HOMILY FOR THE FIRST SUNDAY OF ADVENT YEAR B (13)
HOMILY FOR THE FIRST SUNDAY OF ADVENT YEAR B.
HOMILY THEME: PREPARE FOR HIS COMING
BY: Fr. Cyril Unachukwu CCE
HOMILY:
The Christian life is a pilgrim journey to our homeland. A pilgrimage made in faith and in the joyful hope of the full realization of our existence from the One from whose Fullness of Being we have received our existence. Manifestations of the content of our faith and hope is both here, already with us, and still not yet. This mystery of the ‘already with us and not yet’ of the reign of God’s Kingdom synthesizes the season of Advent which we earnestly begin today. May our joyful hope in the coming of Christ to judge the living and the dead lead us to reign with Him in eternity; Amen.
The Season of Advent begins the Liturgical Year of the Church and in this case Year B. The Year B of the Liturgical Calendar is unique in many ways but is called the Year of Mark because majority of the Sundays have their Gospel Readings from the Gospel according to Mark.
The word Advent simply means “coming” and is used to designate that special moment and period in the Church’s life when she specifically reminds us of the need for constant preparation for the second coming of Christ at the end of time and also leads us to prepare for the celebration of the first coming of Christ as man at the Incarnation at Christmas. These two comings make for the two parts in which the Season of Advent is divided. Firstly, from the First Sunday of Advent to the 16th of December and secondly from the 17th of December to the 24th of December respectively. The tune of expectation makes for the moderation we obviously notice in the liturgy with respect to decoration, use of instruments and the omission of the Gloria during Mass, in order to burst with joy at the news of the birth of the new born King at Christmas.
The First Reading (Is 63:16-17, 64:1, 3-8) brings before us the very words and expressions we must have in our mouths in this season, the disposition to accept our fragility and limitations, the humility to realize how much damage we have caused to our relationship with God by giving in to the impulses of corrupt nature (Gal 5:17) and the openness to receive God’s insistent movement towards us by our willed movement towards Him in response. These spiritual movements, our progressive journey to the God that has invited us and into the plenitude of His life, are characteristic of the Season of Advent when the reality of His coming is more emphatically announced to us by the Church.
That Jesus will come again is certain because Christ, the Truth in Person has confirmed so to us and the Church professes this truth without equivocation, but when He will come remains a mystery, in the words of Jesus in the Gospel Reading (Mk 13:33-37) “be on your guard, stay awake, because you never know when the time will come”; a mystery which we must accept in faith and which we must prepare for and wait for in hope, the hope that saves; the faith and hope that is both vigilant and constantly in preparation by the strength of the gifts which the Holy Spirit has poured into us, “to keep us steady and without blame until the last day” (I Cor 1:3-9).
These varied gifts of the Holy Spirit which we find not just in us, but also in persons and things around us, and essentially in the Church and in her celebration of the mysteries of our faith are there to assist and edify us to be stable in our vigilant and watchful wait for the coming of our Lord. We must make fruitful use of these gifts and opportunities to ascend with the God who descended to us, to lead us up to where He is and lives and reigns forever and ever.
May this Season of Advent and the whole of this Liturgical Year be a moment of deep and fruitful spiritual experience and encounter for your constantly progressive preparation for the coming of Christ; Amen.
Happy Sunday; Fr Cyril CCE
