Tag: hope

First Sunday of Advent

As we celebrate the first Sunday of Advent, the message to us from our readings is one of anticipation, and a call to watchfulness. The season itself is one of preparing ourselves and of anticipating the celebration of the birth of our Lord Jesus Christ at Christmas. It is a time for prayer and self-evaluation, as well as taking action.

In our first reading from the prophet Isaiah, as well as in our Gospel, we are called to an accounting of our own sinfulness, and to be watchful for the coming of the Master. It is a time of focused humility as we honestly assess our own shortcomings, even in the things we did “right”, because no matter how well we may have accomplished some things, it is only done well by human standards, not by those of God. This should not be seen as a discouraging statement, as no one can truly measure up to the standards of someone who is perfection, power, and creation incarnate. It is instead an opportunity to humbly ask the One who is perfect to look mercifully upon our shortcomings, and to forgive us.

One of the things that always comes with the season, is a distinct change in our outlook on our fellow man, our extension of generosity, and perhaps our willingness to more overtly express love to those around us. This is a nice occurrence, but if we are really caught up in what should be the true manifestation of this season, it should also be a time of questioning why we did not do these things for our brothers and sisters in Christ all year round. Why do we only now focus so much more on modeling our behavior after our Lord? This is not to say we should not, it is simply an acknowledgement of how far we have yet to go in our learning and our pursuit of modeling ourselves after Christ. As the saying goes, we can’t fix something if we don’t recognize that it is broken.

In this season, let us not be discouraged with our brokenness, but optimistically look to how to fix it. Let’s take the time to step back from the rush and immerse ourselves in what is truly a worthy gift to our Lord for the celebration of His birth – our humility and love. Let’s express it with joy and not out of a sense of obligation. Let’s awaken from the sleep that we were caught up in during the year and prepare ourselves so that we are not lacking in spiritual gifts to lay at His feet when He comes and finds us watchful for Him.      

The Solemnity of our Lord Jesus Christ

Of all the Gospels read throughout this past year, this is the one that absolutely should have our ears perked up in attention. The reason is simple, while other Gospel readings have focused on what we are to be aware of in Gods teaching, this one is about the consequences of whether we put any of that into practice.

The parable of the separation of the sheep and the goats is purely about who our Lord will find as having followed His commands, and who did not. In the case of those who will be seen as not having done so, there are really two areas that we should be concerned with. The first is whether we deliberately did not follow what was taught, in other words, did we rebel against Gods teaching in favor of our own preferred way of living our lives. This is usually fairly clear cut, in particular for those of us fortunate enough to have been taught specifically what our Lord said. Yet there is another area of concern, in this second category the question is whether we did anything at all about what we were taught, or did we simply go on about our lives as if nothing had been said or taught? This is perhaps the more dangerous of the two, because it is insidiously easy to fall into this category without perhaps even realizing it.

The end result of our time here on earth though will be the same for all, in that we will ALL stand before our Lord and be accountable for our actions whether good or bad, or perhaps our inactions whether deliberate or simply due to sloth. It is worth noting incidentally, that sloth can be either an actual inclination toward laziness and apathy, or an inclination toward inaction due to placing our focus on other things that distract us from taking righteous action. When we are so busy with ourselves and our own concerns that we brush past those in need without rendering any kind of acknowledgement or assistance, we are as guilty as though we had blown past them in a deliberate attempt at avoidance of helping them (conscious inaction). This is the incredibly dangerous subtlety that we must be vigilant against. We need to truly be on watch, for we will know neither the day nor the hour that we will be called to judgement, the only thing we can count on for sure, is that we WILL be judged.