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A Season to Be Wide Awake

29/11/2024

A Reflection on the Gospel for Sunday, December 1st, 2024:
First Sunday of Advent

Luke
21.25-28, 34-36

Jesus spoke to his disciples: “There will be signs in the sun, the moon, and the stars and on the earth distress among nations confused by the roaring of the sea and the waves. People will faint from fear and foreboding of what is coming upon the world, for the powers of the heavens will be shaken.

“Then they will see ‘the Son of Man coming in a cloud’ with power and great glory. Now when these things begin to take place, stand up and raise your heads, because your redemption is drawing near.

“Be on guard so that your hearts are not weighed down with dissipation and drunkenness and the worries of this life, and that day catch you unexpectedly, like a trap. For it will come upon all who live on the face of the whole earth. Be alert at all times, praying that you may have the strength to escape all these things that will take place, and to stand before the Son of Man.”

Pause. Pray. Reflect.

The First Sunday of Advent!

I’ve been so aware of its coming this year and have been musing on how my ideal Advent is going to unfold: a lot of cozy reading, perfect evening cups of tea as I ponder, lots of quiet prayer with a holiday-scented candle and a cashmere-soft blanket – in short, “warm, unbothered and very comfortable.”

So when I opened up the Gospel for this Sunday, I subconsciously expected it to reflect my own cashmere thoughts on the subject of Advent 2024. In contrast, the vibe of this Gospel, at first glance, felt closer to my toddler’s early morning urgency when he’s alerting me to get out of my warm bed. Awake? Be ready? Be alert? Be on guard? I was thinking more along the lines of get comfy, be cozy, and drink special holiday teas.

But here’s the glorious thing about the readings within the liturgy: the words, tone, timing and message are always right.

There is indeed more to Advent. It is so worth it to wake up to the tremendously significant beauty of this season. Really, truly, this is a season to be wide awake because something bigger than seasonal tea is taking place. The story of humanity’s longing. Generations living and dying in anticipation of a Messiah. The reality of a woman, just like us, fully saying yes to the Holy Spirit with her body and her whole life. The hidden pain and conflict within Joseph. The difficult journey to Bethlehem with no place to stay. The paradox of the littleness and the grandeur of the whole thing. Christ becoming flesh to walk among us - to be one of us. His promise that He’ll come again.

The mysteries that begin to unfold in Advent correspond to the utmost depths of our being and to every desire we’ve ever had and will ever have. Unlike the mind-numbing content that seems to fill our sleepy doom-scrolling and reel watching, this is truly something that deserves our fully-awake attention.

How right – and how loving – that He invites us to stay awake and keep guard during this most significant season. He came for me. He came for you. The Incarnation is personal. And He doesn’t want us to miss that.

In a world full of temptations to zone out, Christ invites us to enter, with eyes and hearts wide open, into the reality that He came and will come again. This is the simple but profoundly loving invitation to each of us as we begin Advent 2024 – to remain alert and ready for every way He intends to arrive into our lives this season.

Catherine Burnham

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28/11/2024

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A Reflection on the Second Reading for Sunday, December 1st, 2024:
First Sunday of Advent

1 Thessalonians
3.12–4.2

Brothers and sisters: May the Lord make you increase and abound in love for one another and for all, just as we abound in love for you. And may he so strengthen your hearts in holiness that you may be blameless before our God and Father at the coming of our Lord Jesus with all his saints.

Finally, brothers and sisters, we ask and urge you in the Lord Jesus that, as you learned from us how you ought to live and to please God, as, in fact, you are doing, you should do so more and more. For you know what instructions we gave you through the Lord Jesus.

Pause. Pray. Reflect.

Candles and Advent are linked in my psyche. As I light my candle, in my mind I see Saint Paul light a candle on his desk and continue the letter he’d been writing to the Thessalonians.

How many ways can Saint Paul pray the same thing? There is a repetition of the ask for more. Asking God for more. Asking his readers for more. Asking me for more.

Increase – πλεονάσαι, superabound, more than enough, even too much
Abound – περισσεύσαι, be over and above, to exceed the ordinary
Strengthen – στηρίξαι, give support and secure so as to eliminate vacillation, as in a vine trellis
More and more – περισσεύητε μᾶλλον, over and above, and above; to exceed the ordinary, and then exceed the extraordinary

The first three actions are part of Saint Paul’s prayer, something he’s asking of God. The last one is part of something he’s asking of his readers, of me. Asking might be an understatement.

Ask – ἐρωτῶμεν, earnestly ask from a place of special relationship
Urge – παρακαλοῦμεν, close beside call

Coming close alongside, what is Saint Paul urging us to join him in?

Live – περιπατεῖν, walk all around, full-circle living
Please – ἀρέσκειν, root word is “fit together,” to fill the hole, satisfy the desire

His readers are already doing this. And there is more. I am already doing this. And there is more.

I feel like I’m facing in the right direction. I have been for a while. When I first turned around and started to walk toward Jesus, even the few steps unevenly taken seemed momentous. I may not have had the muscle tone in my core to maintain a straight line but, toddler that I was, I’d toddle, wobbling my way forward. Over time, little by little, if I kept at it my body would let me stride. I could even occasionally run a leg of the journey. Although sometimes I think I might have just simply sat down by the side of the road for far too long. Rest is good for growth, but in extended inactivity I atrophy. His Spirit would find me there and stir around me, reminding me that I was meant for more. The Wild Wind would play around me – my Alongside Caller, my Paraclete – and up I’d stand, finding that to follow where He wants me to go, I needed strengthening. I need to strengthen my body, strengthen my spirit, strengthen my mind, and strengthen my heart. I move again, adding tone and muscle mass, learning to walk all around, satisfying my Father’s desire.

And this is just the beginning. This is training in exceeding the ordinary. Awaiting us is training in exceeding the extraordinary. In the breathing in and out of the liturgical year, each Advent calls us to prepare for the coming Infant King, to strengthen our hearts beyond the ordinary so as to be able to bear His small weight. A day will come when we will be ready to begin being strengthened beyond the extraordinary to be able to bear the weight of His Glory unveiled. More indeed.

Noreen Smith

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Walking His Path

27/11/2024

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A Reflection on the Psalm for Sunday, December 1st, 2024:
First Sunday of Advent

Psalm 25

R. To you, O Lord, I lift my soul.

Make me to know your ways, O Lord, teach me your paths. Lead me in your truth and teach me, for you are the God of my savation.

R. To you, O Lord, I lift my soul.

Good and upright is the Lord, therefore he instructs sinners in the way. He leads the humble in what is right, and teaches the humble his way.

R. To you, O Lord, I lift my soul.

All the paths of the Lord are steadfast love and faithfulness, for those who keep his covenant and his decrees. The friendship of the Lord is for those who fear him, and he makes his covenant known to them.

R. To you, O Lord, I lift my soul.

Pause. Pray. Reflect.

This weekend we will enter into the first week of Advent. Over the next four weeks, the Scriptures we will hear at Mass will speak to our longing for the coming Christ as well as the image of paths and ways. We will hear of how Saint John the Baptist called us to prepare the way of the Lord and also about the path the Lord prepares for us and wants to guide us along.

The interesting thing about roads is that you can take them to get either to or from a place. The path we walk is also the path Christ walked, first by coming down the path towards us in His Incarnation, then by leading us forward along that path back towards heaven.

While He took that path in a very real way over 2000 years ago, His salvific work also exists and works for us outside of time. The promise of this Psalm – that God will lead us in truth, teach and instruct us, and show us the right way towards heaven – wasn’t just for those who could see, hear, and touch Him during His earthly mission. Through the working of the Holy Spirit, alongside the truth of Scripture and the guidance of God-given tradition, we can receive Christ’s teaching and guidance in as real a way as the apostles and disciples did in the days between the first Christmas and Christ’s ascension into heaven.

The path that He walked is one that we can still follow Him on today. He is still reaching back a hand of friendship to us, inviting us to take on His cross and His victory.

When we declare in churches around the world to “prepare the way of the Lord,” what we are being invited to do is to make room in our lives for Jesus to reach into our lives, for the Holy Spirit to make a straight path in our hearts and souls, and for the Father to clear our path forward towards salvation.

But what are the obstacles I put along that path? What potholes are created by my sin? What choices am I making to avoid the right path? What ways am I ignoring Christ’s outstretched hand and the voice of the Holy Spirit beckoning me forward with Him?

This Advent, I enter onto this path with a prayer on my heart, a prayer that I would have clear sight of how God is working in my life and how I am striving against God’s good work in and around me.

Heavenly Father, open up the path of Your goodness before me. Holy Spirit, guide my heart to seek Your goodness and reject the weakness of my sin. Precious Jesus, show me how to follow in Your footsteps. God, in every way I need, lead me into the salvation promised and given through Christ’s life, death and resurrection. Amen.

Stéphanie Potter

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Hello. My Name Is ...

26/11/2024

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A Reflection on the First Reading for Sunday, December 1st, 2024:
First Sunday of Advent

Jeremiah
33.14-16

The days are surely coming, says the Lord, when I will fulfill the promise I made to the house of Israel and the house of Judah.

In those days and at that time I will cause a righteous Branch to spring up for David; and he shall execute justice and righteousness in the land.

In those days Judah will be saved and Jerusalem will live in safety. And this is the name by which it will be called: “The Lord is our righteousness.”

Pause. Pray. Reflect.

Until I started preparing this reflection, I’d never really thought about just how many names and titles get tossed around in Advent. There’s a good deal of “Hail this” and “I will call you that” and “I am this thing over here.”

In the Annunciation, we read “the virgin’s name was Mary,” quickly followed by her being addressed by Gabriel as “favoured one.” Then to top it off, Mary says, “I am the servant/handmaid .…” Then of Jesus we get, well, the name “Jesus” (which means God saves), who will be called both Son of God and Son of the Most High. Joseph is told Jesus will be Emmanuel (God with us). Later we learn that John the Baptist is called John (graced by God), who then calls himself “the one who cries out in the wilderness.”

So, I was thinking about all these names – given and self-named – in relation to this reading from Jeremiah, when God tells us another name for our Messiah, the Righteous Branch of David. But what I like best about this passage is that we get a name. At last! Hello, my name is “the Lord is my righteousness.” That’s “Jehovah Tsidkenu,” to you. I know that this name applies to me because God is talking about the future Jerusalem. And the new Jerusalem is the Church, the Bride of the Lamb, in the Book of Revelation. So, when God names the new Jerusalem, he’s naming us! That’s me!

When God gives a name, it’s not just a word attached to a thing, the way we name our cars or houseplants or Halloween decorations (not that we don’t love you, Rickety Rackety). When God gives a name, that name is that person’s existence, their action, their essence, their entirety. “The given name determines not only the person's character but also his fate,” says a Jewish genealogy website, “and the name therefore takes on a highly charged symbolic value.” When Gabriel (God is my strength) tells Mary that she will name her Son “God saves,” she at once knows that she is giving birth to the saving God. Jesus is our salvation. God the Father is “I am”. So, when we get a name, we have to sit up. Our name is I am “the Lord is my righteousness” (or “my justice,” in other translations.)

All of this makes me feel more able to enter the Advent “theodrama” (as Bishop Robert Barron calls it) of Advent. Amid all these names and the stories we know so well, the plastic figurines, and songs, I never remember to ask, “Where am I in all this?” So, it’s thoughtful of the Church, right in the First Reading of the first Sunday of Advent, to say, “Here you are.” You are Jehovah Tsidkenu, the embodied destiny of the man or woman who clings to God as the foundation of your uprightness.

I challenge myself (and you can join me if you like) to find myself, as I have been named, in all of the Gospel readings throughout this holy month. When the crowds flock to the riverbanks to get baptized, where is Jehovah Tsidkenu? As Elizabeth greets Mary at her home, what is Jehovah Tsidkenu up to? I’ve been given my name, my essence. Now, what am I going to do with it?

Kate Mosher

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A Season to Be Wide Awake

A Reflection on the Gospel for Sunday, December 1st, 2024:First Sunday of Advent

Pause. Pray. Reflect.

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A Reflection on the Second Reading for Sunday, December 1st, 2024:First Sunday of Advent

Pause. Pray. Reflect.

Walking His Path

A Reflection on the Psalm for Sunday, December 1st, 2024:First Sunday of Advent

Pause. Pray. Reflect.

Hello. My Name Is ...

​A Reflection on the First Reading for Sunday, December 1st, 2024:First Sunday of Advent

​Pause. Pray. Reflect.

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A Reflection on the Gospel for Sunday, December 1st, 2024:
First Sunday of Advent

A Reflection on the Second Reading for Sunday, December 1st, 2024:
First Sunday of Advent

A Reflection on the Psalm for Sunday, December 1st, 2024:
First Sunday of Advent

A Reflection on the First Reading for Sunday, December 1st, 2024:
First Sunday of Advent

Pause. Pray. Reflect.