First Sunday of Advent – Year A
Roman Rite
Is 2, 1-5; Ps 122; Rm 13.11 to 14; Mt 24.37-44?
Ambrosian Rite
Is 35.1 to 10; Ps 84; Rm 11.25 to 36; Mt 11.2 to 15?
Third Sunday of Advent (Year A)
Fulfilled prophecies
1) Vigilance and more.
Today it is the beginning of Advent[1] which prepares the feast for the birth of Jesus in Bethlehem. This short liturgical period of just under 30 days represents the long stretch of centuries, past in the waiting for the Redeemer who came in the fullness of time.
The liturgy helps us to live this time of grace
with vigilance, which is the intense and trusting commitment of those who trust in the merciful love of God, and prepare themselves for the encounter with Christ the Savior,
with the conversion of the heart, because without a heart turned to God the waiting, the hope and the joy for the coming of the Messiah are not possible,
with the heart of the poor, that is the heart of those who are not poor in the economic sense, but in the biblical sense[2], those who entrust themselves fully to God and rely on him with confidence
with faith, the virtue that supports us welcoming, like Mary, the Son of God made flesh for our salvation.
with hope, that is the trusting expectation of a future that is absolutely good (see St Thomas Aquinas, III Sent., D. 26, q. 2, a. 1, ad 3),
with piety, practicing prayer, which is – in Advent – the affectionate invocation to the Awaited: Come, Lord Jesus (Rev 22, 20),
with joy, expression of a joyful waiting because the One Who is expected certainly will come. God is faithful.
I’ve put vigilance first, -that is the tension toward the imminent presence of Christ – because in this first Sunday of preparation for the coming of the Son of Man in our life, we are called to be vigilant. Today’s liturgy offers us a passage from the Gospel, in which Christ asks us to be aware of the events to discover in them the time of the coming of the Son of Man. The Redeemer, to show how we must be attentive to the events, reminds us of the event of the Flood in Noah’s time, and then compares himself to a thief that comes in the night and to a landlord who does not monitor his home.
Not knowing the day and the hour of Christ’s coming should convince us of the need for continuous vigilance. We must be always “ready” so that all our life may be a tension to that hour and that day. We must get prepared to this encounter with the Redeemer in order not to be caught off guard, but ready to welcome God who comes without warning when we least expect him.
Therefore, vigilance is the attitude in which we must live every moment of personal and common life, as it were enormously valuable, indeed the only moment available, because it is the present moment. When, while she was dying, it was asked to St. Therese of the Child Jesus if she was not afraid of the thief that was coming, she answered that she was waiting for him with desire and love. This holy woman gives us the example of watchful serenity, of charity, of great openness to God, of intense waiting, and of loyalty to him. The opening prayer of today’s Mass epitomizes everything: “O God, merciful Father, who, to unite all the people in your kingdom, sent your only Son, teacher of truth and source of reconciliation, awaken in us a vigilant spirit so that we walk on your ways to freedom and love until we contemplate you in the eternal glory. Through our Lord Jesus Christ “.
2) Conversion in joy.
Advent is the time when the Church celebrates the joyful waiting for the Messiah and the firm certainty of the coming of God’s Kingdom. This is not a matter of eating or drinking but of righteousness, peace and joy (see Rm 14, 17). Only by returning to the Lord with the heart waiting for his coming and his return, this Kingdom of peace, justice and joy will be established in us and in the world.
Vigilance requires conversion to fight slumber, inattention and forgetfulness. It should be remembered that the vigilant person is not, as indicated in the Greek world, the one who is awake, collecting all his strength and finding in himself all the courage to face the night and the eventual enemy. In the biblical world, the vigilant person is the one who stays awake trusting in God, clinging to Him, and abandoning himself to Christ. The word vigilance, therefore, does not indicate something to do, but a way of living and looking.
The Advent hymn, “Lift up the look to heaven” makes us sing that “the salvation of God is near” and commands us “Awaken in the heart the waiting to welcome the King of Glory.” The imperative of the watch with an awake heart, that is with attention and lucidity, implies awareness so not to be enchanted by appearances but the sharpness of a sight that will allow us to recognize in a stable, the Child, “messenger of peace”, who “brings to the world the smile of God. “
To be biblically and Christianly vigilant requires, therefore, a change of heart and of “its eyes”. Indeed, without a profound conversion it is not possible the waiting, the hope and the joy for the coming of the Lord. The spirit of conversion, typical of Advent, has shades other than those of Lent, although in both times we are invited to practice more intense prayer, fasting and almsgiving (= mercy). The essential substance is always the same, but while Lent is marked by the austerity necessary to repair sin, Advent is marked by the joy for the coming of the Lord.
In this regard, Pope Francis teaches: “Advent is a time of rejoicing because it revives the happiest event in history: the birth of the Son of God by the Virgin Mary. Knowing that God is not far away but close, not indifferent but compassionate, not alien but a merciful Father who follows us lovingly with respect for our freedom, all this is the reason for a deep joy that the alternating daily events cannot scratch “( December 18, 2015).
Advent is the time of the waiting for the eternal God who becomes loving presence in the world. Precisely for this reason it is, in particular, the time of joy, of an internalized joy that no suffering can erase. The joy over the fact that God became a child. This joy, invisibly present in us, encourages us to continue our journey with confidence.
Advent is the time of hope, in which the believers in Christ are invited to remain in vigilant and active expectation, nourished by prayer and by proactive and daily commitment of love.
An everyday example of living the waiting for Christ with active charity, comes from the consecrated Virgins in the world. In this they follow the invitation by the Emeritus Pope Benedict XVI: “That your whole life may be a faithful witness of God’s love and a convincing sign of the kingdom of heaven” (RCV, nr. 17). Take care always to radiate the dignity of being a bride of Christ, expressing the newness of Christian existence and the serene expectation of future life. Thus, with your own upright life you will be stars to guide the world on its journey. The choice of virginal life, in fact, is a reference to the transient nature of earthly things and an anticipation of future rewards. Be witnesses of attentive and lively expectation, of joy and of the peace that characterizes those who abandon themselves to God’s love. May you be present in the world, yet pilgrims bound for the Kingdom. Indeed, the consecrated virgin is identified with that bride who, in unison with the Spirit, invokes the coming of the Lord: “The Spirit and the Bride say “Come'” (Rv 22: 17) “. (Address of His Holiness Benedict XVI to the Participants in the International Congress- Pilgrimage of the Ordo Virginum. May 15, 2008)
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[1] Advent has four Sundays for the Roman Rite and six for the Ambrosian Rite. This year we are in year A – according to the three-year liturgical cycle – and we will be accompanied in it by the Gospel of Matthew. Some characteristics of this Gospel are: the extent to which the teachings of Jesus (his famous speeches like the one of the mountain) are reported, and the attention to the relationship between Law and Gospel (the Gospel is the “New Law”). This is considered the most “ecclesiastical” Gospel because of the narration of the primacy of Peter and for the use of the word Church (in Greek “Ecclesia”, from ek-kalein verb that means to convene and whose noun is precisely ecclesia = convocation, assembly) that are not in the Gospels of Mark, Luke and John.
[2] This poor person or “anawim“, as he is called in the Bible, is the meek and the humble, whose key provisions are humility, fear of God and faith.
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