A Homily for the First Sunday of Advent
Saturday, November 30 and Sunday, December 1, 2024
Prince of Peace Catholic Church – 4:00 & 10:00 Masses
Jeremiah 33:14-16; Psalm 25:4-5, 8-9, 10, 14; 1 Thessalonians 3:12—4:2; Luke 21:25-28, 34-36
Audio Recording
Happy New Year! Advent begins today, the time when the Church celebrates the beginning of our new liturgical year. I don’t know about you, but I always thought that Advent was a time for Christmas parties, decorating, Christmas concerts and shows, and shopping. Yeah, especially shopping. I mean, who can resist a great Black Friday deal when shopping for Christmas? We might as well get an early start, right?
But is this really what Advent is supposed to be all about? Is it all about decorating and parties and shopping? Or is Advent is a season of hope, anticipation, and preparation for the coming of Our Lord?
The way most people celebrate Advent is more like the way we should be celebrating Christmas, which doesn’t actually begin until December 25 and continues for a full eight days. That’s right, we celebrate Christmas Day for eight full days! We call this the Octave of Christmas, with the 8th day being January 1st, the Solemnity of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of God, which by the way is a Holy Day of Obligation.
If you want to have some fun, wish your non-Catholic friends “Merry Christmas” the entire week following December 25. I guarantee you’ll get some interesting looks, especially if you do this on New Year’s Eve. And please, don’t wish people Happy Holidays! We’re Christians celebrating one of the two most important feasts of our faith! Be countercultural, wish them Merry Christmas!
And one more thing, don’t throw out your Christmas tree or take down your decorations during the Octave of Christmas, thinking Christmas is now over. EVERY DAY that week is still Christmas Day! Who throws out their tree on Christmas Day?
Our Christmas celebration continues beyond the Octave up until the Baptism of the Lord on January 12. A week before the conclusion of Christmas, we celebrate the Feast of the Epiphany when the Christ child was revealed to the Magi as the Son of God. This important feast takes place 12 days following Christ’s birth.
We all know the song, The Twelve Days of Christmas, right? On the first day of Christmas my true love sent to me … (a partridge in a pear tree).
So, having said all this, is it wrong to begin our Christmas preparations now? Is it OK for us to decorate and put up our trees now, to listen to Christmas music and to attend parties? Personally, I think it’s just fine, as long as it helps us prepare for Christmas. Let’s put it this way, there is nothing in Church teaching that prohibits these things.
My thinking is that as long as the decorating, shopping and Christmas music don’t get in the way of our preparation, it’s not a problem. The problem is when we substitute Advent for Christmas, when our preparations become the celebration of Christmas itself rather than the season to prepare for Christmas.
Here’s the bottom line. Advent should be a time of preparation. Not just preparation for his coming on Christmas Day, but also preparation for Christ’s coming into our lives daily and for His coming to us at the time of our death. Let’s take a closer look at each of these three comings of Christ.
The season of Advent is FIRST OF ALL the time to prepare for the COMING OF THE INFANT JESUS AT CHRISTMAS, the time when we celebrate God himself taking on flesh and entering fully into our human experience. He entered our world and became one of us so that we could be saved from our sins and become children of God!
We all know that Christmas is not just about Santa Claus and gift giving, but we must be on guard not to fall into the traps our culture sets to convince us otherwise. What’s does the bumper sticker say? Keep Christ in Christmas.
THE SECOND WAY Christ comes to us is in OUR DAILY LIVES, here and now. Many of us don’t consider that Advent is also the time to reflect on Christ’s coming daily into our lives to see how we might need to make changes so as make more room for him in our hearts. It is a time for self-examination and reflection on how we are doing in our spiritual lives.
How is our prayer life, is it vibrant and healthy? How well are we living the Christian life? Do friends and strangers know that we are Christians by our words and our actions? Are we serving those in need? Are we welcoming him into our lives and giving him permission to rule over every aspect of who we are and what we do?
In this week’s email newsletter, POP Weekly, which comes out every Monday morning, I share what I believe is one of the very best Catholic resources available today. It’s an app for your phone or tablet that contains prayer, meditations and spiritual programs to help you take your prayer life to the next level. It offers a fantastic prayer program for Advent, which I highly recommend. It’s a great way to go deeper in our spiritual lives.
If you don’t currently receive our POP Weekly newsletter (how many of you do?), you’ll find a link to sign up on the orange colored banner at the top of our website’s homepage. If you sign up today you’ll receive the newsletter Monday morning and you find all the information about this wonderful app called Hallow.
THE THIRD WAY Christ will come to us is at the TIME OF OUR DEATH. Although we may not want to think about our death, we know it’s inevitable. Advent provides a wonderful opportunity to prepare for Christ’s coming at the end of time. This is the message of today’s gospel reading, that we always be prepared for Christ’s return.
Most likely, those of us here today will not be alive for Christ’s Second Coming at the end of time, but we will most assuredly be meeting him at the end of OUR TIME, at the hour of our death.
Advent is the perfect time to remember that we must always be prepared for this most important meeting of our lives. Most of us have had important meetings in our lives and I suspect none of us have gone to those meetings unprepared. I dare say that this final meeting of our lives, the meeting where we meet our maker and learn our eternal destiny, is one for which we should be well-prepared!
Let’s not waste this Advent season by treating it as the Christmas season. Sure, we can decorate, enjoy Christmas music and go to some holiday parties, as long as these activities help us better prepare to welcome Christ when he (1) comes to us this Christmas, when he (2) comes to us each day, and when he (3) comes to us at the end of our lives.
Have a blessed Advent. In the name of the Father…