First Sunday of Advent
November 28, 2021
Cathedral of Mary Our Queen
A Somber Warning in a Lighthearted Season
With Christmas less than a month away, the seasonal festivities have begun. But just when we want to lighten our mood and forget our troubles, we are confronted today with Jesus’ terrifying description of the end of the world. The sun and moon will be darkened and the powers of heaven shaken. We are told that people will die of fright in anticipation of these events that herald the second coming of Christ in all his might and glory. This message here is to prepare ourselves, not only to celebrate Christmas, but indeed for that moment when we will stand before Christ as our judge. We are to be vigilant. “Blameless in holiness”. Done forever with self-indulgence. . . . Not exactly the world’s recipe for “a holly, jolly Christmas”!
Preparing for the Two Comings of Christ
Yet, if we take that all-important second look at today’s Scripture readings, we will find in them the path to celebrating a most joyous Christmas – not because ‘everything is going our way’, not because ‘our troubles are out of sight’, but rather because our hearts will be truly ready to welcome our Redeemer anew . . . our Redeemer who was born 2,000 years ago as a little child in Bethlehem; our Redeemer “who will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead”. We find that path to real Christmas joy by making good use of the graces of Advent so that our hearts will be truly free to encounter Christ more deeply than ever before.
While we may prefer the tenderness of the first Christmas night to the power and majesty of Christ’s second coming, let us remember that the two comings, the two advents, of Christ are interconnected. Jesus was born into the world not just to comfort us, but to redeem us of our sins. Christ will come again to complete his work of redemption and to gather his harvest. By rightly preparing our hearts to celebrate Jesus’ first coming, his Incarnation, we are, at the same time, preparing our hearts for Jesus’ second coming, that glorious coming for which we pray at every Mass.
Yet, if Jesus were to come again today, or if we knew that we would die today, would we be ready to face the One who is both our Redeemer and our Judge? Would we be confident that Christ would find our lives pleasing? And what of our family members? Our loved ones? Our fellow Catholics? Today’s Gospel alerts us never to presume that we are good enough for heaven. Indeed, Jesus himself warns us ‘not to let our hearts become drowsy from carousing and drunkenness’, nor to let the cares and anxieties of life overwhelm our love for God and for others. Instead, Jesus urges us to be vigilant and to pray so that we will have the strength and the courage to endure whatever lies ahead – whether it be our own final tribulations, or those of the world, or simply whatever challenges the year 2022 will bring.
The Path to True Freedom
Well friends, at this point, it might seem as if we are back to square one. Just when we’d like to forget or at least bracket our cares, the Church reminds us that prayer, vigilance, and virtue are the path to freedom & joy. But if you’re tempted to think all this is okay for Carthusian monks but not for us, then think of this: think of how we often feel when the Christmas holidays are over. After Christmas, many people are “down in the dumps”, depressed, not just because there are bills to pay but because life’s bleakness hits them full force. So it’s worth asking what is lacking in our seasonal celebrations. In fact, Jesus has pegged what often goes wrong at this time of year, and it’s this: We indulge our desires and still we feel more anxiety than usual.
The Lord’s plan for Advent is different . . . and better. His plan invites us to spend more time in prayer – to listen to the Word of God, to participate attentively in Holy Mass, to confess our sins, and spend time with him in Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament. The Lord calls on us to avoid not only the excesses of holiday parties, but all the excesses and pleasures that our commercial culture touts. Some of these excesses consist in too much of a good thing (such as food), but others consist in the illegitimate pleasures that are enemies of the human spirit, self-indulgences that produce not joy and inner peace, but apathy and self-pity, self-indulgences that hinder us from creatively addressing our worries and problems. Instead of claiming our freedom by dulling our senses, the Lord invites us this Advent to entrust to him all our anxieties. Instead of becoming spiritually flabbier while wallowing in our worries, Jesus advises us to get up and to engage in spiritual exercises. Like athletes who prepare to compete by working out each day, so the saints worked out spiritually and that is why they had the strength to evangelize the world, lay down their lives in love, and serve the poor in love. So too with us. If we pray like a champion, we will love like a champion! In fact, in today’s reading from 1st Thessalonians, St. Paul rounds out the Lord’s Advent plan when he urges us to strengthen our hearts by growing in love for one another. Love for others is how we can lead lives that are pleasing in the sight of God and stand without fear before our Judge, “blameless in holiness”.
The point of Advent is not just to forget or bracket our anxieties. Rather, the Lord offers us genuine freedom from all sin and every form of distress, the very thing we pray at every Mass to be delivered from, just before we receive the Body and Blood of Christ in Holy Communion. The outgrowth of an avid life of prayer and our sharing in the Sacraments ought to be that we find ourselves relating to God and to one another in a new and better way. As we pray fervently and participate wholeheartedly in the Church’s Sacraments, we encounter Christ more and more deeply and he takes center stage in our hearts. We relate to Christ, not as a distant relative, but as the One who loves us like no other. As our relationship grows, the Lord gives us the freedom to entrust to him our sins, our weakness, our shame, our anxieties. Thus freed from those shackles, we are able to give ourselves more fully in love to our spouses, families, co-workers, and especially to the poor. We no longer labor under servile fear but rather in the freedom and joy of truth and love. Then, we can pray, as St. Theresa of Avila prayed, when she wrote: “Let nothing disturb you, nothing frighten you, all things are passing, God is unchanging.” – That, my friends, is real freedom! That, my friends, is the true Christmas spirit!
The Endgame
After Jesus describes the signs and portents at the end of the world, he says to us: “When these things begin to happen, stand up erect and raise your heads because your redemption is at hand.” If indeed we have attained the true freedom of God’s children, we will not try to run away or hide or cravenly to look for someone else to blame. Instead, we will run forth to meet the Christ with our righteous deeds, confident that we will be gathered at his right hand, worthy to possess his heavenly Kingdom.
May you have a truly blessed Advent!