1st Sunday of Advent, Year A, 2016

May God at the beginning of this holy season of Advent and the beginning of the Liturgical Year bestow on you the Grace to put on Christ, that is to say, to have the same attitude and sentiment, as Christ had and to be ready to do the will of God in all aspects of your life as He did. Happy Season Advent! Happy Sunday! + John I. Okoye

                      DOCTRINE AND FAITH

(Isaiah 2,1-5; Romans 3,11-14; Matt 24, 37-44: 1^st  Sunday of Advent, Year A,  2016)

    With the celebration of the liturgical season of Advent we begin the liturgical year. The season of Advent prepares us for the celebration of Christmas. In the celebration of Advent, Christmas and other seasons of the liturgical year, we run the risk of considering them as mere nostalgic remembrance that has nothing to do with our actual present life. This can be avoided if we believe that Christ is not a personality of the past but the risen Lord, he is actively working in our lives today and in the Church. Our celebrations in the liturgical year will, therefore, be a memorial, that is  what Christ did in the past but will also be a re-enactment through which the risen Christ will enter into the lives of people with his grace and message of salvation. If this is the significance and scope of our celebrations in the liturgical year, then our celebration of Advent and Christmas, Easter, etc. is first of all  a memorial and bringing to mind the history of salvation wrought by Christ. But because he is the risen One and the living One, those celebrations of the past are renewed in the present: He is the one whose Advent (coming) is always being expected and desired consciously or unconsciously in the hearts of people. He is the one who is to come and who wants to come so as to insert himself into our life situation in order to liberate and save us. In Advent, therefore, we are not pretending to be expecting the Lord Jesus, we are truly and really waiting for his coming. Advent is not to be considered simply as the preparation for Christmas but should also be taken as the constant attitude of waiting for the coming of the Lord. Let us, therefore, dispose our hearts for his coming, to welcome his word and teaching, make room for him in our lives and create a new space for him in our public life. This our disposition in waiting for him and welcoming him in our lives and creating a public space for him looks forward to the future towards, the return of  the Lord at the end of our lives, the glorious coming back of the Lord for the final judgment and the final and complete realization of the plan of salvation. 

With what spirit, therefore, should we then live the season of Advent? What disposition of the mind should we have so that our lives become an expectation of/a waiting for the Lord? The readings provide some clear directives. In the first reading, Isaiah admonishes us to put away our instruments of violence and hatred, our swords and spears. We are to convert them into life-producing implements, into plows and pruning hooks. Jesus in the gospel reading insists on our keeping watch. We should not be distracted like the people of Noah’s time who were occupied with social events and  neither  know, read  the sings of time well , nor attune themselves to the will of God. They lost their lives in the deluge. So we are to watch and not fall asleep. Not falling asleep means paying attention to the right thing at the right moment, seeking for  what is really good for us and for other people, being generous, showing love to people, and living peacefully with people. Whoever is watchful and vigilant in this way will not be taken by surprise by the coming of the Son of Man at the end of life. In the second reading, Paul gives us a directive that is analogous to that of Christ, when he writes to the Christians of Rome: It is already the time to wake from sleep, because our salvation in nearer now than the time we became believers. Paul does not mean  waking from physical but  spiritual  sleep. This means that we are not to allow ourselves to be invaded and inundated by preoccupation for material things. We are not to be servants to material things, rather they are to be at the service of the most important aspect of our lives which is union with Christ. Paul goes on to teach: Put away the work of darkness and put on the amour of light. To put on the amour of light means to put on Christ. To put on Christ is to be identified with him, to have the same attitudes and sentiments which Christ had and live Christ’s life in one’s own flesh.
    Therefore we need to remind ourselves that our lives in this holy season of Advent must be lived in the actual world and circumstances we find ourselves. We are called in this season to journey deeper into our lives, not outside of them. That is where God is present. And if we are truly alert and attentive we will discover that it is in our own lives, as ordinary as we may think they are, that we will discover God. There we will come in contact with the Son of Man and anticipate the joys of the   end time.                            Happy Sunday! +John I. Okoye

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