Beginning the Advent-ure

Advent: a season to prepare for the birth of the Messiah

Today we begin Advent. Advent in Latin means “coming.”

Advent is all about hope in a glorious future. It invites us to reflect on the threefold coming of Jesus. Yes, Jesus came to us centuries ago; He comes to us now sacramentally; and He will come again with great power and glory at the end-time to transform this universe into a “new heaven and a new earth.”

The prophet Isaiah spoke about hope. He proclaimed that people everywhere “shall go up” to the Temple in Jerusalem not only to hear but to do the word.  Everywhere there will be peace. Do we trust in God’s unconditional love for us? And yes, do we try to do the right thing?

Paul in his letter to the Christian community at Rome wrote about his earthly life drawing closer to the end every day. So too is ours. Stay awake, be ready, live in the light, writes St. Paul. Practice virtue. Care for one another, pray earnestly, and please God.

In the Gospel according to Matthew, Jesus speaks to us about watchfulness or readiness.  Jesus may come to us suddenly, when we least expect Him. And so, live each day with purpose.

The Advent season can be captured in one word: “waiting,” anticipating the Messiah.
Folks in ancient Israel often waited for the Messiah to rescue them from their hardships, from the follies of their kings, from their exile, from their many occupations by a cruel foreign power.

We, too, often pray to God to rescue us from a crisis of one kind or another. Some would say that this is the story of everyone. Where was God when a loved one was in harm’s way? Why didn’t God protect them? There are no answers that satisfy us. Yes, we pray for God to rescue us. And yet God can seem silent, hidden. But is God silent? Is God hidden?

We profess that God is indeed in our midst. Not in a manger -- that was centuries ago in Bethlehem. Where is God today? All around us! In nature, in people, yes, even in our beloved pets. God is with us, as we ache with all sorts of growing pains. God is especially with us in the mass, where we sacramentally encounter the living Christ, body and blood, soul and divinity.

Saint Paul wrote that God’s favor, God’s grace has been revealed in Jesus. And so, we wait and sing in Advent, “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel.”

Let us pray this Advent season that the Spirit of God who through the Virgin Mary brought forth the Word made flesh, will reenergize us. Yes, fire us up so that we, through God’s grace, can go forth to help those who doubt to find faith; those who despair to find hope; those who are weak to find courage; those who are sick to find healing; those who are sad or depressed or angry to find joy; those who wander to find the way; and those who are about to die to find eternal life. Amen.

Saved by Hope

Rembrandt's Ascension

We have been celebrating the Easter Mystery these forty-some days: the death and resurrection of Jesus, today his ascension to our Father in glory, and next Sunday Pentecost or the descent of the Spirit upon the disciples. These are four different aspects of the one Paschal or Easter Mystery.

The ascension is Jesus’s final leave-taking so something awesome can happen. Let us take to heart Jesus’s parting words: “you will be my witnesses … to the ends of the earth” Yes, Jesus leaves to us the mission of continuing God’s work on earth: proclaiming the good news to all.

The ascension connects the Gospel and the book of Acts which heralds the beginning of the church’s ministry.

In the Gospel according to Luke, Jesus tells the disciples that they are to proclaim the good news to all people, and that Jesus, gloriously alive, will send the promise of God, the Spirit, so they can continue his saving ministry until he comes again at the end-time to transform this universe into a new, indescribable reality. And then Jesus was taken up into heaven; and the disciples were filled with hope.

Hope is a confident anticipation of something yet to come. Pope emeritus Benedict XVI captured its meaning magnificently in his encyclical Saved by Hope. This hope looks forward to seeing God as God really is—face-to-face.

Hope looks for the good. Hope discovers what can be done. Hope propels us forward.

History is filled with people of hope. One of my favorites is Helen Keller, who overcame physical obstacles that most of us can’t imagine. Here is a thought of hers that speaks of hope. Helen wrote, “When one door of happiness closes, another opens but often we look so long at the closed door that we do not see the one which has opened for us.”

Helen Keller also observed, “No pessimist ever discovered the secrets of the stars or sailed to an unchartered land or opened a new doorway for the human spirit.” We too, with a positive can-do spirit, can find a world of possibilities.

Hope points to the future. We are fascinated with the future. What will it be like? We see change everywhere. Some may not like it. But how react?

There is only one Christian response to the future: hope. Images of hope weave in and out of the bible. God by the power of the Spirit transformed the earthly Jesus into a heavenly Jesus. And Christ anticipates God’s future for all of us.

Yes, the universe in which we live has an ultimate purpose. Hope challenges us to do everything we can to usher in the future: always to be in relationship with God and in relationship with one another as compassionate, generous, forgiving and fair human beings. Above all, hope challenges us to reach out to that which alone is of everlasting value—the human person, the image of God, no matter how unkempt the appearance. In the end, all hope will be realized when the risen Christ, by the power of the Spirit, hands over the universe at the end of time to his heavenly Father.

May God fill us with hope this Ascension Day and every day.