Advent Reflections from CBC High School: Monday, November 29, 2021

Begin with the end in mind. This phrase is used often in a variety of contexts, like business and education. The idea is that before you discuss how you are going to achieve your goal, the focus is on what you wish to achieve.

Each day during the season of Advent students, faculty, and staff of Christian Brothers College High School will write a reflection about Advent.

In today’s readings, there is a central theme of acceptance and universalness in the people’s faith that Jesus wants us to have. In the first reading from Isaiah, he says that “the mountain of the LORD’s house” would be the tallest mountain, and people of all nations would come to it to climb towards the house of God. From this, I see God and the faith acting as beacons for which people can come together and unite in something despite differences.

The Gospel reading had similar connotation to me, in which Jesus says that a centurion had greater faith than all those he had met in Israel because the centurion states that he is not worthy for Jesus to enter his house, and instead asks him to heal his servant with the power that he knows Jesus has, showing respect and trust in God.

Jesus also says that people would come from the East and West to “recline with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob at the banquet in the Kingdom of heaven”. This ties into the ultimate message of unity and the universality of the faith as it calls to people from all places in the world.

–Samuel Unnerstall, Class of 2022