1st Sun of Advent: Year B, Dec 3, 2017

May you in this Sunday Eucharist be endowed with the graces you need to wait vigilantly by not only remaining resolute against the insinuations and ramified temptations of Satan, but also by having love for justice, and compassion for the poor, sick and the marginalised. Happy Sunday! 

+John I. Okoye

DOCTRINE AND FAITH

(Isaiah 63,16b-17.19b; 64,2-7; 1Cor 1,3-9; Mark 13,33-37: 1st Sun of Advent: Year B, Dec 3, 2017)

    The Season of Advent commences this Sunday; advent season shows immediate and future perspectives. The immediate perspective is to dispose us to celebrate worthily and solemnly the feast of Christmas that commemorates the historical coming of Christ, the incarnate Son of God into the world. The future perspective looks forward to the time when Christ will come again in his glory at the end of time. The Church may be considered as a community of believers marching towards God, a community in expectation, a community that waits vigilantly. The Christian, therefore, can be described as one who is anxiously waiting for the return of the Lord. We exclaim after Consecration: We proclaim your Death, O Lord, and profess your Resurrection until you come again.  Waiting is the prominent theme of today’s Sunday.

    The people of Israel of the first reading waited to be released of their sufferings. This reading from the book of Isaiah comes from the part written during the darkest days of Israel’s hope. In the last centuries before Christ, they returned to the Holy Land from Exile in Babylon full of hope and expectancy. They were hoping that the past glories of Israel would be restored and a second Eden would flourish in their favour. But they found a land depressed and impoverished, and constantly harassed by neighbouring tribes. Everything went wrong, and they at once came to a crushing sense of their own guilt and failure and a more tranquil hope in God’s care. Their adversity made them call God, Father, an appellative to God, which Jesus often used in the Gospels. If they waited patiently, in the end their ancient redeemer would tear the heavens open and come down in order to set them free. The hope in God’s transformation of their reality is vividly expressed in the words of the composer of this passage: And yet Lord, you are our Father; we the clay, you the potter, we are all the work of your hand.

    At the beginning of his first letter to the Corinthians, Paul showed how he  hope in Christ’s future coming. All the gifts and talents showered on the Christian community were but a pledge and a trust while they were waiting for our Lord Jesus Christ to be revealed. So the Corinthians were waiting for the second coming of Christ. In the gospel narrative, we still have people waiting for the return of the householder. Being vigilant while waiting was so important to Mark, the Evangelist, that he has to emphasise this theme with a parable. The protagonist of this parable was Jesus whose return was put in the present tense and not in the future: so stay awake, because you do not know when the master of the house is coming…

    The readings, therefore, suggest that we should wait with patient expectation for the day of fulfilment and peace, the Day of the Lord; we should wait in joyful hope that what will come will come soon. While we wait, we should faithfully fulfil our responsibilities. Hopeful believers do not wait idly. In the gospel story, the servants are for the work of his household. Paul reminds the Christian community that they have all the gifts and talents they need to live faithfully in this world, awaiting the coming of the Day of the Lord. We too, pregnant with expectation, should  do everything in preparation for the day of release, the day of return and the day of fulfilment. We must wait for that day, in partnership with others who wait. That we wait, does not mean showing disinterest in the affairs of the world and present realities; it is not evasion of our daily duties. On the contrary, it means showing a high sense of responsibility in the duties assigned to each of us as Christians in our various states and vocations of life, just as the master of the house assigned specific duties to the servants according to their capabilities. It also means developing, enhancing and bringing to fruition the talents God has allotted to us and for which we must render account. Vigilant waiting in the evangelical sense, implies struggle against the insinuations and ramified temptations of Satan. 

Vigilant waiting in relation to Christ’s coming to our souls and in our lives indicates attention and promptness in welcoming him as we encounter him in His Words (the Scriptures), the Sacraments, the teaching voice of the Church, in his ministers and in the good inspirations that come to us. It also means that we have to be vigilant for justice, and compassionate to the poor, the sick, the marginalised and the downtrodden that need help and succour. In short, vigilant waiting includes perceiving, welcoming and sincerely showing love to Jesus that is hidden in every human being we encounter, making sacrifices on his/her behalf, as if we were doing it directly to Christ himself (Recall the reading of last Sunday: the scene of the last judgment, Matt 25,31-46).  Happy Sunday! +John I. Okoye

(PICTURES BY CHUKWUBIKE)