November 30^th 2014.  First Sunday of Advent

Gospel: Mark 13:33-37

­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­Translated from a homily by Don Fabio Rosini, broadcast on Vatican Radio

Don Fabio’s reflection follows the Gospel reading ...

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GOSPEL Mark 13:33-37

Jesus said to his disciples:

‘Be on your guard, stay awake, because you never know when the time will come.

It is like a man travelling abroad: he has gone from home, and left his servants in charge, each with his own task; and he has told the doorkeeper to stay awake.

So stay awake, because you do not know when the master of the house is coming, evening, midnight, cockcrow, dawn;

if he comes unexpectedly, he must not find you asleep.

And what I say to you I say to all: Stay awake!’

The Gospel of the Lord: Praise to you Lord Jesus Christ

Kieran’s summary . . . The Gospel warns us to be watchful for the coming of the Lord. Does this mean that we have to be super-alert and in a constant state of tension? No, the watchfulness that the Lord wishes of us is of a different kind. Advent is a time to be vigilant in the sense that I desperately need the Lord to visit my house. When I try to run my house by myself, then I make my house – my body and my life – into a den of thieves. John Paul II said that the tragedies, wars and concentration camps of the twentieth century all came from the fact that humanity exalted its own autonomy and did not allow the Lord to be in command of its house. The same is true for you and me. The first reading tells us that without the Lord we are like people unclean, like withered leaves that blow away in the wind. But when we welcome the Lord, we become the clay in the hands of the master potter who forms us into objects of great beauty. This is the watchfulness that we need in Advent! It is not a time to fear the coming of the Lord in the way that a criminal might fear the arrival of the police! It is a time to be vigilant in the sense of doing everything we can to allow the Lord to enter our lives, filling them with meaning and joy.

Advent is about being watchful? But what kind of watchfulness do we need? Like someone who is super-alert and saturated with caffeine, or a different sort of watchfulness?

Advent is the time of preparation for the coming of the Lord. As we say in the Creed, the Lord will come definitively at the end of time to judge the living and the dead. Sunday’s Gospel warns us to pay attention and stay awake, for we do not know when the master of the house will return. This warning puts us under a certain amount of tension and stress. During life, there are often moments when the Lord shakes us up and makes his presence felt, when changes come and the Lord visits us. A superficial reading of this text leads us to conclude that the message is one of being watchful. Like someone who is saturated with caffeine and refuses to allow the minimum detail to escape his attention! But what is the motive for this watchfulness? What is the manner of the Lord’s coming come at the end of time? Why in Advent do we orient ourselves towards the end times?

The first reading from Isaiah tells us exactly the kind of watchfulness that is needed in Advent!

The first reading from the last part of the book of Isaiah gives us a beautiful key for approaching this Gospel. It speaks of a cry that arises from the people of God. They have returned to Israel after the Exile. Even though they have reacquired their lands, they are destitute and in a precarious situation, a small weak group surrounded by more powerful kingdoms. The prophet cries out, “You, Lord, yourself are our Father, Our Redeemer is your ancient name.
 . . . No ear has heard, no eye has seen any god but you act like this for those who trust him. You guide those who act with integrity and keep your ways in mind. You were angry when we were sinners; we had long been rebels against you. We were all like men unclean, all that integrity of ours like filthy clothing. We have all withered like leaves and our sins blew us away like the  wind. No one invoked your name or roused himself to catch hold of you. For you hid your face from us and gave us up to the sower of our sins. And yet, Yahweh, you are our Father; we the clay, you the potter, we are all the work of your hand.” This passage contains the key to the kind of watchfulness that is needed in Advent! We desperately need the Lord’s visitation. His coming is not like the arrival of the police or army at your house. He is not a robber who comes and takes unexpectedly. He is our dear master who protects and nourishes us! He is the only one who governs our house well.

The twentieth century shows us what humanity is like when God is not made welcome in its house

Without the Lord, what are we? What is the human being when he is not watchful for the presence of the Lord, when he considers the visit of the Lord to be an intrusion or imposition on his freedom and autonomy? St John Paul the Great, at the beginning of the new millennium, spoke of the state of humanity during the 20^th century. It was the epoch in which the human person exalted his own autonomy to extent of gravely dehumanising entire populations, a century stained by torture, displacement, the horrors of the concentration camps. During this period of loss of beauty and the humiliation of the human person, we continued to pursue ideals of autonomy and progress, but everything revolved around the human being detached from his maker. Today humanity continues to experience tragedies of this kind.

When I try to make my house my own, I turn it into a den of thieves. But when I welcome the Lord into my house and put him in command, then my life is transformed into something beautiful

What does all of this mean? Quite simply that we need God! We need him to be in command of our lives! Isaiah says, “Why, Yahweh, do you leave us to stray from your ways and harden our hearts against fearing you? Return, for the sake of your servants, the tribes of your inheritance. Oh that you would tear the heavens open and some down - at your Presence, such as no one has ever heard of before.”  The importance of Advent is that it is a time to allow ourselves to be visited by God, to be “rediscovered” by God. He wants to erupt into our lives and we need to throw open wide the doors of our existence to him. Come Lord Jesus, my house is yours! When I try to make it my own, I destroy it and turn it into a den of thieves. I make it into a place without direction or beauty. When you return to my house, I discover my mission of service and the meaning of my life. When you come, all is well again. Let us open ourselves this Advent and read the Gospel in all of its positivity. What is more beautiful than the arrival of a welcome guest, the return of someone that we love?