First Sunday of Advent

Dominica I Adventus A

1 December 2019

 This annual season of Advent is a gift from the Church that reminds us to wait and to prepare.  Our waiting and preparation focuses on the two main arrivals of Jesus.  We wait and prepare to be renewed by the annual observance of Jesus’ first coming when he was born at Bethlehem.  We also wait and prepare for Jesus’ second coming, a coming which we begin to experience on the particular day of our death, which will be fulfilled more generally at the Second Coming at the end of time.  Both main arrivals of Jesus get our attention in Advent.  However, since the first coming at Jesus’ birth has already happened in history, we should give a priority to our preparation for the Second Coming, which we still await, and which will have specific consequences for us.  We give attention to the far more important preparation that each of us must do to be in a state of grace and ready to meet Jesus at his second advent, his second arrival; we do this all the more because in this time of year the Second Coming we await is so easily eclipsed by an exclusive focus on the first coming in that event we call Christmas.  If we lack this proper priority of focus on the Second Coming of Christ then the Scripture selections might seem odd to us this weekend.  We’re beginning Advent, the start of a new Church liturgical year, but we are still hearing about the end times and the final judgment when Christ will come again.  That might seem odd if our priorities are out of order.

 First, I want to dismiss a notion popular among some Christian groups that this Gospel passage speaks of the idea of the “rapture,” that is, a secret coming of the Lord when the faithful will be taken and others left behind.  This is not a Catholic teaching and is not supported in the Scriptures.  If you back up several verses from the start of the Gospel passage it is clear that the entire context here is that of the end times and the final judgment, in other words, not a secret coming of Christ, but the very public return of Christ to judge the living and the dead.  And in this proper context it is clear then why the analogy of the “days of Noah” serves here: Because that too was a very public, dramatic, and sudden end while people were occupying themselves about their daily, ordinary activities.

We begin this new Church liturgical year with a focus on our end.  It reminds me of a Latin motto: Finis noster, principium nostrum, which means “Our end is our beginning.”  The lesson transmitted in that motto is that we begin with our end in mind.  We have a clear goal.  And this translates into our spiritual life as well.  With a clear goal or end in mind, we can then travel toward that end with far greater focus and success.  The opposite is also true: If we travel without a goal or an end in mind, we are far more likely to wander aimlessly, and who knows where we might end up?  We believe that we will meet the Lord when he comes.  Our end or goal is that we should be ready for that meeting so that we can attain the offer of eternal life in his Kingdom.

 Jesus said in the gospel: “For you do not know on which day your Lord will come.”  One of the biggest mistakes we can make for our soul is to think we will always have enough time to get ready to meet the Lord.  If we think we know with certitude that death is still far away from us or that we can accurately predict its arrival and have time to be ready, we are making a risky gamble.  And even if death is still far away, such a gamble  will likely breed a laziness that will not bode well for our spiritual growth.  This attitude inclines us to become spiritually lazy, lax in confessing sin, absentminded in prayer, and unconverted to Jesus.  And then we are ripe for the plucking to spend eternity in the kingdom of darkness.

This is exactly what the gospel teaches us.  Jesus told his disciples that on the day of his coming people will be about ordinary tasks, thinking it just like any other day.  He compared it to the days of Noah when folks were about their ordinary lives, thinking nothing was different, and then came the flood.  Jesus said, “they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, up to the day Noah entered the ark.  They did not know until the flood came and carried them all away.”  Some activities are good and some are bad.  Some lead us to Christ.  Some are sinful, making us poor friends of Christ.  And some sins lead us to Hell.  What things are on the list of your activities when you examine your life?  Which are good?  Which are sinful?  Which things need to be removed so that you are not like someone in the days of Noah, likely to be swept away in a sudden flood?  What things need to change so that you are not like someone asleep as his house is broken into?  In the second reading St. Paul spoke of some examples: works of darkness, he called them, orgies, drunkenness, promiscuity, lust, rivalry, jealousy, the desires of the flesh.

 Jesus says, “you also must be prepared, for at an hour you do not expect, the Son of Man will come.”  In Advent we prepare ourselves to more sincerely celebrate Christ’s birth.  Advent also focuses our attention to a task we must never set aside: namely, to prepare to meet the Lord when he comes.  We will not know for sure when that will be.  So, we can only prepare and live each day ready to meet him.  St. Augustine wrote: “Let us not resist his first coming, so that we may not dread the second” (Ps. 95, 14. 15: CCL 39, 1351-1353).  The Lord Jesus loves us and has come to save us.  Our preparation must be to love him in return and always the more.  We must love him more than our sins.  More than works of darkness.  We must love him more than worldly pursuits.  Then on whatever day he comes, we will be prepared to meet him, for the Judge who comes will be the One we have longed for with Advent focus and with loving hearts.