1st Sunday of advent

 

I SUNDAY ADVENT, 29 NOVEMBER 2020

Focus:  We are called by a worthy God to live a worthy life. Let us then neither belittle ourselves nor God who wants to elevate us.

1. Once again, we step into the holy season of Advent.  It is the time towards the advent of the Saviour amidst us. It is the advent of the incarnate Son of God as one of us. It is a time of the coming of God's own grace in flesh and blood, in the person of Jesus Christ. Down through the centuries, God has spoken and acted through many prophets and leaders. But this is the appointed time when God speaks, interacts and acts with the humans through His own Son.

2. Advent is not merely a series of days that precede the birth of Jesus, the Saviour. It is first of all a recalling and reassuring of the ceaseless love and mercy of God for the erring and sinning humanity. It is a reawakening of our hope that the Saviour is born among us. It is a reinstilling of our trust that God comes to live with us and will never abandon us. It is a reinstalling of the broken bond and covenant between God and us. It is the season of the greatest comfort that "God is ever benevolent and merciful us".

3. Our sin, our evil, our wrongdoings, our weaknesses and imperfections - nothing of these can mar or deter the love of God that never fails us.The holy Advent encourages us that ultimately it is God who takes control of the whole course of our life and no forces, however powerful and dominant they are, can really overpower it.

4. The holy Advent immerses us into the unfathomable depths of God's saving love. It encourages and revives us with new hope to continue to confide in him even when we are beset with adverse situations. It urges us to "wait on him" who comes to visit us and change our life. This would concretely mean that we do not get "engrossed and entangled" with needless affairs and excessive worldly activities, as in the times of Noah.

5. To the one who comes to us in love, mercy and solidarity, we must go in eagerness, readiness and preparation. The one who comes to us to be with us, should not find us in indifference, tepidity and unpreparedness. We must "Wake up from our sleep" of sin and mediocrity. We must solidify our steps, so that we do not stumble and falter in darkness, but walk steadily in the light.

6. How then do we prepare ourselves to meet him who is coming? There can be different attitudes and responses toward his coming:

He is coming - so what? Let Him come! This is an attitude of indifference, carelessness and lethargy

He is coming - oh my God! An attitude of fear and unhappiness

He is coming - why should he come? An attitude of unwelcome, stubbornness, resistance and rejection

He is coming - very good! Please come. An attitude of welcome, openness, receptivity, prompt acceptance and personal experience

What is our response? What is our preparation?

Direction: Let us wait for the Lord attentively and lovingly, so that he will not find and catch us unawares. Let us be fully awake and be focused on him and not lose sight  of him.