Homily Outline for the First Sunday of Advent, Year A
What will God do in your heart this Advent? What will God do in your life? Will you notice His invitation? Advent is a time of joyful expectation, hopeful preparation, and a time for heightened alertness. It’s as if our Advent wreath is the Readiness Indicator in a military planning room. The Alarm is beginning! Only, in this case, it’s not a threat level, but a heightened level of salvation, conversion, expectation. Who is coming? It’s the Lord, Jesus Christ!
Our Mother the Church puts before us two comings of Christ: His coming in time as a baby child, the Incarnation, and His coming at the end of time to judge the living and the dead. He came in silence, hiddenness – He will come again in joy and glory. In this earlier part of Advent our readings focus primarily on His 2nd coming at the end of time. The Prophet Isaiah says, “In days to come, the mountain of the Lord’s house shall be established as the highest mountain and raised above the hills. All nations shall stream toward it.”
How many of you have ever sat in a deer stand? How are you supposed to sit? You have to be still, quiet, and ALERT! Deer move quietly, they can suddenly appear with little warning, and if it’s a buck chasing a doe, you might just have one glimpse, one shot. On Friday I went out with my dad and my brother-in-law to hunt. My mom graciously made us some nice turkey sandwiches. We got out to our blinds pretty early. The turkey was a big mistake! Even with a cup of coffee, three times I found myself slumped forward and I woke myself up snoring! I can’t imagine that helped bring in the deer! Finally, I drank another cup of coffee and prayed the rosary, that helped me to stay alert.
On the other hand, if you’ve sat in a deer blind, you know what happens when you do hear the leaves rustle, when you see the head bob behind a tree, when you hear a twig snap! Suddenly your heart races, your hands shake, every sense is focused and twitching! What is coming?
So, to stay in the analogy, Advent is meant to be a BIG twig snapping! Far more significant than any buck, Jesus is coming! Listen to Paul in Romans, “For our salvation is nearer now than when we first believed; the night is advanced, the day is at hand.” Are we awake, alert, ready? Christ will come suddenly; He comes daily in hidden ways. Are your eyes open for Him? Do you listen with your ears, with your heart for His voice? Are you focused on the touch of His grace in your heart, in your conscience? Spiritually, don’t be like me in my blind slumped forward snoring, when Christ calls!
What preparations, then, will YOU make during this time of preparation? The decorating, shopping, cooking, are good, but do they distract you from the real hunt, the hunt for holiness? The main event is spiritual – what preparations will you make? How will you get ready?
If Christ were to arrive tomorrow morning, and you knew He was coming at 6 am, what would you put in order? Who would you forgive? From whom would you request forgiveness? Who would you call, who would you visit? What would you say to your spouse, to your children, to your parents? If we were 24 hours from judgment, what would you do to put the house of your heart in order? This is what Paul speaks of, “Let us then throw off the works of darkness and put on the armor of light; let us conduct ourselves properly as in the day, not in orgies and drunkenness, not in promiscuity and lust, not in rivalry and jealousy.”
So, concretely, here are some ways to get ready this Advent: Make a good confession, especially if it’s been years. Why would you fight your sins alone, when God wants to do the heavy lifting? Go to confession. And don’t wait for the penance services! If anybody listens, there won’t be space! Pray every day during this Advent season. Use the Advent Wreath before dinner with your children, read the daily Gospel every day, it’s in the bulletin. Pray part of the Rosary every day, or just one decade. Use our blue Advent prayer books that are out in the Gathering Space. Finally, try to go to an extra Mass every week. We have 7 daily Masses here; there are others at the Cathedral and St. Christopher’s. Christ comes to us at each Mass, so prepare for His Final Coming by receiving Him with joy at each Eucharist.
Let me finish with the words of the Gospel, “Therefore, stay awake! For you do not know on which day your Lord will come. Be sure of this: if the master of the house had known the hour of night when the thief was coming, he would have stayed awake and not let his house be broken into. So too, you also must be prepared, for at an hour you do not expect, the Son of Man will come.”
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