1st Advent Sunday A	01.12.2013

Introduction	We begin our first masses of the advent Season and you are all very welcome. We are told in today’s gospel “The Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect” Therefore we are asked to be ready for his coming.

Penitential Rite

The time has come, you must stay awake now

Lord have mercy

Our salvation is nearer than it was

Christ have mercy

The night is almost over, it will be daylight soon.

Lord have mercy

Isaiah 2.	The Lord will gather the nations together

Psalm 121	I rejoiced when I heard them say, let us go to God’s house

Rom 13.11	Our salvation is near

Acclamation	Let us see, O Lord your mercy

and give us your saving help.

Omelia

You could say that the watchword for Advent is “stay awake and stand ready” for this is a season of preparation for the coming of the Lord. This is the beginning of a new season as we commemorate the first coming of Christ, as a child. As we remember this we try to make our spiritual preparations. We will surely see him and we want to be ready when he comes.

I asked you to pay careful attention to the second reading, taken from St Paul’s letter to the Christians in Rome. This was a passage which had a special meaning for Augustine. He was born in Tagaste in North Africa in 354ad. His mother Monica was a Catholic, but his father Patrick was pagan. He abandoned his faith and lived a promiscuous life at university in Carthage. Later to his mother’s grief he joined a cult called the Manicheans. When his mother reproached him for his way of life and reminded him that some of the young women he went with might be married. He laughed at her, as a young man might.

He was a brilliant young philosopher who had a long term partner and they had a son. He travelled to Italy for look for preferment in the government. In his thirties he came under the influence of Ambrose, the bishop of Milan and gradually came to a more stable way of life. He was in his garden at a villa in Cassiciacum, when he heard a boy’s voice say, “Take the book and read it. “Take the book and read it!” “Take the book and read it!” His friend Alypius was reading the New Testament, so he snatched the scroll from him and read.

You know the time is has come. You must wake up now: our salvation is nearer than it was when we were converted. The night is almost over, it will be daylight soon, let us give up all the things we prefer to do under cover of the dark. Let us arm ourselves and appear in the light. Let us live decently as people do in the daytime no drunken orgies, no promiscuity or licentiousness and no wrangling or jealousy. Let your armour be the Lord Jesus Christ.

Augustine began to lead a different kind of life and eventually became a priest, until he was elected Bishop of Hippo Regius. He is a great writer and teacher of the Catholic faith. It is our reading today that convinced him that time was running short. That he should seize the opportunity and become an armed warrior for the Lord Jesus. Let your armour be the Lord Jesus Christ.

This is the third Sunday in a row, where the gospel has been asking us to consider the end times, the end of the world and the end of our journey here.

The reason for this is to show us that, as individuals, we do not know how much time we have left. This is a plain simple fact. Advent tells us that we should live in readiness.

The time line is this. The long expected Jesus came once in Palestine in time of the Roman Empire. It is our faith that he will come again in his glory at the end of the world. There is a third, subtle intermediate coming too. He comes to dwell with individual believers, like you and me. The liturgy asks us to be ready. It is later than we think. The dark night I almost over and the day time is coming. We should live in the light of the day and live the kind of lives that he asks. This was what Augustine of Hippo realized as he read these same words.

Advent is a lovely season. It is full of hope and joy as we await the coming of the Lord. It chimes in with our preparations for the Christmas feast and gives a reality and a promise to our celebrations. I would like to draw your attention to two lines in the mass texts. They have always been part of our belief, but the reforms of the Second Vatican Council, fifty years ago, gave them greater prominence. I want to underline them this morning, so that when you sing them or hear them, they will have a fuller meaning for you.. In the memorial acclamation, which we sing after the words of institution ,”We proclaim your death O Lord and profess your resurrection, until you come again” All three acclamations have these words and they refer to the Second Coming of the Lord Jesus. Similarly we await his glorious return in the Eucharistic Prayers. I hold up the Body and Blood of the Lord before Holy Communion and say “Behold the Lamb of God. Behold him who takes away the sins of the world. Blessed are those called to the supper of the Lamb” This is a reference to the banquet in heaven to which we have all been invited. Therefore we must strive to be ready when he comes again.

We can prepare with the Sacrament of Confession or reconciliation. We could be more faithful to our daily prayers, morning and evening. We could read the scriptures with the “Walk with Me” Booklets Maybe we could come to mass an extra time on a week-day or come for a period of Adoration on a Thursday.

These are the hallmarks of this season. The Lord is coming soon. We prepare ourselves for his coming with joy and great hope. His coming will be the fulfilment of all our desires. In our response to psalm 121 we sang I rejoiced when I heard they say. Let us go to God’s house.