“Want to Be Ready to Meet the Lord? Then Please God in All Things”
Homily for the First Sunday of Advent, Year “C”
December 1, 2024, Cathedral of St. Mary of the Assumption
Introduction
We are approaching the end of the Thanksgiving holiday weekend, and the news reports tell us that this has been the most heavily traveled Thanksgiving weekend in memory. People make sacrifices, traveling sometimes even long distances with great inconvenience, to be with loved ones. Especially treasured are those who return home, and the ones who welcome their loved ones back home.
The Right Perspective
As we begin this season of Advent, marked as it is by our anticipation of our Lord’s coming and our preparing to welcome him, we focus in this early part of the Advent season on preparing for his return. Yes, in a sense he is returning home, for taking on a human body in his first coming, his birth in Bethlehem, he made this earth his home. After his glorious triumph over death he returned to his Father in heaven, but he also promised that he would return back here to earth, back home, to judge the living and the dead and to bring his faithful disciples with him to their true home, his heavenly Kingdom.
When we think about the Lord’s return, we are fascinated by speculating on when it will happen and what it will be like, as we hear prophecies of frightening cosmic phenomena such as “signs in the sun, the moon, and the stars” and “nations [being] in dismay,” “the roaring of the sea and the waves” and “the powers of heaven [being] shaken.” The real message our Lord would have us focus on, though, is not “out there,” but rather “in here,” the question of or own readiness for that moment. That is, our personal perspective: are we really ready to welcome him when he comes?
The Contrast
We see the contrast that he lays out for us in the Gospel reading for this First Sunday of Advent. First, he refers to those people who “will die of fright in anticipation of what is coming upon the world.” Why should they be so afraid? Because they are the ones who failed to heed his warning: “Beware that your hearts do not become drowsy from carousing and drunkenness and the anxieties of daily life.” That is, these are the ones who led a life of self-indulgence, oblivious to the true demands of love of God and neighbor, which is the recipe God has given us for our true happiness. Now, contrast these to his own faithful disciples, to whom he gives the command, “when these signs begin to happen,” to “stand erect and raise your heads because your redemption is at hand.”
That is, these are the ones who have nothing to fear because they have lived in the way that he directs us. And they are the ones who are truly free. When he speaks about “redemption” here, it means redemption from slavery. The ultimate slavery, we know, is slavery to sin and its consequence, death. Thus, those who are truly free are the ones who live in the way that he commands. That is, these commandments are not burdensome, but the way to the fulness of life.
The Right Way to Live
In fact, when you think about it, why would you want to live any other way? There are so many people, among them even some who claim the name Christian, who live the way the world teaches. But what has the world given us? True happiness? Eternal life? Our Lord is the one who has given his all for us: he came the first time in a human body so that, in that body, he could die for us to forgive our sins and win for us eternal life, the true freedom from sin and corruption. The world does not give us love, certainly not true love as exemplified by our Lord.
As the third century bishop of Carthage (North Africa), St. Cyprian, says in one of his sermons:
Our obligation is to do God’s will, and not our own.… How unreasonable is it to pray that God’s will be done, and then not promptly obey it when he calls us from this world! Instead we struggle and resist like self-willed slaves and are brought into the Lord’s presence with sorrow and lamentation, not freely consenting to our departure, but constrained by necessity. And yet we expect to be rewarded with heavenly honors by him to whom we come against our will! Why then do we pray for the kingdom of heaven to come if this earthly bondage pleases us? …
The world hates Christians, so why give your life to it instead of following Christ, who loves you and has redeemed you?
Are you ready? The sign of the answer to this question is not what you conjure up in your mind, but the way that you live your life.
Preparation
Our Lord tells us that we should be ready at all times, because we do not know when he is going to come. Notice that in the lesson he gives us in St. Luke’s Gospel, he says nothing about when his return will happen, not even that we do not know when. What does that matter? He sees all things all the time; our only proper response to his invitation is what St. Paul tells us in his First Letter to the Thessalonians: “strengthen your hearts, to be blameless in holiness before our God and Father at the coming of our Lord Jesus with all his holy ones…. Conduct yourselves to please God – and as you are conducting yourselves – … do so even more.”
We prepare by living in a way that our lives are pleasing to God. Is that not the essence of love? When you truly love someone, does not your greatest happiness lie in pleasing your beloved, to live your life in such a way that you bring delight to the one whom you love?
We are now at the start of the “holiday season.” It is a busy time, but one filled with much excitement and anticipation. It is a time when a lot of preparations are being made for special family get-togethers and celebrations with loved ones and colleagues. Let it be a lesson to us of the primary importance of our interior preparation: always being ready to welcome the Lord when he wishes to come and visit us. If we live in the way that he commands, as exemplified by St. Paul’s teaching to us, we will have no cause for fear, but rather cause for rejoicing. That, in short, is the way to a happy death.
Conclusion
Let us take assurance, then, that if bear witness, keeping vigilant and persevering in prayer, always seeking to please God in thought, word and deed, loving Him with all our heart, mind, soul and strength, and our neighbor as ourself, we will have nothing to fear from the coming of the Son of Man. We will have no cause for fear, distress, confusion or dread. Rather, we will know true liberation, and so be able to stand up straight in happy anticipation before the coming of the Son of Man.