FIRST SUNDAY OF ADVENT (2021)

 I SUNDAY ADVENT, 28 NOVEMBER 2021

Focus: We step again into the holy season of Advent. Let us remind ourselves of the very purpose of advent, its significance and live and fulfill its purpose

1.      It is once again the season of advent. What immediately comes to our mind is the holy Christmas. For many, advent is nothing more than some days that come before the birthday of the Lord. It is the duration for preparing the cribs, for installing the stars, for singing around the carols, for practicing the Christmas choir, for decorating and illuminating the churches, for planning some programs and organizing some get-togethers, for inviting or visiting the friends and relatives, for doing some special shopping for special festive dresses or articles, et cetera.

2.      We do not intend to undervalue the importance of all the above-listed. Our only concern is that the holy advent is reduced only to these items. Certainly, advent is a time of preparation preceding the holy Christmas. All these preparations form part of this preparation. But it is a preparation much more than these. It is a preparation of a deeper and higher realm. It is a time of preparation of hearts, of the families, of lives both collectively and personally. It is a time of preparing to go to meet the Lord who is coming. It is preparing a fitting birthplace for the one who will be born among us. It is preparing enough and clean space for him to enter. It is preparing the whole earth itself to receive the Lord who will encounter us.

3.      In the first place, advent is a commemoration and celebration of a past bygone event. As such, it must serve as a special occasion to draw inspiration for our imitation. It must make us recall the event of incarnation of the loving God amidst our sinful condition. It must inspire us to be deeply impressed by the selfless love of God that empties itself of the heavenly glory and embraces our human misery and struggle. It must make us imitate the same spirit of the incarnate Savior. It must make us live up to the very purpose of his birth, that is, to allow him to be with us and to transform us.

4.      Thus, our preparation and celebration will be meaningful, only when they blend together all the three dimensions of time, that is, the past, present, and future. We remember gratefully and joyfully the past, so that we can meaningfully and committedly live the present, and thereby become worthy of the eternal presence of God. Our celebration will be very inadequate if it is limited only to recall the past, if it does not affect and change our present, and does not charge and orient us toward the future.

5.      In this sense, advent is a threefold appropriate present preparation. Firstly, for the celebration of the past events; secondly, for the celebration of the present joy of the present birth of the Lord because he is with us; thirdly, orientation for the future joy of the eternal communion with God. We celebrate his past birth, his present life within and amidst us, and our eternity with him. Our advent preparation must look behind, look and walk onward and forward, and look and rise upward. That is why, Jesus says, “when these (adverse) things happen, “raise your heads and look up because your redemption is near”

6.      It is in this sense of future orientation the gospel speaks of the end times in the future. Future and end need not be exclusively in time sense, as something that lies in the far distance at the end of completion of all time and space. It is not a fixed, definite time. Rather it is the appointed time. It is the time of judgment. Thereby, advent becomes really significant when it is not only backward-looking but forward-looking and marching.

7.      We commemorate and celebrate the past because it affects our present and leads us to the future. Advent should prepare us fittingly for a worthy immediate celebration, for a worthy ongoing living, and for a worthy eternity. Jesus cautions us against three factors that trouble this fitting preparation: dissipation, drunkenness, and cares of the world. All these three hinder our fitting preparation and making a productive blend of the past, present, and future.

8.      Dissipation makes us tied down to the regrets and negative impacts of the past. Drunkenness creates an illusory world, dissociates us from the present reality and responsibility to it. It can be understood more as a pleasure and comfort-seeking life, and not just something to do with drinking alone. Cares and preoccupations of the world do not allow us to rise higher, to the lofty future. All these three fail in the productive use of the past, commitment to the present, and orientation to the future.

Direction: Advent is not just a time of pre-Christmas external preparations. It is a commemoration of the past, contribution to the present, and further construction for the future

I SUNDAY ADVENT, FROM 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.