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Email Guidelines Dara's Homilies First Sunday of Advent (27th Nov)
Email Guidelines Dara's Homilies First Sunday of Advent (27th Nov)
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MEDITATION:
This Sunday is the first of the four Sundays of Advent.
The incarnation of Christ centuries ago is the reason for our celebration of Christmas now, but it's a prologue to his second coming. He can't come though, unless people open their hearts. Advent is a time to prepare those hearts of ours for that. He comes as a baby in Bethlehem but also as 'the master of the house' as in the Gospel today.
We prepare the 'pressies' and the parties for next December 25th, but do we prepare our hearts for the second coming of Christ? We can't know where or when it will be, but we live in hope. The Bible makes it clear: 'The Lord does not delay his promise, as some regard "delay," but he is patient with you, not wishing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance.' (2 Pt 3:9). That's worth preparing.
We're just a simple bunch, but the stable in Bethlehem wasn't exactly a fancy royal maternity hospital! Yet God chose to be born there, and to live in the poverty of Nazareth, so let's not be surprised with his wanting to come and live in all of us. Can we present him with a clean 'manger'? - with hearts that are clean? That's why advent is a time for chucking out the dirt and the dust that the world may have sprinkled over us.
The pre-natal care of modern 'obstetrics' is well improved, and young medics (like I myself used to be) have to put in long hours of learning that care, and I think that Advent is a time for a spiritual pre-natal care! A doctor advises pregnant women to avoid alcohol and cigarettes and to attend a pre-natal class. That may be no fun in itself, but after the baby is born, she'll be jumping for joy! Jesus actualy uses that image in John 16:21 : 'When a woman is in labour, she is in anguish because her hour has arrived; but when she has given birth to a child, she no longer remembers the pain because of her joy that a child has been born into the world.'. Advent is a time of pre-natal care for the most tremendous of births! God longs for his love to be born in each of us.
The first reading today talks of God, our Father, like a potter working the clay (Is 64:7). A lump of clay may be dirty and ugly, but a good potter makes a beautiful container from it. Will we let Christ make something beautiful out of us? The priest consecrates the wine in a chalice today, but will we also let our hearts be God's chalices? Will we allow Christ to pour his love into us and as the priest asks "Lord, send your Holy Spirit upon this bread and wine", do we present ourselves?
This modern world of abortions and selfish pleasures, needs help. Will we just avoid contributing to the problem, or will we bend-over to try and cure it? Isaiah asks for God to set the brushwood of the first reading on fire (Is 63:1). That's relevant for our 'cold' world. Will we let God set our love on fire?
Somebody put the effort into getting me to be born - and you too, but will we put effort into the birth of Christ in the modern world? Think about what Jesus said to Nicodemus: "... no one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above.". Nicodemus said to him, "How can a person once grown old be born again? Surely he cannot reenter his mother's womb and be born again, can he?". Jesus answered, "...What is born of flesh is flesh and what is born of spirit is spirit. Do not be amazed that I told you, 'You must be born from above.' The wind blows where it wills, and you can hear the sound it makes, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes; so it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit."... 17 For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but so that the world might be saved through him.' (Jn 3:3-8 , 17).
Let's get reborn for Christmas. Christ himself wants to come, and He needs us to let him in, so 'Let's be 'watchful and alert'! Maranatha! Come Lord!
Dara.
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