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| “Holy Family with the Infant St John The Baptist” by Francesco de Mura, 1760s |
Reading 1: Jeremiah 33:14-16
The days are coming, says the
LORD,
when I will fulfill the
promise
I made to the house of Israel and Judah
In those days, in that time,
I will raise up for David a
just shoot ;
he shall do what is right and
just in the land.
In those days Judah
and Jerusalem
this is what they shall call
her:
“The LORD our justice.”
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Commentary on Jer
33:14-16
Jeremiah predicts
the continuation of the dynasty of King David (“I
will raise up for David a just shoot”) in fulfillment of the promise made (the prophecy of Nathan in 2 Samuel 7:11-16) To contemporaries of the period this would have announced
the restoration of Judah and Jerusalem. This
selection is the second time the Prophet has predicted the coming of the
Messiah; the first being in Jeremiah
23:5-6. This prediction, fulfilled
in Jesus, is one reason so much stress is laid on Jesus’ genealogy.
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Responsorial Psalm: Psalm 25:4-5, 8-9, 10, 14
R. (1b) To you, O Lord, I lift my soul.
Your ways, O LORD, make known
to me;
teach me your paths,
Guide me in your truth and
teach me,
for you are God my savior,
and for you I wait all the
day.
R. To you, O Lord, I lift
my soul.
Good and upright is the LORD;
thus he shows sinners the
way.
He guides the humble to
justice,
and teaches the humble his
way.
R. To you, O Lord, I lift
my soul.
All the paths of the LORD are
kindness and constancy
toward those who keep his
covenant and his decrees.
The friendship of the LORD is
with those who fear him,
and his covenant, for their
instruction.
R. To you, O Lord, I lift
my soul.
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Commentary on Ps 25:4-5,
8-9, 10, 14
In this hymn of
thanksgiving we hear the petition we have all made many times. In paraphrase it is “God tell me what you
want me to do. Tell me how to follow
you.” It goes on to say how blessed are
those who have found that path.
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Reading II: 1 Thessalonians 3:12—4:2
Brothers and sisters:
May the Lord make you
increase and abound in love
for one another and for all,
just as we have for you,
so as to strengthen your
hearts,
to be blameless in holiness
before our God and Father
at the coming of our Lord
Jesus with all his holy ones. Amen.
Finally, brothers and
sisters,
we earnestly ask and exhort
you in the Lord Jesus that,
as you received from us
how you should conduct
yourselves to please God
and as you are conducting
yourselves
you do so even more.
For you know what
instructions we gave you through the Lord Jesus.
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Commentary on 1
Thes 3:12—4:2
St. Paul speaks
to the Thessalonians about encouraging their already fervent love for one
another and the Lord. This selection
(4:1ff) begins the Apostle’s exhortation on holiness and chastity. He has warned them earlier that they will be
facing resistance and that it is now necessary to strengthen themselves for
what is to come.
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Gospel: Luke 21:25-28, 34-36
Jesus said to his disciples:
“There will be signs in the
sun, the moon, and the stars,
and on earth nations will be
in dismay,
perplexed by the roaring of
the sea and the waves.
People will die of fright
in anticipation of what is
coming upon the world,
for the powers of the heavens
will be shaken.
And then they will see the
Son of Man
coming in a cloud with power
and great glory.
But when these signs begin to
happen,
stand erect and raise your
heads
because your redemption is at
hand.
“Beware that your hearts do
not become drowsy
from carousing and
drunkenness
and the anxieties of daily
life,
and that day catch you by
surprise like a trap.
For that day will assault
everyone
who lives on the face of the
earth.
Be vigilant at all times
and pray that you have the
strength
to escape the tribulations
that are imminent
and to stand before the Son
of Man.”
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Commentary on Lk 21:25-28,
34-36
Jesus again finds it necessary to remind his disciples not to become
complacent in their practice of the faith. It is one of his sternest warnings
that the end will come without notice and judgment will be immediate. The final
verses of this same Gospel reading concluded the Liturgical Year; having been
used the previous day (Saturday of the 34th Week in Ordinary Time)
and is repeated to begin the Advent season.
This duel use emphasizes that we celebrate not only the coming of Christ
in his nativity but look forward to his second coming in Glory.
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Homily:
I know there are many folks
in our community who actually enjoy shopping.
Personally I do not. In fact I
have a ritual at this time of year. I
get up at 2:00 AM the weekend before Christmas (this year that will probably be
December 22nd). I will go to
Meijer’s which is open all night and spend a maximum of an hour scurrying up
and down nearly empty isles and return home before 5:00. I have never seen the attractions for mobbing
a store for that “great deal.” Because
of that I had a fleeting thought this year as I watched what has come to be
known as “Black Friday Creep.” That’s
the affliction many retailers have as they try to attract those die hard
shoppers to their stores earlier to gain a larger share of their shopping
budget.
My thought was this; what if
we moved the beginning of Advent up before the Thanksgiving holiday so our
spiritual preparation for Christmas would coincide with our thoughts of what to
buy for whom. I don’t think the Church will go for the idea – the Thirty-fourth
Week in Ordinary Time is too important, plus, of course, it is tradition.
While I make this suggestion
in a tongue and cheek way, there is a serious point here. The Advent season is intended to be analogous
to a child’s gleeful anticipation on Christmas Eve. From a spiritual perspective, our Advent
Season is intended to rekindle our anticipation for Christ’s ultimate victory,
coming in glory robed in light by reminding us of his enigmatic first coming
for our salvation.
I have marveled before that
for all of our reflection and prayer; for all of our questioning and study, we
find that in the millennia since Christ waked the earth as man, others,
graciously endowed with the gift of faith have reflected more deeply and
expressed more clearly the ideals the Lord saw fit to impart. In this case I
offer the words of St.
Cyril of Jerusalem, Bishop and Doctor of the Church who served us until his
death in 386 AD as an example:
We do not preach only one coming of Christ, but a
second as well, much more glorious than the first. The first coming was marked
by patience; the second will bring the crown of a divine kingdom.
In general, what relates to our Lord Jesus Christ has
two aspects. There is a birth from God before the ages, and a birth from a
virgin at the fullness of time. There is a hidden coming, like that of rain on
fleece, and a coming before all eyes, still in the future.
At the first coming he was wrapped in swaddling
clothes in a manger. At his second coming he will be clothed in light as in a
garment. In the first coming he endured the cross, despising the shame; in the
second coming he will be in glory, escorted by an army of angels.
We look then beyond the first coming and await the
second. At the first coming we said: Blessed
is he who comes in the name of the Lord.
At the second we shall say it again; we shall go out with the angels to meet
the Lord and cry out in adoration: Blessed is he who comes in the name of
the Lord. (From the Catechetical
Lectures of St. Cyril of Jerusalem)
St. Cyril reminds us, as does
the Gospel from St. Luke that the Kingdom of God has not yet been fulfilled and
while we most commonly use this Advent season to anticipate the triumph of the
manger, we need also to be vigilant in our faith as the Lord’s second coming
needs to find us diligent in our faith.
What then will our Advent
celebration look like this year? Will
there be enough thought and prayer over the Lord’s arrivals to off-set the
secular quality that has taken over the public notion of this season? Will we be able to remain focused on the
sense of impending liberation from the bonds of sin in order to avoid the sins
this secular season seems to bring out in many – greed, avarice, gluttony, and
indifference?
This season, perhaps more
than any in modern history, will be the “Holiday Season”, not the Christmas
season and Advent will be seen as an anachronism. The MAJORITY of our fellow citizens prefer
that we not emphasize the “reason for the season” as the old saying goes. They prefer that it be a time of fun and good
cheer; a time for excesses of all sorts, not the least of which is spending on
meaningless gifts for the sake of spending.
How are we to avoid being
sucked into this sense of self-service? Well, first we remind ourselves daily
of what we look forward to. There are
some excellent aids developed especially for this and they have traditionally
been available to anyone who wants one.
This year we are also given a special prayer to start us off from none
other than St. Paul. He writes to the
Thessalonians a prayer that could have been directed at each of us:
Brothers and sisters:
May the Lord make you increase and
abound in love
for one another and for all,
just as we have for you,
so as to strengthen your hearts,
to be blameless in holiness before our
God and Father
at the coming of our Lord Jesus with all
his holy ones. Amen.
At the heart of this prayer
is the one key command that will keep us focused on what is important - love one another. It was the Lord’s commandment to us and the
one he exemplified as he came to the humble manger, born of our Blessed Mother.
If we can keep alive the
memory of that command and how it came to us, we will triumph over all attempts
to pervert the season of joyous anticipation into something it was never
intended to be.
Pax
[2]
The picture is “Holy Family with the Infant St John The Baptist” by Francesco
de Mura, 1760s
[3]
The readings are taken from the New American Bible with the exception of the
Psalm and its response which were developed by the International Committee for
English in Liturgy (ICEL). This
re-publication is not authorized by USCCB and is for private use only.
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