First Sunday of Advent (B), Conservations with Consequences Podcast, December 2, 2023

Fr. Roger J. Landry
Conversations with Consequences Podcast
Homily for the First Sunday of Advent, B, Vigil
December 2, 2023

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

The following text guided the homily: 

• This is Fr. Roger Landry and it’s a privilege for me to be with you as we enter into the consequential conversation the Lord Jesus wants to have with each of us this Sunday, when we begin a new liturgical year. Sometimes Catholics find this a little strange, that New Year’s Day in the Church begins on the First Sunday of Advent, rather than about a month from now, but that’s an indication that most of us take our cues more from balls dropping in Times Square or months decreed by Julius Caesar in 46 BC than by the liturgical year that traces the life of Christ from the time when the Jews anxiously awaited his appearance (Advent proper) to ultimately his return in glory, which we celebrated last week with the Solemnity of Christ the King. Jesus said to us over and again in the Gospel, “Follow me!” and each liturgical year we do just that, tracing his footsteps along the route of salvation history, trying to become more and more like him whom we’re following. The liturgical year is 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 retracing of the life of Christ 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. This is a chance for us to enter more deeply once more into the life of Christ, to accompany him and be accompanied by him as we relive the events of his earthly life and heavenly reality. This may be the last liturgical year we have, because we never know the day or the hour. So let’s make the most of this one and begin it well.
• Jesus speaks to us very clearly in the Gospel this Sunday about how he wants us to start and live this year. He uses two sets of verbs. The first has to do with our alertness. “Wake up!” he shouts. “Stay awake!” he adds. The second set of verbs involves what we’re supposed to do when we’re awake. “Be constantly on guard!” “Be on the watch!” He says in the Gospel 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, each with his own work; and he orders the gatekeeper to be on the watch. Watch, therefore! You do not know when the lord of the house is coming… May he not come suddenly and find you sleeping.” Jesus wants us to be like doorkeepers who are always awake and on guard.
• Here in Manhattan where I live, most of the large apartment complexes have doormen, just like hotels throughout the country. The doormen are quite professional. There are two 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 alertly 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.
• Jesus calls us to be spiritual porters, to be 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, as we like to say, in history, mystery and majesty. We focus on meeting him in Bethlehem in the celebration of Christmas. We focus on meeting him when he comes at the end of time or at the end of our life, whichever “Second coming” comes first. We focus on meeting him in the Eucharist, in prayer, in Sacred Scripture, in the various disguises he takes, in the poor, the sick, the lonely, those imprisoned, those we might consider our enemies, in those around us right now, even in the priest speaking to you on his behalf right now. 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 says 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 to you and eat with you, and you with me.” We’re called to meet him with joy, with great loving expectation, and let him enter into our life. We are in reality Temples of God. God wants to dwell within. We’re called to open up our hearts to him so that he can come and dwell within. 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 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 disguise. So we have to be on our guard. The second thing we have to be on guard to lock out is related to this. It’s sin and those who want to lead us to sin. There are certain people whose presence takes us from God. They’re not necessarily evil people, but whether it be their polluted language, exaggerated worldliness, or especially their desire to have us engage in sinful activity, we have to be on the lookout, like those at the gate at the White House.
• We might add that there’s a third thing a doorman needs to do. Even if he did a good job of welcoming residents and guests, even if he superbly kept out those who shouldn’t enter, he likewise needs to keep the entrance clean and swept. So do we as spiritual doormen. Like Jesus cleansed the Temple, so we need to clean our souls. And Jesus wants to help us with 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 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. In it we enter, with the help of the Prophets Isaiah, Micah, Zephaniah and others, into the spiritual experience of the Jewish people in the centuries prior to the coming of the Messiah, something that is made far more poignant this Advent as we pray for peace in the land where the long-awaited One was born. The candles of the Advent wreath we’ll light in Church and in many of our homes is meant to show in the evergreen wreath, on the one hand, God’s everlasting love for us, and, in the flame of our candles, 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 on which the homily was based are: 

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