Holy Gospel
of Jesus Christ according to Saint Mark 13:33-37.
Be watchful! Be alert! You do not know when the
time will come.
It is like a man travelling abroad. He leaves home and places his servants in charge, each with his work, and orders the gatekeeper to be on the watch.
Watch, therefore; you do not know when the lord of the house is coming, whether in the evening, or at midnight, or at cock-crow, or in the morning.
May he not come suddenly and find you sleeping.
What I say to you, I say to all: 'Watch!'"
It is like a man travelling abroad. He leaves home and places his servants in charge, each with his work, and orders the gatekeeper to be on the watch.
Watch, therefore; you do not know when the lord of the house is coming, whether in the evening, or at midnight, or at cock-crow, or in the morning.
May he not come suddenly and find you sleeping.
What I say to you, I say to all: 'Watch!'"
Fr. Raymond ...
"that definitive moment of our own personal lives" [emphasis. Edit]
For the Gospel of the very first Sunday of Advent we might
expect the Church to choose a passage that turns our minds directly to the
proximity of her annual celebration of the birth of Christ.
But we won't find anything of that in today's Gospel. Instead She chooses a Gospel that turns our minds to the consideration of the proximity of our personal death. The implication being made is surely that it is precisely, at the moment of our own personal death that we will first personally encounter the Christ face to face, and no matter how young we may be, that encounter is, for each of us, relatively proximate. "Stay awake!" says Jesus, "Stand ready! Because .... " No matter who we may be or what the times and seasons for anyone of us ... "The Son of Man is coming at an hour we do not expect".
But we won't find anything of that in today's Gospel. Instead She chooses a Gospel that turns our minds to the consideration of the proximity of our personal death. The implication being made is surely that it is precisely, at the moment of our own personal death that we will first personally encounter the Christ face to face, and no matter how young we may be, that encounter is, for each of us, relatively proximate. "Stay awake!" says Jesus, "Stand ready! Because .... " No matter who we may be or what the times and seasons for anyone of us ... "The Son of Man is coming at an hour we do not expect".
Perhaps we could do well this Advent to make this theme the
background to our preparation for Christmas. We could make it a preparation
for; a looking forward to; that
definitive moment of our own personal lives when we will come face to face
with the living Christ; or rather, that definitive moment when He comes
to us.
This
will be the moment when we come face to face with Jesus: not as the sacramental
Jesus of the Eucharist,
nor as the liturgically new-born Jesus of the Christmas season, nor as the Jesus whom we encounter in our prayer life;
but as the Risen and Living Christ of Glory. The Christ in all the splendour of his Godhead and of his glorified humanity.
nor as the liturgically new-born Jesus of the Christmas season, nor as the Jesus whom we encounter in our prayer life;
but as the Risen and Living Christ of Glory. The Christ in all the splendour of his Godhead and of his glorified humanity.
This is surely the message of today's Gospel: that our death
will not be a lonely journey into the next world. Jesus himself has described
it for us very differently. He describes it, not as a going out of ourselves
from this world to him in the next, but rather as an advent, a coming
of Himself to us in this world to take us by the hand and lead us
into the next. "I am going away to prepare a place for you" he
says" .... and I will come back to take you to be with me where I
am." And in case we should think of this final personal advent with fear, Jesus himself is careful to take away
any sense of awe and fear we might have. This he does by portraying it for us
in that homely post-resurrection scene where he stands on the shore of
eternity, as it were, and invites the Apostles to "come and have breakfast".
Now is the time then to prepare ourselves to welcome this
inevitable and utterly personal
Advent of the Lord to us with a Faith and a Love that cry out "Come then,
Lord Jesus, Come."
 |
| Cistercian ocso Missal. First Sunday of Advent |
No comments:
Post a Comment