Would we RUN forth to meet Christ?

+ J. M. J. +

Homily Outline for the 1st Sunday of Advent, Year C

Advent has arrived! With it a new liturgical year, a new cycle of readings (Year C), and some visible changes in our sanctuary and worship. The Church always seeks to engage the whole person, the whole human being, body, mind, and soul. We have begun this period of joyful waiting, “of devout expectant delight”. As the priest vests in purple, which has a penitential tone, we ask ourselves, “Are we ready to receive our Lord and King?” We forgo the Gloria during these 4 Sundays of Advent so that it might ring out with yet greater joy on Christmas Eve. Our music is simpler, less elaborate. We light the candles of the Advent Wreath to highlight this waiting, and our progress towards our King. In the weeks ahead we slowly begin to decorate the Church, step by step preparing for our feast.

What are we waiting for? For what do we prepare so elaborately and with so much care? I suspect many of you are saying in your mind, Christmas! And that is the second thing we prepare for during Advent… but the first is actually Jesus’ Second Coming in Glory at the End of Time! Prior to Dec. 17th, the Church directs our attention to the coming of Christ that lies ahead of us. Note our Gospel today:

And then they will see the Son of Man coming in a cloud with power and great glory….Be vigilant at all times and pray that you have the strength to escape the tribulations that are imminent and to stand before the Son of Man.

There is a nice logical flow here: in November we meditate upon death and the end this mortal world, and then as Advent begins, we focus on that end as a beginning: With Jesus’ 2nd coming, God will bring to final completion and fulfillment all His promises to us.

Those promises are very evident in our first reading from Jeremiah:

The days are coming, says the Lord, when I will fulfill the promise I made to the house of Israel and Judah….In those days Judah shall be safe and Jerusalem shall dwell secure….

Jesus’ coming in time as a tiny baby child was the beginning of the fulfillment of this promise. That fulfillment reached a climax on the Cross and in the tomb and on the third day when He rose, but we live now in the tension between the victory already won for us on the Cross, and our own appropriation, reception, and acceptance of that perfect gift. When Jesus comes again in glory, His arrival will be unmistakable—every heart will know that God has come.

We see, then, how this message and teaching to us echoes through these readings proclaimed here, and in EVERY Catholic Church in the world on this first Sunday of Advent. The Church chooses them with great love and care to teach us.

There is another text, though, that I often fear we easily miss. Mass begins with the Sign of the Cross, a greeting, the penitential rite… outside of Advent and Lent we continue then with the Gloria. Having begun in God’s name, having asked His forgiveness, the priest then prays the opening prayer, more properly called the collect. That name suggests what this prayer is meant to do: it gathers up, collects, the message and import of the whole liturgy that lies ahead into one succinct prayer. But, unless you have a missal in front of you, it goes by so quickly! I remember beginning to practice celebrating Mass as a seminarian, and being amazed both by the beauty of these prayers, and by how I was for the most part totally unaware of them!  Here it is again:

Grant your faithful, we pray, almighty God, with resolve to run forth to meet your Christ with righteous deeds at his coming, so that, gathered at his right hand, they may be worthy to possess the heavenly kingdom.

This is a very fine summary of what we are about during Advent, especially these opening weeks: preparing to meet Christ at His coming. If we imagine Jesus’ coming to judge the living and the dead, do we shrink back? The Church desires us to be so converted to Christ that we might be filled with zeal and joy at the thought of His Second Coming, so much joy that we run to meet Him, with righteous deeds… acting on our joy and His grace by pouring out acts of virtue, love, and mercy.

This is very different from the commercial hype that began celebrating Christmas, forget about Advent, 3 weeks ago! Please don’t allow the mercantile madness to sweep over you… seek Christ, not piles of gifts! Seek prayer, not seasonal anxiety. Seek deeds of charity rather than keeping up with the Joneses!

What does this look like concretely? Well… I’ve given some very simple suggestions in my bulletin column:

          · Make a good confession this Advent;

          · Come to Mass every Sunday until Christmas;

          · Come to a daily Mass, an extra helping of grace.

          · Read the Gospel every day, they’re listed in the bulletin, or even both the daily Mass readings.

          · Finally… take one of our Advent Companions that are at all the entrances, and pray with the
            simply daily devotion that’s given there.

          · Use these prayers with your Advent wreath at your evening meal each Sunday, or even each night.

These are simple, concrete ways to prepare to greet the Lord in this life and in the next.

Paul gives the Thessalonians a beautiful blessing:

May the Lord make you increase and abound in love for one another and for all, just as we have for you, so as to strengthen your hearts to be blameless in holiness before our God and Father at the coming of our Lord Jesus with all his holy ones.

And all God’s people say, “Amen.”

 + A. M. D. G. +