Sunday,
November 30, 2003
Readings: We
begin the liturgical year with the Advent season. We await
the Lord's coming. This means that we become watchful and
vigilant, attitudes by which we respond to today's readings.
The Church wants us to be alert
by re-awakening our hope in Jesus,
God incarnate, in whom God radically gives us the definitive
promise of our liberation. But this requires us to renew the
process of our conversion, which is never complete. The Kingdom
of brother/sisterhood, the peace and justice that Christ brings
us, will not take unless we make efforts to cooperate. Today’s gospel, which introduces us to the Advent
time of hope and conversion, confronts us with the Christian
need for vigilance. “. . . Look up . . . Be alert . . . Wake
up . . .” Vigilance, the basic theme in Jesus' preaching,
is the attitude by which we recognize his sometimes silent
or disconcerting presence in the events of our life. The text of the gospel is difficult: liberation
is at hand. In earlier verses, Luke spoke to us concerning
the siege of Jerusalem (21,20-23). Now he alludes to Jesus'
Second Coming, which we call the Parousia. Jesus adapts his
apocalyptic manner of speaking to the culture of his time
(contrary to what we ordinarily think, apocalypse means revelation,
not catastrophe). We must reread not only the signs of the
natural world, but also the signs of the world of history,
which is where the Spirit is manifested. The Lord's Second
Coming will reveal history’s true meaning. Truth, now hidden,
will appear in full light. We will all arrive at a clearer
understanding (1Cor 13,12b). Our traumatic reactions of anguish and fear are
not caused by “signs in the sun, the moon and the stars.”
Our distresses and insecurities are triggered by economic
crises; social conflicts; the abuse of power; lack of food
and employment; and frustration. These innumerable unjust
structures can be removed only through the transference of
God’s love and justice into the hearts of human beings. Jesus' message does not steer us clear of problems
and insecurity, but rather teaches us how to face up to them.
A disciple of Jesus and a non-believer share the same feelings
of anguish; a Christian, however, has a different attitude
and reaction. The difference lies in hope, which sustains
our faith in the promises of our liberating God. Our hope
allows us to discover God’s footprints throughout the drama
of history. Advent calls us to an attitude of alertness in
order to discover “the Christ who comes” in our current situations,
and to confront these situations as the necessary process
of complete liberation, which happens through the cross. That
is why Jesus in the Gospel calls us to “be watchful,” to have
a heart free of life’s vices and idols (conversion), as we
become docile to his Spirit, who lives in situations that
weave the fabric of our life. Jesus calls us to “be awake
and prayerful,” because the Spirit is discovered though active
hope, which is the point of encounter between the promises
of faith and today’s precarious signs that conceal those promises.
Hope is memory that tends to forget self. Nurtured by prayer,
hope keeps us close to the promises of faith, and inspires
us in our daily search for the Spirit’s footprints in the
signs of the time. We activate Christian Hope when we commit
to the work of making God’s promises come true in our lives. Hope does not allow the Parousia to create a climate
of fear. Just the opposite is the case: we can take courage
“because liberation is drawing near” (v. 28). Furthermore,
attention to what is to come does not eliminate our current
needs. We are not called to passive waiting; what is needed
is vigilance, which is attention to the signs of the times
(Lk 21, 29-33); the signs of the times are where the Lord
is revealed. We must pray at all times (v.36). Prayer involves
action and a grateful attitude; we express gratitude for the
love of God, who gives full meaning to the demands that authenticate
hope. The first two readings speak to us of love and
justice. Watchfulness for the Lord’s coming supposes that
we practice “justice and righteousness on earth” (Jer 33,15).
This helps us to participate in the mission of Jesus, “David’s
son,” whose First Coming to the world is commemorated at Christmas.
Justice and righteousness are essential aspects of the Lord’s
promise (v.14). When the promise is fulfilled, “Jerusalem
will live in safety and its inhabitants will live in peace
and it will be called: ‘the Lord is our righteousness.’ ”(v.16)
Luke helps us think of the Lord’s Second Coming
on this Sunday, the beginning of our preparation for Christmas.
One Advent leads to another. Between Jesus’ two comings, we
celebrate Eucharist, in which we encounter the crucified and
risen Jesus. Now we live in the time when the Christian community
evolves, the lapse of time in which the community must get
involved in the construction of “righteousness and justice.”
This implies that we make concrete commitments to the daily
“via crucis,” which is the reality lived by poor people
in the world. Solidarity with the poor should reinforce our
firm decision to create a new society where there can be justice,
brother/sisterhood and peace, which are the historic expressions
of God’s great gift, the Kingdom. That will happen only if “love abounds” (1Thess
3,12), i.e., if everything is permeated with a selfless and
deliberate commitment, “in love for one another and for all.”
There we have our blueprint for becoming vigilant in hope
for “the coming of Our Lord Jesus Christ” (v.13). Are we prepared
to renew this commitment as we meet the Lord in today’s Eucharist? For
personal conversion -As Advent begins, I can use a check list to measure
my hope as the response I make to the well-being of others,
their needs, their struggles, their misguided exercise of
power, their weakness and exhaustion... -Am
I a person of hope? What am I hoping for? How do I overcome
obstacles to hope? For
a community meeting or a meeting of a Bible circle -What
signs of hope and despair do we read in today’s “realistic”
society: a society without utopias, a society disenchanted
and anesthetized by the proclamation of the “end of history”? -“With
the fall of the Berlin wall, there was created in society
an abandonment of the utopian-historic concept of politics.”
No longer is history accepted as the vehicle to society’s
transformation; there is no place for messianic aspirations
or utopias. Society has become too “pragmatic” and “realistic.”
Utopian mysticism and passionate hope for renewal of the world
seem to pertain more to eras in the past. But what role will
we play as Christians in this hour marked by hope? How do
we describe hope in today’s socio-cultural context? Are we
witnesses of hope? -What
meaning can we find in the apocalyptic signs described in
today’s gospel: (signs in the sun, the moon and the stars,
the roar of the sea, the menace of an unforeseen coming .
. . ) -In
what sense is the end of the world (and/or the end of our
own life) “the coming of the Lord Jesus”? For the prayer of the faithful -That
Christian communities may live Advent as an intense preparation
for Christmas, and, with even more intensity, as a time dedicated
to nurture the world’s hope as well as our hope, we pray
. . . -For
all those who lament and despair as they face death, that
their lives may encounter the courage and hope, we pray . . . -For
all those who sense the end of their lives though aging, sickness
or other circumstances; that they may begin to see their situation
as grace, gift and opportunity to attain the fullness of their
lives, we pray . . . -For
all others, especially the young, who carry the burden of
the reality of death and life’s limitations; that by through
their refusal to abuse drugs they may live each day with awareness
of the real dimensions of human life, we pray . . . -For
the hope of the poor, who make up 2/3 of the world’s population,
for millions of people who earn one dollar a day, for 2 ½
million people without jobs, for 20% of the poorest of humanity,
who receive a meager 1.4% of the world’s resources; that our
commitment to the world’s transformation may become Advent,
hope, and good news for these who are our sisters and brothers,
we pray to the Lord . . . -That
Christian theologians may work together to re-word the eternal
truths of belief in the afterlife by using clear language
that truly speaks to today’s men and women, we pray to
the Lord . . . Community
Prayer O
God, Mother and Father, Powerful Creator, mysterious beginning
of Being, you call us into life. You invite us into existence
and create within us the impulses and desires that give rise
to hope. Accept our limitations and fears as we begin Advent;
free us by your divine energy within us, so that hope can
be reborn in us. You who live, you who bring everything and
everyone into life, forever and ever. Amen |
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