FIRST SUNDAY OF ADVENT - YEAR B

FIRST SUNDAY OF ADVENT – B
(Is 63:16b-17, 19b, 64:2-7; Ps 79:2-3,15-16,18-19; 1Cor 1:3-9; Mk 13:33-37)

Theme: Let us promise the Lord that we do not go away from his house

Reflection:

- Time of Advent: we are from today entering into the season of Advent, the first season of the Liturgical Year B. It is a period of reflection and preparation:
- First of all, it is a time for retrospection: we reflect over the first coming of Jesus which was already taken place in the ‘time’ and in ‘history’ and in the ‘story’ of mankind; we reflect also the coming of the Lord in his glory, his second coming, we will certainly take place at the ‘end’ of time, history and story of humanity;
- Secondly, it is a time for preparation: we prepare ourselves to be worthy of celebrating the great feast of His Coming into the world, thus the Christmas, and we make ourselves ready to receive him into our story, our time and our life; we already keep ourselves at the disposition of the Lord as a good and faithful servant ‘doing’ our daily work, be it material for our worldly life or/and be it spiritual for our heavenly life, so that when the Lord comes we have the possibility of meeting him;
- We keep on reflecting and preparing because we do not know when He will come and how far we will be when he calls us; therefore, this has to be ‘a daily and continuous process’ so that we are on the right and sure path of ‘meeting the bridegroom’.
- Season of Advent into two methods of preparation: the Church makes us to see the two types of preparation so that we are ever ready not to miss the time of grace and period of love:
o First part of an Advent, that is, till 16th December, reflect the eschatological coming of the Lord, that is, His advent in glory; even the readings of the liturgy lead us in this method of mediation; therefore, it reminds us of what will happen when He comes: everything will be put in its proper place; and what will take place once He comes: everyone will receive their reward in the face of the just judgment;
o Then follow the intense days of an Advent, from 17th December, which help us to see and make ourselves part of the mystery of Incarnation of Jesus Christ; we reflect over the mystery that was revealed and the love that was manifested by God by allowing himself to be in the human form; and the love that transforms us into renewed creatures and dignified children of God – the fruit of Jesus’ birth.
- “we will be always in the house of the Lord” should be our promise that we have to make to the Lord in this period of Advent; we can rightly be there not because we have merited it by our force but it has been ‘planned and prepared’ by God himself in Christ and in Spirit; the house we are in is His House because He Has Pitched His Tent Amidst Us.


First Reading:

- The silence of the Lord is a particular attitude in which he calls to himself the people of Israel:
o This is the penitential supplication of the third Isaiah which remembers the succession of God’s interventions in the story of the salvation which are broken by the sin of the Israel; This is a passage derived from the prayer, more pathetic and intense which is the part of the liturgical testimony of the first Hebrews who have re-entered in Palestine after the edict of Cyrus (538 B.C); It is a narration which recalls a movement of ‘interaction’ between God and his people in which God himself takes the first step and man responds to it with the conversion and with the walk towards him with the renewed faith and confidence in Him because He is their Father (v.63:17). Their decision to follow him is expressed in their promise to with him: “we will not go away anymore from your path” (63:17); “we shall practice the justice and we remember your ways” (64:4); “we have sinned against you.. and we have become impure” (64:4-5) but we have you with and for us as our Father so we will come back to you because it is you who have ‘made us and given us a form’ (64:7) and we will become a new creature.
- It is not a simple prayer but it contains the promise on the part of the chosen people to remain always with their Lord:
o ‘You are our Father’: the whole passage is covered with this phrase ‘you are our Father’ and we can observe the first verse with which the passage starts: “You, Lord, are our Father” (63:16) and it concludes with the same notion: “Lord, you are our father” (64:7). The first one is that of ‘father-redeemer’ and last one is of ‘father-creator’.
o The experience of the people of Israel about their God is first of God who saves them: being God of their ancestors he saves every time when they gone away from his ways and thus entering into the bitter experience of the slavery; they knew well, as they meditate, the attitude of their God: ‘you are a God who have done everything – the choosing, the property and the victory – for all those who have trusted in you’ (64:3), and ‘you go to meet those who practice justice with joy and who remember your ways’ (64;4). Therefore, they knew that their God is not a God of words alone but a God who works for them and for their salvation;
o They have gone away from him time and again either God has called them back from their wrong ways through the word of the prophets or He remained silent without giving them any answer to their prayers. And here is the good example for this: “you are angry because we have sinned against you from long time and we have become rebels” (64:4b); they acknowledge their failure and they invoke his name in spite of their unworthiness just because they have still confidence in him; that is the reason why they say – “BUT” (64:7);
o Their trust is in the attitude of a father, thus: ‘whatever happens and how ever we have gone away because of our weakness you are still our father’; but ‘you are a father and father forgives and embraces his children very easily and with immense love though children often do not listen to him’; after all ‘we are the work of your hands and without your creation we are nothing and we are nowhere, just remember us out of your loving action’; the list can go on; all these show that Father stands against and over the faults of his children; and the people of Israel were having this kind of trust in their God.
- Our task in this season of advent:
o Inspired by the first reading we shall also write ‘OUR STORY’ in which we had the moment of God’s presence with us and the moments in which we have lost his sight because of sins of ‘pride’ and ‘egoism’;
o We shall promise to use these few days of advent, a gracious time, to reflect on our life and to see whether we are still ‘connected to God’ or ‘we have gone out of reach of the signal of God’s presence’.

Second Reading:

- We are enriched by the gifts of God:
o St. Paul reminds us of our strength. We are not any more ordinary people but people filled by the blessing of God. This is the way he starts his letter and he makes us to keep in mind that ‘there is a grace which is given to us and for which we have to continuously give thanks to God’.
o This grace is multiplied and we are now ‘rich’ and ‘full’ of God’s wonderful and most valuable gifts and they are, in the same words of Paul, the gifts of the Word and the gifts of the Knowledge.
o The gift of the word is Jesus himself who is the Word of the Father and the gift of the knowledge is Spirit himself who is the wisdom of the Father; in this way we are ‘filled’ with Jesus and with the Spirit;
o On one side, thanking the Lord for the work of his hands, that is, the pouring of the Word and the Spirit, on the other side let us remind ourselves that being enriched and entrusted with these gift we are to manifest them in our words (the attitude of Jesus) and in our actions (the power of the Spirit).
- We are, thus, to be firm in our Christian life to the final day of our life:
o The word and spirit that are in us are always at work of renewal; they continuously inspire us and lead us to the life of communion with the Lord;
o Our goal is to be united with the Son of God at the end of the time and we have to work for it from now until we reach it;
o In this period of ‘waiting’ (advent) we are to strike and live the balance between ‘the gifts given to us’ and ‘making them fruitful’ in our life so that we are eligible and worthy to participate in the manifestation of the Lord.

Gospel:

- Be Watchful: the biblical interpretation of the passage
o This is the last discourse of Jesus before confronting his passion and therefore, it has a great significance on the level of ‘his passing’ from this world to His Father’s side. In this moment of passion and suffering he asks his disciples to be watchful, that is, observing all that happens and happening and will happen in the days to come as the consequence of ‘his departure’ (like a man in the parable who departs).
o The whole of 13th chapter of Mark is full of these admonitions: to be awake, to be watchful, to be at guard, to be alert and it goes on: even the whole chapter starts with this word ‘guard well’ (13:5) and ends with the similar word ‘keep watching’ (13:37); this shows how this word becomes a key word for reading and understanding the whole of ‘passion narratives’ of Jesus in the following chapters; in this way, this 13th chapter and particularly ‘this last episode’ of the chapter becomes ‘an introduction’ to mystery of passion that Jesus affronts in few days;
o At this outset of the reading let us analyze its significance in the exegetical level:
 Keep awake (v.33): Jesus continues the his discourse which he has started in the beginning of this chapter (13:5) and this continues still ahead (13:34, 35, 37); again, this will be again referred with little more force in his passion in Gethsemane (14:34, 37, 38) and it become the final appeal of Jesus to his disciples: that they should not lose themselves in the false hopes and vain curiosities about the end of times. They should not also sleep (13:36 and also in the scene of Gethsemane 14:37, 40). Therefore, they have the task of living their human life in awaiting ‘unknown coming’ of God.
 Like a man who goes on a journey (v.34): this form is first found in Mark since it is his the first gospel and it has become platform for other evangelists Mathew and Luke and they have used this form in many occasions (Math 25:14; Luke 19:12; Luka 12:35-40; Math 24:45-51; Luke 12:42-46); Mark has synthesized all the similar parables on the vigilance in this simple and small parable. Doorkeeper: all the servants has received the power and command of work; but one person stands distinct, that is, doorkeeper; he is given the exclusive mission of keeping awake (in Luke all the servants have to awake – 12:36-38). It is difficult to know who this personage is, who is given in-charge of keeping awake in the name of the whole community – could it be a priest! Bishop! and, in the larger sense Pope!
 You do not know (v.35): it is not only about time and day of the coming of the Lord but more than that ‘it is the universal ignorance of the design of God (13:32); the four hours of the night indicates the context of Mark and the cultural context of Roman exercise.
 Suddenly (v.36): the confrontation of the theme of the coming of the Lord with that of the thief (Math 24:42-43; 1The 5:2; 2Pt 3:10f). in fact, God does not want to come suddenly and without telling; He, time and again, lets his people know about the future life of the one who believes in him; therefore, the meaning of ‘sudden coming’ applies not to God but to us who ‘fail to attend’ either because we have no time or because we are busy in our own world.
 To all – keep awake (v.37): Jesus enlarges his admonition not only to his disciples or to a small group of listeners but to all and therefore, it becomes an universal appeal of Jesus: to keep awake: this is again the last word of the whole context – that of the chapter in general and of the parable in particular – Jesus asks them to be vigilant in their rapport to the events that are going to take place immediately from his passion to their own Christina witness through the various sufferings and persecutions.
- Keep attending well: the meaning of the passage for us today
o The moment: Jesus talks about a particular moment which will certainly come and this moment for the context of gospel is the moment of his departure from the world through the passion and death; and in the larger sense, this moment is the moment of his return to reap the fruits of the seeds that he has sown before leaving the world; it could be also a moment of interaction and meeting between him and his disciple and this could be for today: Jesus and you. Every time we come to listen to him and renew our life by continuous gestures of faith and love IS the moment in which we indeed meet Jesus: ‘this is the day that the Lord has made, let us rejoice and be glad in it’ and ‘we meet him while he is near and we reach him while he is still with us’ and are we experiencing and enjoying the moment: the presence of Jesus with us and our presentation before him!
o He has given his house to the servants: Jesus while departing from the world has entrusted ‘his life and mission’ – his house – ‘to his disciples’ – to his followers, his servants - by giving them ‘the power’ and giving each one his ‘duty’ and to the watch keeper he has given the command of ‘being awake’: the whole phrase and process show ‘the trust’ on the part of God in his people and ‘the acceptance’ of work on the part of his people; on one side, God’s trust in man and on the other, man’s acceptance of God and his work. In the sphere of the church this has a great meaning: Jesus giving his disciples his power to safeguard, protect and live and proclaim ‘his mission of love’ to all till he returns and the power to exercise its authority or ownership over the goods that Jesus himself has entrusted to them and specially, the task of vigilance to the Pope, the watch keeper of the house of Jesus.
o Four hours of the night: Mark indicates that during the night there are four particular moments: the evening, the midnight, the cockcrow and the dawn; these are the hours in which the ‘guards’ change their shifts of watching; the rabbinic tradition connects there four hours to the ‘work of the Lord’ and to his precious interventions in the history: the creation of the world, the calling of Abraham, the liberation of Israel, and the coming of the Messiah. And we can just reflect each of these great events and see how God has trusted man and man in return trying to keep up his faithfulness to His designs.

Conclusion:

- Advent is a time to Recollect: we can always reflect and get to our mind all that God has done in our lives and in the particular way, as the readings inspire us, we are given the task of safeguarding the gift he has given to us: his gifts are – the life and mission of Christ and the good and charitable operations of the Spirit and apart from this Christian vocation, we are also entrusted with so many personal talents and capabilities; advent could be the time for us to recollect all that we have and we are and ask ourselves ‘how can we safeguard the gifts of God that are in our hands, the world and every other person we meet?’ and we need not worry and break our head to know how. The answer is simple and given of Jesus himself: by ‘keeping attention and keeping awake’:
- Advent is, therefore, a time to ‘attending and to be awake’:
o attending means ‘to look well’ and ‘to observe deeply’; first, we have to attend to ourselves to first by looking what we are called to be and how we are now; what we are asked to do and what we are doing now; second, we have to attend to the needs of others by observing and keeping eye on their words, actions, attitudes and their necessities; third, we have to attend to God’s mission by keeping in mind the life of faith, hope and charity;
o keeping awake means ‘to look beyond’ and ‘to see over’; this means we have to already analyze the fruit of an action, the result of a deed well ahead of starting it; what would happen if I do this way; what could be the result of this attitude; what could be the reaction for the words I am going to use; all these questions help us to see ‘beyond’ and ‘over’ our simple thinking and our normal estimation and calculation; in this way and with the hope of reaping good results we have to keep guard and awake.
- Four alternative solutions for the four moments of the night: we have to keep awake so that we do not panic when the actual time of meeting Jesus, our Master, comes and the evangelist indicates the four hours of the night we are possible moments of weakness and fall into sin and therefore we have to be attentive and keep watching well our behavior and attitude and for this we can learn the four attitudes: at the evening – to keep resistance of not committing anything wrong; at midnight – to enter into oneself, to look deeply into oneself, to enter into the ‘interior’ life of oneself; at cockcrow – to keep prayer because it is the time when even Jesus went to pray personally to the Father, and finally, at dawn – to keep hope because each new day opens for us a bundle of new possibilities;
- Therefore, we are called to fructify the gifts we are given in this time of advent and so that we could be always in his house which is entrusted to us and therefore, let us promise to the Lord at the beginning of the season of Advent that we will not go away any more from his house.