The First Sunday
of Advent (B)
Dear brothers and sisters,
When
he was the Archbishop of Munich and Freising, Pope Benedict XVI described this
great season of Advent as “hastening with a watchful heart toward the encounter
with Jesus Christ.”[1]
The
person who acts with haste is one who is impassioned; the hastening person is
filled with both love and zeal. He is motivated both to obtain and to share
that which is loved. I have been known to hasten for a cold Dr Pepper, inside a
bookstore, and even towards the rising or setting of the sun. Each of us
hastens towards those things and persons of which and for whom we are especially
fond.
In
these initial days of Advent, Holy Mother Church again presents us with the
blessed opportunity to ask an important question: To whom or what do I hasten?
Do I hasten toward the Lord? Do I hasten toward his worship? Do I hasten toward
the things that are of him? Too often, for each of us, the answer is simply, “No.”
So it is that we come today asking the Lord, “Why do you let us wander, O Lord, from your ways, and [let us] harden
our hearts so that we fear you not” (Isaiah 63:17)? So it is that we call out
to him, “Lord, make us turn to you; let us see your face and we shall be saved”
(Psalm 80:4).
Yes,
those who have seen the Lord’s face hasten towards him. The memory of his face,
of his strength and gentleness, of his justice and mercy, of his kindness and
love, keeps them hastening ever towards him, eager to gaze eternally upon his radiant
beauty. As we seek his face, we must remember that
we are to hasten
toward him as watchful people who no longer allow the appearances of this world
to drive from ears and from our eyes one fact that the world tries to make us
forget: that he is the real center, that he is in our midst. To live in this spirit
of Advent means to live as someone who has been awakened, and then this also
includes the responsibility of someone who is keeping watch to awaken others,
because it is the truly important thing.[2]
But
what do we do when others do not want to be awakened? What do we do when they
do not want to be called back to the center, back to what is truly important?
We must continue with a watchful heart and beg the Lord to “give us new life,
and we will call upon your name” (Psalm 80:19).
Just
as the person who hastens is a man or woman with passion, so, too, the one with
a watchful heart, for he or she longs to experience the joy of that or whom is
loved. Simply consider how a surfer paddles out from the shore and takes his
place upon the waters. He watches patiently for just the right wave he wants to
ride in order to experience the thrill, the excitement, and the pleasure of
being carried along by that which he knows he cannot control. Once his ride is
finished, he paddles back out again; his heart is ever-watchful.
Here,
too, Holy Mother Church provides these blessed days of Advent as an opportunity
for us to ask if our hearts are truly ever-watchful for the Lord, ever-watchful
for him who will carry us through the storms of life, for him whom we cannot
control. Just as the surfer turns his back to the shore to watch for his wave,
so, too, must we turn our backs on the world to watch for the coming of Christ,
whom “even the winds and the sea obey” (Matthew 8:27).
Finally,
Advent calls us to the encounter with Christ, to the encounter with him who
commands us to “be watchful” (Mark 13:33)! Our English word “encounter” is a
curious one, for at its etymological roots it means something rather different
from the way in which we ordinarily use it. “Encounter” comes from the thirteenth
century Old French word encontre,
meaning “a meeting, a fight, or an opportunity.” Ultimately, it comes from the
Latin incontra, meaning “in front of,”
as in “against.” And yet, do we not often think of the encounter with Christ as
the meeting of rivals? Is this not why we do not always hastens towards him and
why our hearts are not always ever-watchful for him?
It is true that
when a person first realizes the closeness of the Lord he is frightened because
he notices how little his life corresponds to [the Lord’s] and asks: What
should I do? But anyone who stands firm for while in this proximity will hear a
second word, too. Not only: “Let all men know your goodness,” but also the
call: “Rejoice in the Lord always. Again I will say rejoice.” The nearness of
the Lord is joy, for it means to discover and perceive that I am accepted, I am
needed; there is someone who wants me, who loves me. And all the futile moments
of my life are undergirded by the fact that my life is willed and needed.[3]
All
of this we learn from the encounter with Christ, in the Church, in the
Scriptures, and especially in the Sacraments. Let us, then, implore the Lord to
renew our hearts so that we might be ever-watchful for him and hasten toward him
when at last he comes. Amen.
