Fr. Pat's Blog

1^st Sunday of Advent

Today marks the first Sunday of Advent. We begin a new Church year. Ancient Biblical tradition invites us all to turn our gaze towards the East and wait for the new dawn. It is time to cast aside all our distractions and look with focus and intent. Paul says in his letter today “it is the hour now for you to awake from sleep.” What sleep is Paul talking about? It is the sleep of mundane routine life. He is talking about the things we engage in every day. We say about them, “I could do it in my sleep.” Something new and exciting is about to happen to our lives and we want to be wide awake when that comes. That which is exciting is the coming of the Messiah. People are talking about it everywhere. Isaiah gets in on the act by inviting us to climb up to the highest mountain so we can get a clear view of what is to come. Those who enjoy a bit of sword fighting, spearing and trouble making need to put down their weapons of war. This is not the time for one nation to rise up against another. The gospel is ominous full of warning. We need to stay awake because the Son of Man is coming at an hour we do not know. We don’t want to mess with Him. If we don’t pay attention someone will be taken suddenly and the other will be left.
We are very familiar with the themes of Advent. They invite us to pay attention and get ready for the great event. We are about to celebrate the coming of the Messiah and it is fitting that we prepare ourselves well. We need to do a bit of cleaning up. We need to get our house ready for our special guest. (For those of you not too bright, the house I am referring to is I myself. I need to prepare for the coming of the Lord into my own life.) The feasting time will come soon enough. Half the fun is waiting. The anticipation is very exciting. Just because Corporate America has jumped the gun it doesn’t meant we have to do likewise. It is only a matter of time when Commercial America will join Christmas in July to Christmas in December. We will be listening to Christmas music in the Mall for six months of the year. What a terrible prospect. Why do we allow those people to take advantage of everything we do for monetary gain? There must be some Congressman we can write to. We the Christian people of the world should be allowed to celebrate our Advent without the intrusion of commercialism in all its forms. We just want to take a little bit of time to get spiritually ready. We will get our Advent booklet from the church so we can read a bit of it every day. Maybe we’ll go to confession. Maybe we will give alms to the poor. Maybe we will attend some of the Church celebrations this year. Whatever it takes to make this season meaning full would be nice.