First Sunday of Advent

This weekend we celebrate the first Sunday of Advent. In four weeks’ time we will celebrate Christmas and the coming of the Son of God among us as our prophet, our priest, and our king.  But to know who Jesus is, we must recall the faith of the people who looked out for him, and said he was coming to us. We look to the writings of the Old Testament to see what they say about the promise of God to visit his people  and during these coming weeks we will read much from the prophet Isaiah; we also think about all those who prepared the way for his coming and we recall the work of John the Baptist; as we reflect on how the Christ comes to birth in our world we also remember Mary whose faith and acceptance of the invitation of God inaugurated the whole Christian era.

This week’s Gospel calls us to “Stay awake”, to be vigilant and attentive to the signs of the times so that we do not miss the moment when God breaks into human history once again. The God who came among us is still among us. In Advent we try to see the reign of God more clearly so that we may be totally caught up in God’s action in the world as we wait for the final manifestation of God’s glory. We continually strive to work for a peaceful and just world, so that Christ may have room in that world, our homes and our hearts.  Moreover, we must change our conduct abandoning the works of darkness and put on the ‘armor of light’. (cf. Rm 13:12-14). Jesus, through the story in the parable this weekend  outlines the Christian life style that must not be distracted and indifferent but must be vigilant and recognize even the smallest sign of the Lord’s coming because we don’t know the hour in which He will arrive. (cf. Mt 24:39-44)

Saint John Henry Newman reminded us in a homily for the Advent Season:   “Advent is a time of waiting, it is a time of joy because the coming of Christ is not only a gift of grace and salvation it is also a time of commitment because it motivates us to live the present as a time of responsibility and vigilance. This ‘vigilance’ means the urgency of an industrious, living ‘wait’ We need to take Advent seriously, for the coming of the Lord will be not just a beautiful Christmas, but the actual day of judgment. At the beginning of each church year we are reminded that Jesus the Christ is present as a person to us.  When we think that his presence is something so exalted as to be beyond our own experience, we are reminded that he was born in the lowest of places, a common stable.  Remember who the first people to visit Jesus were the shepherds.   

The real tragedy of this season is that we have been programmed to believe it’s all about buying things, about gift giving, about Non stop activity that leaves us exhausted and happy it’s all over the time Christmas arrives.  So then as a result of all that we forget the 12 days of Christmas and dump the tree and the lights as we wait for Valentine’s Day. So what are we really waiting for this Advent?  Is  it all the presents and the comings and goings that families and friend’s bring over Christmas or is it the birthday of Jesus the Son of god our saviour who gives the true meaning to our Advent preparations and our Christmas celebrations. On this first Sunday of Advent we are invited to renew our hope in God and his promises. We are waiting and hoping for the coming of the Lord in our midst, to Lead us to a great and wonderful future. As the first reading tells us let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the Temple of the God of Jacob that he may teach us his ways this Advent time.

CHRIST THE KING

This Sunday we celebrate the feast of Christ the King the last Sunday of the Churches year. The Feast of Christ the King was established by Pope Pius XI in 1925 as an antidote to secularism, this was a way of life that leaves God out of a person’s thinking and has us living life as if God did not exist as we all know God does exist and we have seen this through the example of  so many people throughout history right down to ourselves. The readings this Sunday come as a sort of final warning. Malachi pulls no punches. Those who have chosen to live their life harming others will disappear without a trace. Those whose lives are centered on themselves in self-pride that considers no one their equal will face the truth of their lives and the way they lived them. Our Gospel reading for this Sunday has Jesus on the cross between the two thieves.

The cross reveals both the folly of sin and the toll that sin takes on our world where the innocent suffer cruelly at the hands of the powerful.  The cross also reveals God’s profound and undying love for us. Even Jesus’ crucifixion did not turn God away from us. God loves us, even when we do our worst. We have a God who is not indifferent to our suffering, indeed, he has entered into our pain and the horror of death for us. Christ the King does not condemn those who murder him; while he passes a merciful judgment on those who turn to him in sorrow and need. Remember the thief who asked Jesus to remember him in his kingdom Jesus told him that he would be with him in paradise. The gospel shows us that all through his life and right up to his death Christ has taken a place with the suffering, poor, sick, the defeated and the outcast who cry out to God. In our midst he stays faithful to us, no matter how far we have attempted to go down the road on our own; or how far life and its attractions  have driven us.

 As we celebrate Christ as our King we are asked to embrace the cross and walk in the victory of the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords. What began as a humble event with the birth of Jesus in the stable has changed the world.  As we prepare for Christmas during Advent that begins next Sunday  are we with Jesus and his call to us to be his light to the people around us? Whenever we show the light of Christ to the world, the Kingdom of God breaks into it. Whenever we are moved by the Spirit to respond to need, to work for justice, to transform and heal our society, the grace of God becomes clearly visible in what we do and say.  We can be sure that nobody there on the first Good Friday  thought they were witnessing the death of a great King.  The kind of kingship Jesus spoke can only be learned among the poor and needy and those whom the world has forgotten. For our king is the servant of the poor and we only belong to his court when we become servants of the poor. let’s not forget the beautiful truths of faith that we have learned, let’s continue to learn more about them, celebrate them, live them, and pass them on. So that when people look at us, they will see that in our daily lives and dealings with those around us  “Christ is King to the glory of God our father.”

33rd Sunday in ordinary time

In November as people of faith we pray for the dead in many Churches we will have our annual masses and ceremonies of remembrance for the parishioners who have died in the last year  may all of them rest in peace and their families be consoled by the love of the communities where they are. This weekend we also remember all those who died in the Wars as we celebrate remembrance Sunday. As we come to the end of the Liturgical Year we listen to Jesus’s words concerning the end times. The vision of the future in the Gospel Reading for this Sunday doesn’t look very appealing. The bad news is delivered first of all. Jesus imagines a time of terror and trouble and persecution ‘Nation will fight against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be great earthquakes and plagues and famines and there; there will be fearful sights and great signs from heaven.

Jesus says, “These things must happen.” Then there will be cosmic upheavals: “the sun will be darkened, the moon will lose its brightness, the stars will come falling from heaven”. After this catalogue of disaster there is the good news. Jesus looks beyond the time of distress to the time, when the Son of Man will gather the scattered people of God to himself.  Jesus sees beyond suffering and persecution to a future of peace with God . God does not call us to be anxious, but he calls us to confidence in the message we hear in the gospel and asks us to proclaim it in our lives so  that we will remain in his light. Christ remains our high priest who has offered himself for the forgiveness of our sins. God knows what it is to be human. The Lord calls us to stay awake amidst the distractions of life, so that we will recognize him when he comes again. St. John of the Cross wrote, “When evening comes, you will be examined in love” (Sayings, 60). We prepare for the day of Christ’s coming by first recognizing him in our brothers and sisters and by knowing him in his word and his sacraments.

False securities and shallow guarantees will not sustain us in times of strife and testing and there are many of these in our lives these days. God alone must be our hope. God’s ways must be our ways, so that when our securities and misplaced confidences fail us we can turn our eyes to the saving light of Gods love. Let us keep vigilant watch and not be anxious for that day when God who is love calls us and looks at us with love and says Your endurance has won you your life.’

32Nd Sunday of Ordinary Time

This week we have just celebrated the feast of All Saints as well as All Souls, during November we pray for all those who have died. Members of our families our friends as well as all those holy souls in purgatory who have no one to pray for them. In the course of his public ministry Jesus faces a variety of groups and individuals critical of his beliefs and values. In this Sundays Gospel story the Sadducees pit their fundamentalist interpretation of the Law against what they regard as an unorthodox innovation, belief in the resurrection. They attempt to ridicule the resurrection of the dead by recalling the Mosaic Law on marriage. The Sadducees develop an example to the point of absurdity in instancing seven brothers each of whom marries the same woman, but each of whom dies childless. None of the brothers has proved husband in terms of producing an heir: in that case, the Sadducees ask whose wife would the woman be in the resurrection? In his reply Jesus makes it clear that there is no comparison between human life, shared by all, and the resurrection, shared by those who are children of God. Jesus makes the distinction between the people of this age who live a life peculiar to this time, and the just who are resurrected from the dead into a new life in the kingdom of god.

 Moses called God the God of Abraham, of Isaac and of Jacob. If the Lord is God of the living, then he will continue to be so to those who have died. Relationship with God does not end in death: to God all people are alive.  Perhaps the Sadducees’ method of argument sound familiar. There are many who belittle people rather than consider if there is any truth to their beliefs. Most of us have experienced this when we profess our faith. Someone says to us “So, you believe in the Trinity, prove it. So you believe in the spiritual, prove it. Your Catholicism, your Christianity, is just child’s stories. Jesus did not back down he knew that he had come to do the will of the Father in doing that He would suffer being scorned by others for his faith. He would be crucified for his faith. Because so many around us do not respect our faith, or respect us as Christians or as Catholics, we are often called to put up with their scorn for the sake of the kingdom of God. Pope St. John Paul told us from the very beginning of his papacy, “Do not be afraid.” We cannot be afraid of what others are thinking about us. We cannot be afraid of what others might say about us. We cannot be afraid of what others might do to us. Our only fear should be the fear that we cave into the world, reject Christ, or push Him aside in any way. With St. Paul, we pray, “May the Lord Jesus Christ Himself and God the Father who loves us and gives us everlasting encouragement and hope, fortify our hearts and strengthen us.

Let us pray that Jesus’ compassion and mercy will touch the people of this world that God loves. Let us pray that when that touch is to come from the community of faith, from the Church, from us, that we may respond as Jesus did.  Let us pray that all people would see one another as valued human beings, so that people of all races and backgrounds would be respected, so that the peace of the Kingdom of God would transcend all barriers of nations and cultures and unite a fractured, broken world.