First Sunday of Advent – November 27, 2011
(Luke 21: 25-33)
Advent means a coming, and today we begin preparing for the celebration of the coming of the Lord on Christmas. We prepare for the Feast of the birth of Jesus by prayer and fasting, like we do during Lent in preparation for His Death and Resurrection. This month we abstain from eating meat on every Friday, as we always do, but we also have partial fasts and abstinence on the Ember Days of December 14, 15 and 17. Fasting causes mental and physical discomfort like dieting does, but in a religious fast we offer our discomfort to God for our personal intentions. These intentions vary widely and could be for the health of a friend or family member, for the conversion of sinners, literally any holy special intention we have in our lives at the time. During Advent we also celebrate the Feast of the Immaculate Conception of Mary on December 8th. This is a Holy Day of Obligation. We are required to attend Mass that day just as on any Sunday. The Immaculate Conception of Mary means that she was without Original Sin since the moment of her conception.
St. Bernard wrote of three comings of Christ. The first was in the flesh at His birth. The second was in His soul and in power, at the Resurrection on Easter Sunday. The third coming will be in judgment at the end of time. This last coming the Church calls “a day of wrath on which . . . the world will be reduced to ashes; a day of weeping and of fear.” This is the reason why the Church, in the liturgy of Advent . . . “selects from Scriptures passages which are calculated to awaken fear in the mind of those of her children who may be sleeping the sleep of sin. Fear, when accompanied by God’s love, sustains the hearts of we, His children, who have offended our Father and seek His pardon. However, fear not accompanied by love is slavery.
During this time of Advent we can note three classes of people. The first, and smallest in number, are those who live to the full the life of Jesus Who is within them. The second class is more numerous, and they are living because Jesus is within them, but they are sick and weak because they do not wish to grow in this divine life. Their charity has become cold. (Matthew 24: 12) The rest of mankind make up the third class. They have no part of this Christ within them and are dead, because Christ has said, “I am the Life,” (John 14: 6) and “Except you eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood you shall not have life in you. He that eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood, hath everlasting life.” (John 6: 54, 55)
The Messiah repeats His visit to His children every year at the Feast of Christmas. Receive Him this year with more care and love than perhaps you have done in the past. Go to the Confessional, confess all of your sins, perform the penance you are given by the priest and receive absolution. The priest is empowered to forgives sins because Christ makes all things new. (Apocalypse 21: 5) That includes you and me. Make room in your soul for the Divine Infant for He desires to grow within you.
The time of His coming is close at hand. Let your heart be on the watch so that He does not find you sleeping. Watch and pray. The words of the Advent liturgy speak of darkness, which only God can enlighten; of wounds, which only His mercy can heal; of weakness, which can be strengthened only by His divine energy. He desires not the death of the sinner, but rather that he be converted and live. (Ezechiel 18: 31, 32) The great feast of Christ’s birth is a day of mercy for all who will admit Him into their hearts: they will rise to life again in Him, their past sins will be destroyed, and where sin abounded, there grace will abound even more. (Romans 5: 20)
But if the attractiveness of this mystery of the coming of the Messiah on the Feast of Christmas makes no impression on you because for so long you have drunk sin like it was water, or worshipped the false gods of self, or of reason or of humanism, and you do not know what it is to long with love for the caress of your Father whom you have sinned against -- if that is your situation then turn your attention to that other coming in judgment which is full of terror and which follows the silent night of grace which is offered to us this Christmas.
“And then they shall see the Son of Man coming in a cloud with
great power and majesty.”
Not as the first time will He come, hidden in a weak human body, tucked away in a cave, later suffering insults and mockery and bearing the burden of His cross. This second time He will come in great majesty and in terrible splendor, darkening the sun and moon, with stars falling from heaven and the upheaval of all creation. This second time He will not come in the meekness of a lamb to be judged by men, but as the Judge, to judge mankind with the awful measure of His justice. This will be the day of separation, when His angels cast the disobedient into hell and gather the faithful into His kingdom. Today is the day of mercy. Today is the day to repent and beg God’s mercy. But when Christ comes again, that will be the day of God’s justice, not His mercy.
We should never lose sight of the fact that some day we will be judged without mercy, that all of our sins will be revealed in view of the whole world, and that after our judgment we shall face heaven or hell. How blind we are if we do not use the short lives we enjoy on earth to insure entrance into Heaven. As long as we are alive, we can ask for and hope for pardon, but if we wait too long there may be no hope and no help for us. Today is the day to “put on the Lord Jesus Christ” as St. Paul phrased it in today’s Epistle (Romans 13: 14) The Savior is the clothing we are to put on over our spiritual nakedness. God, remembering how man hid himself in the Garden of Eden after his original sin, has agreed to become man’s clothing and to cover us with the robe of His divinity.
O Lord, give us the grace to never lose sight of Your dreadful Judgment Day. Do not let us fall into temptation, that we may hear on that day those sweet words from Your mouth, “Come, ye blessed of my Father, possess ye the Kingdom which has been prepared for you from the beginning.” Amen +++
We Celebrate the Tridentine Latin Mass
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