First Sunday of Advent (A), Conservations with Consequences Podcast, November 26, 2022

Fr. Roger J. Landry
Conversations with Consequences Podcast
Homily for the First Sunday of Advent, A, Vigil
November 26, 2022

To listen to an audio recording of the brief homily, please click below:

The following text guided the homily: 

• This is Fr. Roger Landry. I hope that you have had a wonderful Thanksgiving. We give thanks today to have the chance to get ready together for the consequential conversation Jesus wants to have with us this Sunday.
• This Sunday, as you know, is Catholic New Year’s Day, when we begin a new liturgical year, which is meant to provide us a new spiritual start. The liturgical year — in which we retrace all of the events of salvation history from the long wait for a Messiah to the crowning of that crucified and risen long-awaited One as the King of the Universe — is not meant to be a liturgical cycle but a liturgical spiral, not a “same old, same old,” but something that helps us to enter into the mysteries we celebrate far more profoundly than the last time. Like re-reading a great book or watching anew a classic movie, each pass along the liturgical spiral that begins this Sunday is supposed to reveal to us elements we haven’t seen before and remind us of important things that we once knew but have forgotten about the mystery of God, his love for us, and his hopes and plans for us. The beginning of the new year is a time to make resolutions to grow in our spiritual life, because every year that passes means we’re 365 days closer to the coming of the Lord for us at the end of our life or at the end of time, and we never know if the year that we’re commencing might be our last. So we approach this fresh spiritual start with gratitude but also a sense of urgency.
• That urgency is front and center in Jesus’ conversation with us this Sunday in the Gospel. He tells us directly, “You must be prepared, for at an hour you do not expect, the Son of Man will come.” Advent is principally about preparing for Christ’s second coming through retracing the way God prepared the Jews for his first coming. Jesus wants us to be ready, awake, alert, hopeful, excited, and looking forward. He doesn’t want the end of time to be like an ambush but a longed-desired reunion, not a pop quiz but a scheduled exam that we’ve studied for and are ready to ace. But he makes clear that some will be ready, some not. He says that at the time of flood, Noah had built the ark and was ready, but most were not and the flood carried them away. He says something similar will happen with his Advent. He says two will be in the field and one will be taken and the other left. There will be two working in the kitchen; one will be taken, the other left. In St. Luke’s account, Jesus adds, “There will be two in one bed. One will be taken and the other left.” Jesus describes that two people doing the same thing at the same time will have two totally different outcomes. This doesn’t mean that the decision is somehow going to be arbitrary, as if God is just going to flip a coin and determine who gets taken by him to eternal happiness and who gets left alienated from him forever. The ones who will be taken to be with the Lord will be those who are ready, who are awake, who are excited for the things of God, who are seeking him, striving to grow spiritually, who are journeying, making the effort to come to meet him, and who even when they’re working the fields, or grinding meal in the kitchen, or resting in bed are seeking to unite their whole life to God. He says if the owner of a house knew the hour when a burglar was planning to arrive, he would not be asleep but ready. So much more, he says, we need to be prepared for Jesus’ coming, who does not want to come like a thief but as a much-loved friend.
• One sign of the type of readiness for the coming of the Lord that has characterized Christian devotion over the centuries is the Advent wreath, which we will bless in our Churches and many families will use in their homes. The most important part of the Advent wreath, we know, is not the color of the candles, which symbolize the hopeful spirit of the weeks, or the evergreens, which symbolize God’s eternal love. The most important part is the flame, which symbolizes our prayerful vigilance for Christ’s coming. Just like the five wise bridesmaids in Jesus’ parable whose lamps were always burning in anticipation for the coming of the Bridegroom, so the flame of these candles symbolize and remind us of the flame of desire we are called to have for Jesus’ return. The Advent wreath is a sign of expectant vigilance, of how week by week, not just throughout Advent but through our year and life, our flame of love for God is meant to grow.
• This Advent the U.S. bishops have done us all a favor by placing before us a collective ecclesiastical New Year’s Resolution: to grow in Eucharistic knowledge, faith, amazement, love, life, charity and apostolate. The three-year Eucharistic Revival the bishops have inaugurated is an opportunity to look at each of the liturgical seasons with fresh eyes and Eucharistic lenses, beginning with Advent. The basic Advent virtue, as I just mentioned, is loving vigilance, and this longing is meant to characterize our approach to Jesus really, substantially and truly present in the Eucharist. Many Catholics over time allow the fire they had at the first Communion toward Jesus in Holy Communion to attenuate or be extinguished. This Advent is a time to look at that love and make it practical, turning Advent hymns, familial prayers around a domestic Advent wreath and even growing darkness and decreasing temperatures into a summons to pray spiritual communions and become a living flame. The longing of the Advent season, however, is not just on the part of believers toward God. It’s principally about God’s longing for us. Well before the people of God’s prayers and hopes were recorded in the Old Testament, indeed even “before the foundation of the world” (Eph 1:4), God has been longing for us. That love led to the incarnation, to the passion, and ultimately to the altar, which is a foretaste of his desire for an eternal communion. Jesus desires communion with us more than all the saints combined have desired to receive him. Daily Mass and adoration of the Blessed Sacrament are expressions of this mutual desire.
• This Advent Jesus wants to engage us in a decisive dialogue of life, so that we are in constant communication with him so that when we comes, we’re ready, like someone to whom we’re talking on the phone who says he’s in the neighborhood driving toward our house and is about to knock. Whether we’re in the kitchen, out in our yard or in bed, he wants us to head to meet him at the door. At an hour we do not expect, he will come, but we can nevertheless be ready for him no matter the hour, dressed in our baptismal garments, with the flame of faith, hope and love burning for him in our heart. And if we’re wise enough to be living a Eucharistic life, adoring Jesus and worthily receiving him inside, even each day, then we never be caught off guard, since the one whom we will be welcoming will be the one we long for and are accustomed to receive with love each day. Happy New Year!

The Gospel on which the homily was based was: 

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