First Sunday of Advent

Today is the First Sunday of Advent, the three week period that prepares us for the Solemnity of the Nativity, the birth of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. It is also a penitential time in which we examine ourselves in readiness to receive and welcome such a great gift from God.

In the preface of the Mass we look toward the two comings of Christ. The First which we will celebrate as having already taken place and the second which we anticipate at the judgment.

St. Paul in the second reading from Thessalonians refers to the second coming as the first reading from Jeremiah refers to the first, “the fulfillment of the promise”.

St Paul’s words are, “May the Lord make you increase and abound in love for one another and for all…So as to strengthen in your hearts, to be blameless in holiness before our God and Father at the coming of our Lord Jesus with all his holy ones.”

In the Holy Father’s four day visit to Turkey at the Nov, 2006, he met with the head of the Eastern Orthodox churches, with the president of the country and then out of the view of the world made a visit to Ephesus; to the house where we believe Mary lived out the remaining years of her life after her son’s death and resurrection in Jerusalem. Her hidden life awaiting the call to join her son Jesus.

As we begin Advent this year we call to mind that the incarnation has taken place. We celebrated it last March 25. The feast of the annunciation and in these past eight months the child Jesus has been developing in his virgin mother’s womb in preparation for birth into the world where the child will continue to grow and develop to maturity. The source of love and grace and life for us all.

On Friday of December 8, 2006 a holy day of obligation, we celebrate the feast of Mary’s Immaculate Conception. Her being conceived in her mother’s womb free from the stain of the affects of original sin in readiness in the future to receive the only Son of God the Father, through the power of the Holy Spirit.

The birth of Christ and the holy day of Christmas in the secular western world are two distinctly different occurrences. The later is a commercial process utilized by manufactures to tap into the need we have for love and acceptance. This season, however, finds people drinking more alcohol and being lonelier than at any other time of the year. The lights, the bells and the music remind people of happier times when the family was the most important and uniting influence in their lives. But this secular feast does not fulfill our hopes or satisfy our hearts. Many people are left empty listening instead to that forty year old song of Peggy Lee, “is that all there is”.

But , if instead, we concentrate on the birth of Christ and the gift of God the Father that came to the world so long ago we may begin to see the need each of us has to form the gift of ourselves as a perfect response in love to the love of God. A love that never stops giving and never ends.

This is what Advent should be. A time to prepare, to get ready the gift that will please Jesus the most.

On Christmas day the blessed Virgin Mary will rise up to our gaze her new born son with his tiny arms out stretched to us. What will we have to give to him and his mother in return? We must not appear empty handed or disappoint either one of them.

In the secular holiday there is the expectation that the exchange of material gifts will bring us the fulfilling love that we hope for every day of the year. But we find ourselves still empty because we have, perhaps, not really given ourselves and have not been prepared nor more ready to open ourselves or our hearts to receive Christ, gift of love.

In the days ahead we will hear of the Magi. The three kings from the East who brought gifts for the new born king, gold, Frankincense and myrrh, Gifts with a reason and purpose behind them. Gold for a king, frankincense for a priest who offers sacrifice and myrrh for one who is himself the sacrifice and is to be buried.

Chris’s love must be recognized for what it really is. A sacrifice, a sacrifice of this life for the sake of the life to come which only comes to us to the extent that we give up ourselves and our desires and open ourselves to Christ and to others. That is the gift par excellence, the pearl of great price. That is the joy of holiness.

We should remember that in this Advent season we are preparing to celebrate the coming of Christ that has already taken place as well as contemplating the coming of the Lord at the judgment.

We recall St. Paul’s words to us today, “May the Lord make you increase and abound in love for one another and for all… 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.”

In preparation of our hearts to welcome Christ we must not neglect our devotion to Mary. It was Mary who was selected to be the new sinless Eve so as to bring forth the new man, the sinless Adam, Christ. Mary did not turn aside the invitation but said yes. She cooperated with the great grace that was afforded her, and she remained faithful in the carrying out of God’s plan. Many things she did not understand but she persevered in faith to the end.

The Child Jesus was formed in his mother’s womb in the nine month period, just as we must be formed into Christ over the course of our lives, by saying yes, by cooperating with God’s grace and by persevering in faith over the course of that time.

At Christmas do not merely give an ordinary gift to Jesus and his mother. But be ready through prayer and the making of good confession, to give your whole self without holding anything back and with the words of the prophet be able to say, “Here I am Lord, I come to do your will.”