HOMILY FOR THE 1ST SUNDAY OF ADVENT YEAR A/Be Vigilant!"

Homily for First Sunday of Advent Year A

Isaiah 2:1-5; Romans 13:11-14a; Matthew 24:37-44.

Theme: "Be Vigilant!"

We begin a new Liturgical year 2023 today with the season of Advent. This liturgical year A begins the three-year cycle of the story of our salvation. In this liturgical year, our Sunday Gospel reading will be from St. Matthew's Gospel.

"Advent", as the name suggests, has to do with the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. It is a time of vigilance as we await God's coming in our history. Through conversion, we prepare ourselves to welcome God who is born among us. During Advent, the Church asks us to prepare for the three dimensional coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, past, present and future. Historically, Jesus came into our world in time when he was born in Bethlehem. This we celebrate on Christmas day. He was crucified, died and was buried and after three days he rose again from the dead and ascended into heaven after forty days of His resurrection. He promised to come again at the end of time. Mysteriously, He continues to be present in the sacraments and in our prayers. He will fulfil his promise of coming at the end of time to judge the living and the dead. It is this Second Coming of Christ that the Church uses this season to remind us and this is what today's liturgy is about.

All three readings of today focus on vigilance, not as an agonizing wait for the Lord at the end of our lives but as awareness to the presence of the Lord today.

The First Reading tells us of the new world that will begin with the coming of the Lord. "Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob; that he may teach us his ways and that we may walk in his paths" (Isa.2:3). To go up to the mountain of the Lord means to seek our full and authentic humanity, to develop our spiritual and bodily qualities while we struggle to bring the world under control through advancement of knowledge and through labour.

In going up to the mountain of the Lord, the Gentiles will be exhorting one another to come to the house of Jacob, to the God of the Jews. They will come to learn His ways, His message of truth and salvation. In that future day the new law, the word of God,  the gospel message of salvation, shall spread to the world from Zion.

Prophet Isaiah now turns to his own people, ",the "house of Jacob" and exhorts them not to be outdone by the Gentile  nations.

In the Second Reading, St . Paul prescribes the way for us to be watchful when he said: "Let us then cast off the works of darkness and put on the armour of light" (Rom.13:12). In other words, let us be godly in our ways so that the unlawful desires of the flesh must be curbed.

Today's Gospel urges us to be vigilant. For us to prepare for the celebration of the birth of Christ at Christmas, Jesus warns us to be watchful. To do this, Jesus presents to us three stories in today's Gospel. For Jesus, his Second Coming will be comparable to what happened in the days of Noah. For three reasons: first, both events came suddenly, secondly, only a relatively few people were prepared and thirdly, most people were preoccupied with worldly affairs and concerns.

Jesus' second story is about workers. Men working in the field and two women grinding. They were all busy working, which is commendable but in each case, one of the two persons is too busy, not serious with things concerning God. A misplacement of priorities.

The third story, Jesus compared His coming to a thief coming at night without the householder expecting his coming. By this image, Jesus is reminding us that we do not know the hour of his coming and for this reason, we must always be ready, not in a sense of fear that God might pounce upon us when we are least prepared, but in a sense of love that always finds us doing God's will to the best of our ability to express a simple return of love for love.

The Second Coming of Christ will mean different things to different people. For those who are prepared, it will bring eternal joy, liberation from the vicissitudes of this earthly life. For those not prepared, it will spell doom, everlasting disaster. This is the sense in which two men will be in the fields, "one is taken, one is left. Two women will be grinding at the mill; one is taken and one is left". That is why the all-important issue is not when and how he will come but whether or not people are prepared to meet the Son of man when he comes in glory.

Today's readings invite us therefore to stay awake and be watchful to avoid evil and sin, and constantly walk in the light of Christ as we prepare to meet the Lord. It is time to turn away from  things we are ashamed of and begin to walk as children of light. While you have time, says the Advent cry, wake up and stay awake, because you know neither the day nor the hour when the Lord will come. Let that day never come on us with surprise because the Son of man is coming to reward us for our good and punish us for our evil.

May the Second Coming of our Lord Jesus Christ meet us awake in prayer and in good deeds through Christ our Lord. Amen.