Becoming Vigilant Spiritual Porters, First Sunday of Advent (B), December 3, 2023

Fr. Roger J. Landry
Convent of the Missionaries of Charity, Bronx, NY
First Sunday of Advent, Year B
December 3, 2023
Is 63:16-17,19.64:2-7, Ps 80, 1 Cor 1:3-9, Mk 13:33-37

To listen to an audio recording of today’s homily, please click below: 

The following text guided the homily: 

• The Christian life is about beginning and beginning again. As we celebrate New Year’s Day in the liturgical year of the Church, the Church has us begin with the end in mind. If we don’t know the destination, any road will do. It has us focus on getting ready for Christ’s second coming. Advent receives its title from this Latin word advenire, which means that Christ is coming toward us, and the purpose of the season is, first and fundamentally, to get us conscious and eager for that coming. With the help of the Prophet Isaiah, we enter into the experience of the Jews who awaited the first coming of the Messiah, longing for the one who would ransom captive Israel. With the help of St. John the Baptist, we repent and make straight the paths for the Messiah to come. With the help of Mary and Joseph, we experience a sort of pregnant waiting, as we await not just a birth that occurred in Bethlehem, but a birth that will, we pray, bring us from the womb of this world into the next. With all their help, we recognize Christ is coming to us and we prepare, like wise virgins with lamps lit and flasks full of extra oil, to be ready always to go out to meet him.
• The readings today seek to help us focus on our preparations. St. Paul helps us rejoice that God has “enriched us in every way … so that [we] are not lacking in any spiritual gift as we wait for the revelation of our Lord Jesus Christ,” promising that God wants to “keep [us] firm to the end, irreproachable on the day of our Lord Jesus Christ.” We’ve been enriched by the Word of God, by the Sacraments, by the gifts of the Holy Spirit, through the example of the saints, through the many advents and liturgical years we’ve traversed, to await, firmly and faithfully, Christ’s unveiling as he returns. Isaiah helps us to year to expedite that encounter, as we cry out, “Return for the sake of your servants,” and “Rend the heavens and come down.” Psalm 80 does the same, as we proclaim, “O shepherd of Israel, hearken, from your throne upon the cherubim, shine forth. Rouse your power and come to save us,” and “Lord, make us turn to you; let us see your face and we shall be saved.” All of this is the rich context for what the whole Church cries out in this season, “Marantha! Come Lord Jesus!”
• In the Gospel, the One seeks to get us ready himself for this fulfillment. He tells us very clearly about how he wants us to start and live this new liturgical year with a properly Christian eschatological perspective. He wants us to be vigilant, telling us, “Be watchful!,” “Be Alert!,” “Watch!” He tells us that we should be like porters, like door openers, for a man traveling abroad who, he describes, “leaves home and places his servants in charge, … orders the gatekeeper to be on the watch.” He tells us that because they don’t know when the lord of the house is coming, this needs to be a perpetual state lest he come and find them sleeping.”
• In Manhattan, as you know, most of the large apartment complexes have doormen, just like hotels do throughout the country. The doormen are quite professional. There are three parts to their job.
• The first is always to be on the lookout for the arrival of any resident or guest. As soon as they see one arriving, they open the door. If the residents are returning from a trip or shopping, they promptly help as needed, opening up taxi or uber doors and helping transport bags or suitcases into the foyer. But the doormen also have a second job: namely to prevent those who shouldn’t be entering from doing so, something that in an age of terrorism and riots is also crucial. With a view to his second coming, Jesus is summoning us to be spiritual doorkeepers. This involves the same two tasks. The first is to be awake and alert to welcome Jesus whenever and from wherever he comes, to go out to meet him when we see he’s coming, to be vigilant in prayer as he seeks to speak to us, to be vigilant like the Shepherds and Wise Men with regard to his birth, to be vigilant to the way he comes to us in the Sacraments, in the various disguises he takes in daily life — in the poor, the sick, the lonely, those imprisoned, those we might consider our enemies, in those around us right now —all of which help us to be ready to meet him when he comes at the end of time or at the end of our life, whichever “Second coming” comes first. We’re called to be awake and alert for his presence at all times, and to open up the door when comes and allow him to enter. As he tells us in the Book of Revelation, “Behold I stand at the door knocking; if you hear my voice and open the door, I will come in and eat with you, and you with me.” We’re called to meet him with joy, with great loving expectation, and welcome him into our life. But as the famous artistic depiction memorializes, the door only has one handle, and it’s on the inside.
• The second task we have as spiritual porters is to lock the door to those who shouldn’t enter, who want to invade to do damage, harm and destroy. The first thing we have to lock it to is the devil, who seeks to encroach the temple of God we’re called to be and wreak havoc. The devil often comes in subtle disguises, so we have to be on our guard. We also have to be on guard to lock out sin and those situations and persons that lead us to sin. Some people and situations simply take us from God and we have to be on the lookout for them, like those who man the gate at the White House are for people who don’t long.
• There’s a third thing, of course, that a doorman needs to do: he needs to keep the entrance clean and swept. So do we as spiritual doormen. That’s why we meet John the Baptist every Advent. Just as Jesus cleansed the Temple, so we need to clean our souls. And the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world to whom John point wants to help us to do that through the Sacrament of Reconciliation.
• So as we begin this new liturgical year, Jesus wants us, not just in this short period before Christmas but throughout the year, to grow in our vigilance, alertness and watchfulness. Advent is a time to wake up and look up and around us. It’s a time for stoking our desire for every way he comes to us. It’s a time to welcome him at the loving depth at which he desires and deserves to be embraced. The candles of the Advent wreath we’ve blessed and lit are meant to symbolize our eagerness for the second coming of the Lord. The evergreen wreath shows God’s everlasting love for us, and the flame of our candles is meant to show our increasing hunger for God week by week. An increasing hunger shown for what Jesus himself brought into the world in Bethlehem. An increasing eagerness for Jesus’ second coming and the culmination of his saving work. A larger yearning to meet him everyday in prayer, in the Sacraments, and in others, but in a special way during this Eucharistic Revival, in the Holy Eucharist. And so we begin this year by singing, with greater poignancy, “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel and ransom captive Israel,” “O Come Divine Messiah! The world in silence waits the day!,” “O Come, thou long expected Jesus, born to set thy people free. From our fears and sins release us, let us find our rest in thee.” As this new liturgical year begins, let us respond to God’s help to make this year the best spiritual year of our life, a true year of the Lord. O come, Lord Jesus!

The readings for today’s Mass were: 

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