1st Sunday of Advent

Happy New Year to everyone! Now, you are probably thinking to yourself what the heck is Deacon Larry talking about. It isn’t the 1st of Jan, 2013! Yet it is the beginning of a new year, the beginning of a new church year.

Last week we celebrated the feast of “Christ the King”and the last Sunday of the outgoing church year. Today we celebrate the first Sunday in Advent and the beginning of a new cycle of prayers and scripture readings. This is the year of cycle C where we hear the gospel of Luke. So, “Happy New Year” to you all.

Why are the four weeks before Christmas called Advent, you ask! The term comes from the Latin word (adventus) which means coming, arrival. Right off the bat we think it refers to the coming of Jesus at Christmas time and that is correct. But it is not the whole story. In fact, we can speak of three comings of the Lord and all are referred to in today’s readings.

The first reading from the prophet Jeremiah refers prophetically to the coming of Jesus, our King and Savior. God is saying that he will make a virtuous branch grow for David who shall practice honesty and integrity in the land. This is the coming of the child Jesus in Bethlehem, which we prepare for in anticipation and hope these four weeks of Advent.

The gospel today speaks about the end of the world and what we can call the second coming of Jesus at the end of time. What did we hear; “and then they will see the Son of Man coming in a cloud with power and great Glory”. This is our anticipation and in the end our hope for our salvation promise of eternal life with God.

However, there is still a third coming which is the link between the first and second comings of Jesus Christ. This we hear about in our second reading. It is the welcoming of Jesus into our very lives in the here and now. This takes place every minute, every hour of every day. By it we acknowledge the first coming of Jesus in Bethlehem and we prepare for the second coming at an unknown future date.

How do we prepare? Paul, in his letter to the Thessalonians, is telling us how- “May the Lord make you increase and abound in love for one another and for all”. This brings to mind how Jesus lived his life, the example of how we are to live our lives. Jesus’ life on earth was in the service to others.

By living our faith in our actions we unconsciously do for others, taking care of our brothers and sisters in need. How can we welcome Jesus into our lives, how can we have that anticipation and hope and how can we say we have faith in Jesus and what he promises if we don’t help those who need our help? I believe it was in the letter of St. James that said “Faith without works is dead”.

There are times when we allow the temptations of the devil to distort our thoughts, to distort our outlook on our very lives. This distortion causes us to loose faith especially in times of trials when our faith should be at its strongest, when we should be reaching out to Jesus Christ in anticipation and hope that He will be with us, bringing us peace and love.

In this Advent season, even though we wait in anticipation and hope for Jesus’ second coming, let us not forget that He is and always will be present to us, especially in our bad times as well as our good times. He is with us 24/7 never leaving our side, never leaving us alone.

Whether we are suffering from an illness, recovering from surgery, suffering in the loss of a loved one, suffering depression, alcoholism, drug addiction, and all those other human conditions that try to keep us from him, he is with us. Whether we are out in our communities tending His flock, he is with us. As we lay our heads down at night and close our eyes and fall asleep, he is with us. If we keep this perspective in our hearts, in our minds, there is no worries, no anxiety, no fear of what is to come. This is living in anticipation and hope.

In the journey we call life, today’s mass suggests our approach should be of anticipation and hope. If we want to celebrate the First Coming of Jesus and prepare for his Second Coming, then the way to do it is to be aware of his coming, his presence in every moment of every day. The scripture for today tells us that on the bus of life we should be ready to get off the bus at any point, that is, be ready to meet the Lord whenever
he calls us to himself.

Do not be afraid, do not worry. As the saying goes; “Why worry? If you worry, you will die. If you don’t worry, you will die. So, why worry?

My sisters and brothers in Christ, let us improve our relations with the people around us. A good life consists not so much in the work we do or how successful we are but how we have related to other people, how we have shared the Love of Christ by reaching out to those who are calling us!