isaiah
laments: first, knowing how weak and fickle human beings can be, that God would
permit them to fall into sin so easily; and second, that, having fallen into
sin, God has allowed them to experience the consequences of their sin. Thus, he continues to call on God, as Father
of his people, to manifest himself in powerful ways so that the people might
repent and order their lives rightly once again.
It
should be no great difficulty for us to look out into the world and make a
similar lament. We see that our brothers
and sisters (and we ourselves) who so often declare to be faithful followers of
our Lord nonetheless giving into our weaknesses and sinning against him. “Why does God allow this?” we often ask
ourselves, and we are saddened by the suffering we must endure in this life as
a consequence of sin in the world.
Acknowledging our inability to change the world ourselves, we cry out to
our Father in heaven, begging for his intervention that might turn our hearts
and the hearts of all people back to him.
This,
in fact, is the cry of the Responsorial Psalm: “Lord, make us turn to you; let us see your face and we shall be saved.” In these words, we give permission to God to
overcome our will so that his will be done in our lives and, thus, we might be
saved from sin (and its effects).
Finally,
in the second reading, Saint Paul reminds us that God’s grace is sufficient to
realize this desired change in our lives.
There, he acknowledges that abundant grace of God that led to the
conversion of the Corinthians to follow Christ and to change their lives
radically, and that this grace continued to manifest itself in powerful spiritual
gifts for the building up of the community, and all to preserve and strengthen
them for the second coming of Christ.
And this is what we need: to acknowledge that on our own we will not be
able to persevere in faith until Christ’s return, but rather to put our faith
in God’s grace to make us strong so as to persevere until the end.
These
readings highlight the things that we need at the beginning of this holy season
to prepare well for the coming of Christ: 1) to be alert and vigilant, 2) to
recognize our failures and inability to remain faithful on our own, and 3) to
turn to God for help and to trust that his grace is super-sufficient to preserve
us in faith until he comes. Therefore, I
propose that we take this first reading from Isaiah as our point of meditation
to carry with us throughout this season.
And so, let’s take a look at its elements.
First,
Isaiah begins and ends with an acknowledgement of God as Father. We, too, must approach God as our Father if
we are to benefit from this work at all!
As our Father, God loves us and wants good things for us. Thus, when we approach him in this way, we
begin well our work of preparation.
Second,
Isaiah acknowledges before God that we are fickle beings who tend to seek our
own wills, not God’s, and he laments that, left to ourselves, we are unable to
keep to his ways. This is our invitation
to an examination of conscience during this time of Advent. It is a call to us to look at our own lives
and to acknowledge when we’ve allowed ourselves to follow our own ways and not
God’s. This should move us to repentance
and to seek God’s forgiveness, especially in the sacrament of reconciliation.
Third,
Isaiah calls on God to come and manifest his power and to turn our wills back
to his. This is his acknowledgement that
God desires to be close to us and that his reign is here on earth as much as it
is in heaven. Thus, we should be bold
now (and any time of year) to call on God to make his power known among us. It is not presumption, but an act of profound
faith! And it demonstrates our profound
reliance on God’s grace to work in us so that his kingdom will come.
Friends,
if we can do these three things throughout this holy season, we will be
watchful and vigilant for our Lord’s coming: ready not only to experience his
coming at the end of time, but ready also to experience his coming in the many
ways that he manifests himself to us in our daily lives. Still more, we ourselves will be the
instruments through which God manifests himself to others.
There
is no time to waste! Since Christmas
falls on Monday this year, there is really only three weeks of the Advent
season (last year we had a full four!).
Therefore, let us begin today by welcoming Christ’s coming to us sacramentally
in this Mass; and may our thanksgiving strengthen us to be watchful and ready when
he comes in the fullness of his glory at the end of time.
Given in Spanish at St. Joseph Parish: Rochester, IN –
December 3rd, 2023
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