Incarnation, End of Time and Today: Homily for the First Sunday of Advent 2024

Advent is a time of focusing on the ways Jesus comes into human lives. There is, of course, the reminder of the Incarnation of Jesus, his coming at the end of time, and the ways in which Jesus comes into our lives each day. Readings for Today. Listen to our other podcasts.

Incarnation, End of Time and Today: Homily for the First Sunday of Advent 2024

“May the Lord make you increase and abound in love for one another and for all, just as we have for you, so as to strengthen your hearts, to be blameless in holiness before our God and Father at the coming of our Lord Jesus with all his holy ones.”

This quote from the second reading could really be a prayer to help us set a goal for the season of Advent. It is a prayer that helps us to ask ourselves, “Where does Jesus fit into my life? Where do I need the grace of God more in my life? In what ways do I keep God out of my heart? Where is it I need more grace to love my neighbor as myself?”

Fortunately for us, God wants us to focus on two simple rules for life. Not too much to remember. The first, and most important, of course is loving God. And this first commandment is not just about doing so in a limited way. God never does anything in a limited way and neither should we.

No, it is about giving God everything in our love. We should not be stingy with our love. We should love with all we have and are. For love can never run out. We do not need to hold back for fear we might run out of love.

And we can trust God. God keeps his promises. The days are coming, says the LORD, when I will fulfill the promise I made to the house of Israel and Judah. Immediately after the first human sin, God made a promise to save. And we know this promise was fulfilled in Jesus. So we can give God our love completely, because God is trustworthy.

In the season where too often the focus on gifts involves only economics, the Church calls us to consider the economy of salvation. How is it we will love God more? Or, put another way, what does it mean to love God?

The second commandment is to love our neighbor as ourselves. Our love for God becomes visible here on earth in the way we love our neighbor.  Saint John tells us that if we cannot love the brother or sister we can see, we simply cannot claim truthfully that we love God.

But we are not alone in this. God gives unlimited grace to help us become the person he has created. Unlimited grace. Within you, each one of you, is the powerful grace of God that provides help to become what God has made you to be. You are not on your own.

So what makes for the best new beginning? I think it is deepening our commitment to pray. Pray that you have the strength. But what does it mean to pray? There is a book by a Carmelite Nun, Sr. Ruth Burrows, called The Essence of Prayer. The insight she provides has changed my life.

 “Prayer is not something we do, but something God does.” Too often I searched for the perfect way to pray. I sought to find the right method, the right way to pray. It caused stress, and in the end, despite the promises each method often made, each method failed to live up to its hype.

Prayer is what God chooses to do with the time we give to God. We simply need to show up. I simply need to wait for God to do the rest. And waiting in expectation of God’s coming into our lives is what Advent is all about.

In a way, Advent is about the ways in which we await the coming of Jesus into our lives. Toward the end of Advent, we focus upon the Incarnation of Jesus, his advent as both God and Human. This was an advent where the Messiah came in silence.

The other type of Advent is what we get a little taste of in today’s gospel. Jesus says this: “People will die of fright in anticipation of what is coming upon the world, for the powers of the heavens will be shaken.” This is not a silent advent, but a quite public one. There will be no mistaking this final coming of Christ.

But in between the first advent of the God-man Jesus and the final coming of the Christ, is the day to day waiting we are called to have during the season of Advent. We must, as Jesus warns us, not to allow our hearts to become drowsy. For there are many things in life that can make for drowsy hearts if we do not take care to be vigilant.

So the vigilance of the season of Advent is about making time in our lives to listen for God. We allow God to do with our prayer whatever God chooses. We wait with expectant hope, that God will become so present in our lives as to calm our anxieties. Even if the day comes by “surprise like a trap”, in our expectant waiting we will feel the presence of God.

Opening ourselves to silence is never easy, particularly this time of year. We live in a noisy world. There are many distractions. So many ways in which we become more stressed, more anxious. But we are not alone. God is always with us. God always provides us unlimited help by pouring out His grace into our hearts. Not only does God give us the invitation. God also helps us to accept it.

On the friar, you can listen to our homilies (based on the readings of the day) and reflections. You can also ask us to pray for you or to pray for others. You can subscribe to our website to be informed whenever we publish an update.

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