A homily for the First Sunday of Advent, December 1, 2024
Jer 33:14-16, 1 Thes 3:12—4:2, Lk 21:25-28, 34-36
“Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.”
Ferris Bueller
It started with Black Friday, this fast-moving season of life, and this year, the December 25 deadline seems even sooner, because it is. A late Thanksgiving has compressed the frenetic shopping season to its second-shortest-possible iteration.
If we don’t buy, buy, buy, our big holiday may pass by, by, by. And yule be sorry (couldn’t resist).
Oh, wait.
What? Wait?
Yes, we should wait and catch our respective breaths to avoid impulse purchases.
But we also should slow our actual and figurative running to a walk, or at least a trot, and recognize that we have begun the season of prayerful waiting.
Advent 2024.
Granted, we have less sunlight in our days to work, play, shop, commune with family and friends, and, of course, to chat with God. So what are we prioritizing?
Are we living every day the same as the one before, or are we pausing — waiting — between activities to reflect on how we can make our lives and the lives of our sisters and brothers better?
As we flit from job to shop to gym to studio to home, as we slide from couch to dinner table to bed and await the alarm clock to tell us to get up and do it again, are we actively living and making good choices, or are we letting the four winds propel us?
Are we using our intellects and talents and skills and creativity and caring hearts and God-given free wills to their fullest?
Those are the sorts of questions Advent challenges each of us to ask ourselves.
If we haven’t already, most of us will soon decorate our homes to celebrate the birth of Emmanuel, God-With-Us. We’re getting ready for a birthday party, unlike the other, more penitential, springtime season of preparation. We do need to get rid of the dust bunnies in our lives, those in the corners of the living room as well as those clinging to our hearts and souls. That applies to our lives every day.
But the light at the end of this season of four candles is a star we are called to follow, amid the lengthening of our daily sunlight.
Are we using every photon to see, truly see?
People who know me know me as a quirky kind of fellow. One of those oddities is rarely being able to pass a bulletin board without some word or phrase jumping off and forcing me to read almost every flyer tacked up there to find it.
Yes, it really happens: Nyaa-nyaa! I snagged the corner of your eye!
Over the many years, though, this also forced me to realize that people, places and things in the deepest need are seen primarily out of the corners of our eyes. The problems of the world right in front of us are huge, to be sure, and they deserve the attention they get. However, the problems of others, the plights that society has pushed to the margins, to the corners of our eyes … those problems …
Hmmm…
If we slow down in Advent, we’ll improve our chances of seeing them.
If we slow down in Advent, our love and charitable actions in the name of God and the Prince of Peace may improve our sisters and brothers’ chances of surviving their challenges.
P.S.
“Observant” is one of those delightful words with a couple of definitions.
The first tells of someone who’s quick to notice things, who’s alert, who’s scanning left and right, up and down. Who’ll spot someone in trouble, bless them.
The second definition of “observant” refers to someone who obeys the rules of a particular religion. Such as someone who, after observing another child of God in need, will remember the 25th Chapter of Matthew’s Gospel.
Then the king will say to those on his right, “Come, you who are blessed by my Father. Inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, a stranger and you welcomed me, naked and you clothed me, ill and you cared for me, in prison and you visited me.”
Then the righteous will answer him and say, “Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you drink? When did we see you a stranger and welcome you, or naked and clothe you? When did we see you ill or in prison, and visit you?”
And the king will say to them in reply, “Amen, I say to you, whatever you did for one of these least brothers of mine, you did for me.”
