Turning Into Advent

Fr. Dan Donovan's sermon for the last Monday before Advent 2022

Yesterday's celebration of the feast of Christ The King brought the liturgical year to its climax and its conclusion.  Somewhat surprisingly the Gospel chosen for the mass of the feast has to do not with the triumphal return of Christ, the end of time, but with his Crucifixion. Jesus is King, the liturgy affirms, but in the most unexpected of ways. He reigns not from a great throne as a victorious warrior or a powerful sovereign but as someone who has freely given his life for us. The reading tells of how the crowd and the religious leaders mocked Jesus and how he promised to one of the brigands crucified with him that they would meet again in paradise.

Although very few people today have much of a sense of Advent it marks a crucial turning point in the liturgy and in our lives. It heralds the beginning of a new liturgical year with its hopes and fears, its promise of new life here and now and of a positive outcome of the journey on which we all presently find ourselves.  

The word "Advent" means a coming or an arrival of someone or something the liturgy refers to a three-fold coming of Christ in the past at his birth in Bethlehem, in the present in his coming into our lives and the life of the world, and in the future when the whole of created reality, including ourselves will be caught up and transformed by God.  

As interconnected as all these comings are, the most important one for us is his present coming into our lives here and now.  

God is revealed in the life and destiny of Jesus as a God who comes, in his coming he invites and urges us to a sense of the gift of life no matter how old or how young we might be. As the Living God, a God of life, he is a God who accompanies us on our journey strengthening and guiding us so we might arrive at our goal.  

This week we find ourselves between the climax of one liturgical year and the beginning of another. The liturgy invites us to look back at the past year. It has been a year marked by challenges of many kinds. Personal challenges that each one of us has had to deal with as well as challenges which face countries, continents and the world. These latter have included the war in Ukraine, the devastation wrought in many parts of the globe by climate change, the presence of Covid-19 and the financial crisis that is making life even more difficult than usual for many.  

For some it has been a truly difficult year. Let us hope that especially for them Advent will mark a new beginning. We look forward to it in hope and as we do we pray that God will be with us.

The Canticle of Zachariah puts it this way:

In the tender compassion of our God
The dawn from on high with break upon us  
And shine on those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death
And guide our feet in the way of peace.

The first reading at daily mass for the last two weeks of the liturgical year is taken from one of the most mysterious and haunting books of the New Testament, the Book of Revelation or the Apocalypse. Both titles suggest the removal of a veil which results in making manifest something which was formerly hidden.  The veil which is taken away in this case is one that separates earth and heaven, the present and the future. The Book of Revelation offers us a glimpse of the heavenly world, of the end of time and of the great struggle between good and evil that will precede it. Apocalyptic writing is marked by images, symbols as well as places and events that are not to be taken literally but which are of such a nature as to catch our attention and to provoke us to think about the fears and hopes that lie behind the text we're reading.  The vision to which we are treated in the passage we read a few moments ago includes an appearance of a central figure in the book, the Lamb the author describes as the Lamb who was slain and yet lives. The Lamb is the Risen Christ who stands with God and with all who have fallen.  He is accompanied by one hundred and forty four thousand individuals on whose forehead is written the Name of God and of the Lamb. The language here is poetic and invites us to allow ourselves to be caught up in it.  The text speaks of "a voice from heaven, like a voice of many waters, like the sound of loud thunder, like the sound of harps."  The one hundred and forty and four thousand stand for all those who have been brought to fulfillment in the heavenly world. They have been redeemed from humanity, we are told, as first fruits for God and for the Lamb.

There are other parts of the Apocalypse that are violent and involve conflicts between the forces of good and evil.  They suggest in highly symbolic language the nature of the great struggle between the forces of good and evil that will mark the beginning of the end of the world as we know it. The creation of a new heaven and a new earth and the triumph of the Lamb and of all those who followed him. To seek in the Book of Revelation for keys to specific things that are happening now is to misunderstand the book and its message, of what was written to encourage specific groups of Christians who were facing persecution, threats of various kinds.  Its basic message is as relevant today as when it was first written. Its message is one of hope.  No matter what we have to go through God is with us, encouraging us to trust in him and in the final triumph of good over evil, of God over all that would deny and reject him.

The brief passage from the Gospel of Luke which I read just a moment ago strikes a different note from the excerpt we heard from the Book of Revelation, it unfolded in heaven, whereas this one takes place in the Temple of Jerusalem, very much on earth.  The immediate context helps us understand what Jesus says about the poor widow.  He has just warned the people about some of the religious leaders of the time, beware of the scribes, he says, they like to walk around in long robes, love to be greeted with respect in the marketplace, they devour widows' houses and for the sake of appearance say long prayers. At this point Jesus looks up and sees rich people as well as a poor widow putting money into the receptacle for donations for religious social purposes.  The widow represents a dramatic contrast to those of whom Jesus had just been speaking.  They donate a great deal more than she does. But given their wealth it requires little generosity on their part. As Jesus puts it, they contribute out of their abundance but she out of her poverty has put in all she has to live on.

Some people have been struck by the statement that the woman put in all that she had to live on and wonder whether Jesus could possibly be approving such a thing. they say that he is not, they say that it is wrong to encourage people to make donations that they really cannot afford.  As reasonable as such a view is it seems to be at odds with what Jesus is saying. His emphasis is on the contrast between the relative significance of what the rich give out of their abundance and what the widow gives out of her poverty. Jesus is encouraging us to be generous in our gifts.  

Advent for many people is a time when they consider and make donations to healthcare or educational institutions, to food banks and other organizations and groups seeking to help the poor, both here and around the world. Whatever we are able to do let us do it freely and generously. As St. Paul once put it, "The Lord loves a cheerful giver."

Let us now in faith and trust present before God our needs . . . 

Note, I haven't proof read this transcript other than a quick read after I typed it out.  It may differ somewhat from his actual text.   Also note RMJ's excellent post for Sunday on the liturgy.