1st Sunday Advent, Year A
Fr. Albert
St. Peter Catholic Church, New Iberia
Jesus is the reason for the Season. It’s a common phrase for a bumper sticker, a picture on the internet, or a billboard. Have you really considered what it means? Who is Jesus really? For that matter, which season is this phrase referring to? Those two questions are more closely related than we might think at first. The fact is that many people started to celebrate Christmas earlier this week or even right after Halloween: decorations, Christmas music, seasonal foods and desserts, and shopping for gifts. Unfortunately, this kind of premature celebration might be a sign that they are missing what this time of year is really about.
And what is the Church doing? How is she answering the two questions: who is Jesus? What is the season? That second question should be easy: we are in the season of Advent, not of Christmas. Now, look at the readings she has placed before us in mass. Not a single mention of the baby Jesus. While the rest of the world is already throwing parties for Jesus’ birthday, the Church hasn’t even started talking about it yet. On top of that, she has started to use the color purple: a color of penance, of anticipation, and of hope, but not of celebration. It’s significant that we do not sing the Gloria on the Sundays of Advent. Even more striking the amount of time she devotes to Advent and Christmas. Advent lasts just under 4 full weeks and is followed by the Christmas Season, which is just over 2 weeks. A time of preparation followed by a slightly shorter time of celebration. What gives? Christmas is everyone’s favorite time of year, why is the Church being so stingy?
Because she really understands who Jesus is, and what that means for both Christmas and Advent, while many people don’t even acknowledge the existence of advent at a practical level. While the rest of the world is focused on celebrating an event in the past, the Church has her eyes on the present and on the future. Christmas is indeed about an historical event: the virgin birth of Jesus Christ. Advent, however, is not quite set on the past, at least not yet. Instead, we start with these prophecies about the end of the world. Rather than simply remembering that Christ came once, the Church is urgently reminding us that he willcome again. Our God uses words, signs, and even history itself to teach us and to prepare us for the future. Only the Fourth Sunday of Advent has a Gospel that talks about the birth of Jesus Christ. Today’s tells us of the end of the world and the other two remind us of Jesus’ public ministry while he was here on earth. The Church wants to remind us of how to live and die as Christians, not just remind us of the past. Even Christmas has a note of the present and the future. It is partly about bringing Christ’s presence into your own heart and helping him to be “born” into the hearts and lives of others through evangelization.
Jesus is the reason for the season. And who Jesus? He is the promised messiah of the Jews. He is the Lord of our lives. He is the Son of Man who will come at an hour you do not expect to judge the living and the dead; to take one but leave another. This mysterious “taking” of one man from the field and one woman from the mill is not about the Rapture as some people think. The Rapture is not a Catholic belief and the idea of it didn’t really exist until the 20th century. Jesus is talking about the “Day of the Lord,” which refers to the end of time and the final judgment. He also compares it to the flood of Noah, where the people who are “left behind” simply die in the flood – there is no temporary time of trial for those left behind. When we apply that to the final judgment, we see that Christ is talking about salvation and damnation, which happens all at once at the end. The point here is not to give us a timeline, but to warn us to “stay awake” and remain vigilant.
Really, this applies very well to the difference between the worldly and religious ways to celebrate Advent and Christmas. Far too many people have been lulled into a false sense of security, celebrating the coming of Christ without any preparation, any penance, or a real grasp of what the Lord Jesus Christ wants from us. He wants us to know him, to love him, and to spend eternity with him. But it has to be a real relationship with the real Jesus Christ. And, even in the Christmas season, we must see Jesus with the Cross. As the venerable Fulton Sheen once said: “Never forget that there are only two philosophies to rule your life: the one of the cross, which starts with the fast and ends with the feast. The other of Satan, which starts with the feast and ends with the headache.” The Church begins with Advent, with the fast, so that we can really enter into the feast. The world jumps ahead to the feast, over-indulges, and ends up with a headache. Except in the case of our eternal fate, skipping the fast could be a lot worse than a mere headache.
And this dichotomy between the world and the Church runs through everything. There is a hidden spiritual depth in this life, a subtle music that runs through everything, but we have to be alert to see and to hear this. Today in the Mass, the prayer after communion, the closing prayer, asks the Lord to help us to “love the things of heaven and hold fast to what endures” even “as we walk amid passing things.” How do we hear this sound, this music far sweeter than the Bing Crosby Christmas album? Hear the words of St. Paul: we must “conduct ourselves properly… not in orgies and drunkenness, not in promiscuity and lust, not in rivalry and jealousy. But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the desires of the flesh.” By “flesh,” Paul doesn’t mean our bodies, but our fallen desires. People like Christmas because it’s sweet and pleasant, but also because it can be an excuse to over-eat, drink too much, blow off important tasks, and to buy things that nobody needs with money they don’t have.
Make no mistake, there is definitely a place for celebration with good food, drinking in moderation, thoughtful gifts, and resting with good company, but there is a key difference. A Catholic is called to do these things with their minds set on eternity. These things are pleasant, but they are also meant to be signs and foreshadowing and eternal joy. The world is focused on them for their own sake, for the selfish pleasure of it. And the fact is that fallen human nature naturally tends towards that selfish pleasure. That is exactly why we have Advent! That is why we start with fasting, vigilance, and patient anticipation.
Isaiah promises a new heaven and a new earth where Jerusalem and Zion will be the highest mountain – a symbolic description of eternal life where the most important thing will always be loving and worshiping God. Until then, we have the work of climbing and overcoming the weight of our fallen fleshly desires. Even our natural bodies suffer when we choose instant gratification over patiently waiting for the proper time to celebrate. Jesus is the reason for the Season. Do not skip advent and do not forget who Christ really is. Treat Advent like a miniature Lent. Give up something like TV or video games, skip a meal or two once or twice a week, look for an Advent devotion with daily prayers and scripture readings, pray a daily rosary, get an Advent wreath for your home, and try to avoid Christmas parties until it’s actually Christmas. Do not be overcome by worldly sleep and distraction, or you may not hear God’s call in time. If you are patient and accept the fast before the feast, not just in Advent, but with your whole lives, you will be more alert to hear that joyful call “Let us go rejoicing to the house of the Lord.”