By Fr Antony Christy, SDB –
November 29, 2020: 1st Sunday of Advent
Isaiah 63: 16b-17, 19, 64:2-7; 1 Corinthians 1: 3-9; Mark 13: 33-37
Happy New Year! This Sunday marks the first day of the New Liturgical Year that we begin. On this beautiful and happy day, we begin a fresh journey and the first phase of this journey is going to be a preparation to receive the King! And what does the Word say, right at the outset? It says: WATCH.
W: Wake Up
It is a moment to wake up! The call to wake up rings all over the readings today. Let us get in touch with an ordinary experience of our’s. Which is difficult: to wake up from sleep or to decide to get up from bed. We wake up, but not really; the sleep lingers on! That is a risky terrain, we miss a lot in that zone! Hence the call is to wake up; to decide to get up, shake oneself up, open one’s eyes fully and see that it is time to begin, time to journey on, time to start again.
Between the resolutions we make and the concrete realisation of it, between the good will that we have for so many things in life and the everyday living out of the same, between the high ideals that we keep speaking of and the daily values that determine our decision making, there is a wide gap! A discrepancy that makes our life so flimsy and fragile. Should we not at every step of our journey with the Lord, reduce this gap and keep growing towards that integrity of life? That is the first call…to wake up to see that gap!
A: Awaken Others
Your life is not lived alone! Your faith has to be lived in communion, in relationships of love and unity. Awakening each other is a special call that is given to us, but it requires that we are awake. But how do we awaken others, if we ourselves are asleep, or half asleep! That cannot work. Do you remember that some five years ago, Holy Father announced a year for persons living their Consecrated Life? The call he had given was: TO WAKE UP THE WORLD. He explained it immediately, that it would first of all mean they wake themselves up, reach out to the others and share the experience of being awake and thus make the whole humanity awakened! Advent is also the time to call out to each other, remind each other and journey together.
Waking up the other is not merely giving command to the other to rise, but it is more sharing my experience of being awake. There are many wake up calls… the climate crisis, the pandemic now, the economic meltdown, the political stand offs… all these are wake up calls, efforts to wake up the other. In our personal lives too, there are wake up calls – may be a fight with a spouse, a misunderstanding with children or parents, a tiff with a friend…these could be moments to wake up the other! But I need to check first, am I really awake, to awaken the other?
T: Thirst for the Lord
The first reading presents us a model of thirsting for the coming of the Lord. The prophet yearns for God’s coming and wishes that it happens right away. In various ways he expresses the longing for the Lord, the Father, the Potter to come and shepherd us, protect us and mould us. The prophet seems to blame the Lord, that the Lord gave us up to sin! In a way it is true, as some young friends ask: why did God give me the possibility of choosing sin? God could have made me in such a way that I always choose good! Ah! that is one tricky type of reasoning. But, let us beware – it is the freedom that makes us Children of God. If not we would be like any other beings: animals or plants. We are in the image and likeness of God, and freedom to choose is a key element of that image! But what matters in that choice is, how much do I thirst for God?
The thirst for God has to be expressed in our concrete seeking for the Lord. We need to seek the Lord, on a daily basis: in those who are around us, in the situations that surround us, in anxious faces and hungry stomachs, in hearts longing for love those darkened with hatred…we are to dig deep and look for the face of the Lord! He is coming; indeed He has come! It is upto us to unveil the Lord’s presence amidst us.
C: Cleanse yourself
To seek the Lord, it goes without saying, is a moment of cleansing, a moment of self purification. It is only through this purification that we can really get to see the Lord. The Lord is near and we need to feel the urgency of purifying ourselves. What a gift we have in these four weeks, if only we use them to the full!
Here is a suggestion: Pick up one element a week and begin working on them; report the progress to the Lord at the end of the week and start on another element in the new week! That would be a great journey and that is the journey of self purification that the Lord invites us to. And by the way, have you made your Confession yet! Decide on that…a lovely way to mark this Advent journey: a loving celebration of the Sacrament of Reconciliation.
H: Hold firm to the Lord
In the second reading, St. Paul hits the nail on its head: ‘God is faithful’, he declares! Yes, in our yearning to behold the revelation of Lord Jesus Christ in our own life and in our times, God is faithful. The point is we need to hold firm to the Lord. Perseverance is a rare virtue. We are good willed, and spirit filled…but for only a while. That would surely not suffice. We need to persevere in our good will, we need to hold on to the choice for the Lord, we cannot give up even when we face all the possible odds.
On this journey we begin today too…let us stay firm and hold on to the Lord and the Lord will see us through all moments of crisis and confusion. All that we need to do is, make a pact with the Lord and journey these days close to the Lord…and we will see, we would have reached somewhere by the end of this season!
We begin a journey today, to WATCH – to Wake up, to Awaken, to Thirst, to Cleanse and to Hold on to the Lord who is to come. Let us embark upon this journey, together as a community of loving people, and feel close to each other and feel the Lord close to us. The Lord’s words resound today in the Gospel: What shall I say to you, I say to all: WATCH.
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 is currently pursuing 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.