By Fr Antony Christy, SDB.
THE WORD AND THE SAINT – First Thursday of Advent
December 07, 2023 – Remembering St. Ambrose of Milan
Isaiah 26: 1-6; Matthew 7: 21, 24-27
Expecting Reign is not passively waiting, we have said that an umpteen times already these days! The Word reiterates its again today. The Reign of God is coming, the Reign of God is near, yes the Reign of God is close at hand, but it is not as if some one somewhere prepares it for us and comes to install it one fine day! Jesus made that very clear: Reign of God is amidst you (Lk 17:21), and it is we who have to build it up, build it up on the Rock that is our Lord.
What is the means to build up the Reign of God? Listen to the Lord and live according to his words – that is the way to build on the Rock, for the rock is the Word, the Will of God, the Lord himself. When we say that the Reign of God has to be built up, we do no mean, we need to go out there and start building it up – for instance, in terms of the services we set up, the institutions we plant and the churches we raise. The primary sense and the fundamental means of building it up, is from within.
Our interior lives are the bulding blocks, the single bricks out of which the Reign of God can be built. Yes, we need to work towards building up the Reign of God, but beginning from within each of us. We need to build up within us, convictions, outlooks, criteria, priorities and mindset that are Reign-worthy. That is the beginning of the building up of the Reign.
Ambrose, Bishop and Doctor of the Church, was a great builder – builder of the community. He built up around him an entire community of faith in Milan and even today the Ambrosian Community of Catholics are a splendid children of God, setting a solid example to the rest of the Universal Church. They built themselves up and in doing so they built up the Church.
Today we are called build ourselves up on the Rock, and we shall certainly be building up the entire Body of Christ, the Church which is a sign and the sacrament of the Reign!
Fr Antony Christy is a Salesian Priest from 2005, who has a Masters in Philosophy (specialisation in Religion) and a Masters in Theology (Specialisation in Catechetics). He has completed his doctoral research in Theology at Salesian Pontifical University, Rome. Walking with the Young towards a World of Peace and Dialogue is the passion that fires him on.