HOMILY: 1ST SUNDAY OF ADVENT YEAR B
HOMILY: 1ST SUNDAY OF ADVENT YEAR B
THEME: NO ONE CAN SURVIVE WITHOUT HOPE!
By: Fr. Augustine Ikechukwu Opara
(IS.63:16B-17; 64:1,3B-7,1COR. 1:3-9, MK. 13:33-37)
Today is the First Sunday of Advent. It is also the first day of the new liturgical year. Spend some time today preparing for this new year. Hang a new liturgical year calendar, change your liturgical diary, and create your family Advent wreath. Light the first candle and discuss how you will celebrate the season of Advent. Talk about what you as a family can do to stay awake for the coming of the Lord at Christmas. Advent is a season of expectation, anticipation, and waiting. Not just empty waiting but waiting in hope. We are all called to be part of that preparation, to wait in hope and wish God would tear the heavens open and come to us.
As we wait, I must say that there is danger in this waiting. Many Christians may focus their attention on the magi, the crib, and the birth of Christ. But the danger is there for us to wait to the extent of forgetting the person we are waiting for, stay awake because he is already at the door knocking. So, in addition to being a season of hope, it is equally, a season of patience and prayer. We are expected to prepare for the birth of the Messiah. It suffices to note that while we prepare physically, the most important must be the spiritual preparation.
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When I was a child, I used to long for Christmas so much. Also, it seemed in those days that a child’s yearning made the days longer because it seemed like Christmas came every three years. But now that I have reached the age of responsibility, it seems like Christmas comes about every six months. Advent has always been a happy time for most people, even in difficult times, because there is something about Christmas and the coming of the Messiah and the coming of the Lord, and the realization of all the promises that God has made to His people find their fulfillment in a stable, a little child, a poor young teenage mother and her gravely worried husband into whose care God had placed this most precious gift. It is a time when we put aside major worries and realize that God is with us. Pope Benedict XVI wrote his second encyclical on hope (Spe Salvi, Nov. 30, 2007). And it’s a beautiful document. And he says for a Christian to have hope means to know that we are loved, and that, whatever happens to us, we are awaited by love.
You notice up the front that we have the Advent wreath (candles). The Advent wreath is a very, very popular way of expressing those four Sundays. And the circle, as you know, the circle of the fire tree, the circle represents God Himself, because the circle has no beginning and no end.
Probably one of the most beautiful pieces of scripture is the beginning, the scripture that was read in the First Reading. It is from Isaiah the Prophet, and it sets the scene for the great hope for the joy of Christmas. And so (this is very touching) Isaiah is the beautiful Christmas poet. He’s the one who always speaks of joy and the one who always speaks of faith, and almost with a childlike melodic, poetic love, speaks about his people. No ear has ever heard, no eye ever seen, any god but You doing such deeds for those who wait for him (Isa 64:3)
My brothers and sisters, in our response to the Church’s call to prepare to commemorate the birth of our Lord Jesus Christ, we must keep in mind that our waiting is not for the baby Jesus. We are preparing to commemorate the mystery of the incarnation in anticipation of his second coming, and he is coming back as judge. This period of waiting may be dangerously tempting, but the truth remains as Henri Nouwen says; waiting is a period of learning. The longer we wait, the more we hear about him for whom we are waiting.
Happy New Year!
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