Second Sunday in Advent

 

Prayer requires that we stand in God's presence with open hands, naked and vulnerable, proclaiming to ourselves and to others that without God we can do nothing. This is difficult in a climate where the predominant counsel is "Do your best and God will do the rest." When life is divided into "our best" and "God's rest," we have turned prayer into a last resort to be used only when all our resources are depleted. Then even the Lord has become the victim of our impatience. Discipleship does not mean to use God when we can no longer function ourselves. On the contrary, it means to recognize that we can do nothing at all, but that God can do everything through us. As disciples, we find not some but all of our strength, hope, courage, and confidence in God. Therefore, prayer must be our first concern.



Dear God, teach me to be open to you in prayer.

Henri Nouwen

Thoughts on the Kingdom of God

 The Kingdom of God is at Hand

In the gospel reading for last week, the first week of Advent, Jesus urges us to be alert, on guard, be fully ready for his coming.  This week the Sunday readings highlight our reasons for doing this. It begins with the ministry of John the Baptist and follows with the beginnings of Jesus' ministry with both proclaiming "that the “kingdom of God is at hand."

We know that throughout the public life of Jesus he will frequently speak about the kingdom of God. It is not an exaggeration to say that to a great extent the Gospels concern this kingdom, how one becomes a part of it, what are its requirements, and so on. In fact, Jesus' whole way of life can be summed up as the heart and soul of the kingdom. Why do all four gospels begin with Jesus and/or John the Baptist proclaiming that the kingdom of God, the reign of God is at hand, is now present?   

Religious Jews never forget that they are a people who had become a nation, one peculiarly dear to God. This had come about not because of what they had done but because of what God had done for them, how God had acted in their midst. They had these beliefs: that as a people they would one day be re-established as a nation, as a kingdom, as in the time of King David and Solomon. In this kingdom, they would become the channel of God's life and salvation for all peoples (a light to the gentiles). This is their destiny as God's chosen people. 

How will this happen? This will literally be God's endeavor, God's project. Some believe that the Lord would send a great leader like David, and of David's lineage, a messiah who will bring about the re-establishment of this kingdom.

And as all of this begins to take place it is summarized in the saying: the kingdom (or reign) of God is at hand, and all of God's past dealings with his creation are coming to climax and fruition. God's reign of peace and justice for all people is now being re-established. This is the final intervention of God into our history, God’s culminating endeavor to bring peace and justice to our world. At the beginning of his public life, Jesus is proclaiming the kingdom is beginning now, and is at hand in his ministry.

Advent is a time for us to recall and appreciate how Jesus comes to his people and how he has come and is coming to you and me. Let us pray for the faith and hope to look forward to his final coming when his kingdom will be fully established and there will be a new heaven and a new earth.

 

Jim Blumeyer, S.J.

First Sunday in Advent

 

In our personal lives, waiting is not a very popular pastime. Waiting is not something we anticipate or experience with great joy and gladness! In fact, most of us consider waiting a waste of time. Perhaps this is because the culture in which we live is basically saying, "Get going! Do something! Show you are able to make a difference! Don't just sit there and wait!" So, for us and many people, waiting is a dry desert between where we are and where we want to be. We do not enjoy such a place. We want to move out of it and do something worthwhile.

Dear Lord, help me be patient as I await your arrival.

Henri Nouwen

Thoughts on the new liturgical year

 This Sunday we begin again a new liturgical year. And each new liturgical year starts with the season of Advent, which is joyfully waiting for the advent, the coming, of our Lord, remembering both his birth and his final triumph at his Second Coming at the end of time. There are two temptations during this season. The first is consumerism. Seeing this as a time of shopping and gifts and parties first, and only distantly about preparing to celebrate Christ’s incarnation. We ought to strive to be faithful witnesses in our families and in the marketplace that the most important thing about this time of year is not material things we accumulate but the gift of God to humanity in Christ.

But a second temptation is to overly domesticate the Advent and Christmas seasons, to make them into cozy and sentimental celebrations of welcoming a guest, Jesus, into our homes. The true meaning of Advent is much more dynamic and challenging than that. Stop for a moment and ask: If Jesus were to walk into my home this very day, what would he find? Would he find us, his servants, dutifully and joyfully giving themselves to faith and love? Or would he find a lack of fervor and possibly turmoil and strife?

So Jesus is saying to us today that we must be alert and awake for his coming. This is because Jesus is no mere cozy guest but rather the new King of Kings, the one to whom all allegiance is finally owed. Of course, this will mean opposition from currently ruling kings. Those other individuals, economic systems, political ideologies, personal pleasures, will often rebel against this new king, which then leads to the cross. We are called in Advent to look within ourselves and root out any opposition to our Lord that may have crept into our lives.

In the Collect prayer for this Sunday, we ask “Grant your faithful, we pray, almighty God, the resolve to run forth to meet your Christ with righteous deeds at his coming.” So let us run to Christ this Advent with the gifts that truly last: faith, hope, and charity.

Fr. Frank Reale, S.J.

More thoughts on Thanksgiving

 

A Day of Giving Thanks

Thanksgiving in America began with noble sentiments and is surrounded by traditions, rituals, and stories of hardship, sharing, and giving thanks for survival in a new land. A friend of mine, widely known for her cooking skills, often bemoaned the fact that her children, even as adults, wouldn’t let her vary the turkey and trimmings menu. I’m amused when grocery stores helpfully group all the ingredients for a Thanksgiving meal in the center aisles for convenience and as a help to those who cook only occasionally and have no idea what they need. We might think that the commercialization of Christmas is a twenty-first century phenomenon, but the classic 1947 movie Miracle on 34th Street reminds us that the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade has long been the kick-off to the retail Christmas season. In just the last decade, we’ve seen the creep from crack-of-dawn Black Friday shopping sprees to late-night Thanksgiving deals, to all-day Internet shopping on Thursday. Each year there’s a growing movement to discourage stores from being open on Thanksgiving Day on the premise that it’s not fair to the people who have to be away from their families due to work schedules. And it’s OK to have one or two days a year with no shopping. But we need to remember that gratitude is at the center of this day of giving thanks. It’s not a bad way to begin the hubbub of the Christmas season. 

—from the book The Peace of Christmas: Quiet Reflections from Pope Francis
by Diane M. Houdek

Thoughts on Thanksgiving

 

Remembering Others

O God, when I have food,
help me to remember the hungry;
When I have work,
help me to remember the jobless;
When I have a home,
help me to remember those who have no home at all;
When I am without pain,
help me to remember those who suffer,
And remembering,
help me to destroy my complacency;
bestir my compassion,
and be concerned enough to help;
By word and deed,
those who cry out for what we take for granted.

Amen.

—by Samuel F. Pugh, via jesuitresource.org

Thoughts on prayer

 

Why Pray?

Why should I spend an hour in prayer when I do nothing during that time but think about people I am angry with, people who are angry with me, books I should read, and books I should write, and thousands of other silly things that happen to grab my mind for a moment? The answer is: because God is greater than my mind and my heart and what is really happening in the house of prayer is not measurable in terms of human success and failure. What I must do first of all is to be faithful. If I believe that the first commandment is to love God with my whole heart, mind, and soul, then I should at least be able to spend one hour a day with nobody else but God. The question as to whether it is helpful, useful, practical, or fruitful is completely irrelevant, since the only reason to love is love itself. Everything else is secondary. The remarkable thing, however, is that sitting in the presence of God for one hour each morning—day after day, week after week, month after month—in total confusion and with myriad distractions radically changes my life. God, who loves me so much that he sent his only son not to condemn me but to save me, does not leave me waiting in the dark too long. I might think that each hour is useless, but after thirty or sixty or ninety such useless hours, I gradually realize that I was not as alone as I thought; a very small, gentle voice has been speaking to me far beyond my noisy place. So, be confident and trust in the Lord. Henri Nouwen