THE WORD IN ADVENT
December 1, 2019: First Sunday of AdventIsaiah 2: 1-5; Romans 13:11-14a; Matthew 24:37-44
Let us begin with wishing each other a HAPPY NEW YEAR! A blessed New liturgical year begins today! And right at the outset the Lord invites us today, to RETURN to the REIGN of God.
The Church is the sign and the sacrament of the Reign of God. We are the Church, the people of God! Therefore we are expected to be the signs, the bearers, the heralds of the Reign of God today to the world. And how can this happen if we are not people of the Reign, if we are not mindful of ushering in the Reign of God here on earth, or making the Reign felt concretely, if we do not really believe in what Christ said: 'The Reign of God is amidst you!' (Lk 17:21) Hence, the invitation today, to return to the Reign is basically a wake up call, to wake up to the reality, to wake up to our real identity, to wake up to our dignity as the People of the Reign and to live up to that identity on a daily basis.
Advent is an invitation to CLIMB the mountain of the Lord... yes, to walk in the way of the Lord, to walk in the light of the Lord...as the first reading repeats in different words. It is fundamentally an invitiation to climb, and invitation to go up, in fact to grow up.
We are invited to go up, grow up, up above our tendencies of conflict and our feelings of rivalry and jealousy, above our petty considerations of ourselves and self centered striving for pleasure. It is a call to transcend what is popularly considered to be 'desirable' and reach the thinking worthy of the Reign - where swords can turn into ploughshares and spears into pruning hooks; where all manipulation and exploitation will give into genuine love and sincere goodwill for the other.
We are invited to go up, grow up, up above our tendencies of conflict and our feelings of rivalry and jealousy, above our petty considerations of ourselves and self centered striving for pleasure. It is a call to transcend what is popularly considered to be 'desirable' and reach the thinking worthy of the Reign - where swords can turn into ploughshares and spears into pruning hooks; where all manipulation and exploitation will give into genuine love and sincere goodwill for the other.
Advent is an invitation to CONDUCT ourselves worthy of the Reign. Put on the Lord Jesus Christ, invites us St. Paul. And in doing it, let's not wait for an opportune moment... for "now is the acceptable time, now is the time of salvation!" (2 Cor 6:2). Waiting for another moment will be a mistake, a blunder, a foolishness on our part.
Let us make the choice, a choice for God, a choice for the light, a choice for the good, a choice to be alert and aware, a choice to be the people of the Reign. Let us not blame the world, the society, the times... the choice is ours, and let us make it now - To accept the invitation of the Lord and "walk in the light of the Lord"(Is 2:5). We will find the joy that the Lord can give, the joy that the Light can shed, the joy that cannot be taken away from us, and in that joy we will find the Reign of God amidst us!
Let us make the choice, a choice for God, a choice for the light, a choice for the good, a choice to be alert and aware, a choice to be the people of the Reign. Let us not blame the world, the society, the times... the choice is ours, and let us make it now - To accept the invitation of the Lord and "walk in the light of the Lord"(Is 2:5). We will find the joy that the Lord can give, the joy that the Light can shed, the joy that cannot be taken away from us, and in that joy we will find the Reign of God amidst us!
Advent is an invitation to CELEBRATE the Reign of God amidst us, not waiting to reach the end but celebrating it all the way. Advent is not a preparation towards a celebration, it is a celebration in itself, a celebration of the peace, the prosperity, the security and the salvation that the Lord brings us. The invitation is to RETURN... yes, we are not going in search of the Reign somewhere in a far distant land; the Reign is not lost nor hidden, we are! We are lost, loitering around. We have forgotten out real destiny - the HOME. The Reign is our home and we need to return to it. We need to realise its presence right amidst us.
The Reign of God becomes a reality when we celebrate our love and joy together as brothers and sisters in the Lord. This is the meaning of the phrase, All the way to heaven is heaven! As we pray in the responsorial psalm, we are walking, walking towards the Reign, but all through the way we are called to celebrate the Reign of God..celebrate the love we share, celebrate the equality we have, celebrate the justice we stand for, celebrate the brotherhood and sisterhood that we work to establish forever - that celebration is returning to the Reign!
The Reign of God becomes a reality when we celebrate our love and joy together as brothers and sisters in the Lord. This is the meaning of the phrase, All the way to heaven is heaven! As we pray in the responsorial psalm, we are walking, walking towards the Reign, but all through the way we are called to celebrate the Reign of God..celebrate the love we share, celebrate the equality we have, celebrate the justice we stand for, celebrate the brotherhood and sisterhood that we work to establish forever - that celebration is returning to the Reign!