Waiting with Joyful Hope

1st Sunday of Advent Nov. 27, 2011 (Mk 13:33-37)

"Be watchful! Be alert! You do not know when the time will come. It is like a man traveling abroad. He leaves home and places his servants in charge, each with his work, and orders the gatekeeper to be on the watch. Watch, therefore; you do not know when the lord of the house is coming, whether in the evening, or at midnight, or at cockcrow, or in the morning. May he not come suddenly and find you sleeping. What I say to you, I say to all: 'Watch!'"

The Church once again celebrates a new liturgical year and she begins this with the Season of Advent. Advent literally means coming. In this season, the Church invites us again to wait for the Lord who came once and will come again.

The Gospel for today reminds us of our responsibility to prepare for the final days. Jesus urges us to be alert and to be "watchful".

Being watchful does not mean being like the guards in Luneta Park who stand there and keep watch until other guards take their shift. Neither does it mean being free to do whatever while we wait for something to happen. Being watchful means being faithful to our master as we wait for His return. And faithfulness means being loyal to our tasks all the time - not at the time most convenient to us, but all the time. And what is our task? It is to be obedient to God's commands all the time.

As faithful and watchful servants, we must not be too weary of thinking of Jesus' return. The "end times" always cause too many unnecessary speculations and distress. But as Christians, we "await in joyful hope the coming of our Savior, Jesus Christ". We are happy as we await the Lord. We are joyful because the Lord's coming means salvation for us. We only need to fear the Lord's coming if we have not prepared ourselves and have not been loyal servants of His. As Jesus Himself said, "May he not come suddenly and find you sleeping." May we not be found unfaithful on the day of the Lord's return.

As we await the Lord, we must be alert. This means that we must never put out guard down. We must never, at any circumstance, think that it is alright to be unfaithful and to commit sin at the moment because we can always repent later. For all we know, that could be the last moment of our lives. Wallowing in sin and putting off repentance for some other time is not faithful watching for the Lord. It is procrastination.

As the new liturgical year begins, may we heed the call of the Advent Season. May we always bear in mind the Lord's exhortation to stay awake. The Lord is coming and we must always be ready, joyful and faithful for His coming.

Always Put Your Best Foot Forward!

First Sunday of Advent Nov.30, 2008 (Mk 13:33-37)

Jesus said to his disciples: "Be watchful! Be alert! You do not know when the time will come.

"It is like a man traveling abroad. He leaves home and places his servants in charge, each with his own work, and orders the gatekeeper to be on the watch. Watch, therefore; you do not know when the Lord of the house is coming, whether in the evening, or at midnight, or at cockcrow, or in the morning. May he not come suddenly and find you sleeping. What I say to you, I say to all: 'Watch!' "

Today, we begin a new liturgical year as we enter the Advent Season. Advent literally means "coming". In this season, the Church invites us to reflect on and be ready for Jesus' Coming. We are reminded of the fact that Jesus came to us in the past. He lived with us and even died for us. Aside from that, we are also reminded that we should be ready for Jesus' return and that the exact time of His return is unknown to us all, except to God, of course.

We Christians are all in waiting. We believe that Jesus will come again to judge us. This act of anticipation is not at all alien to us. We wait for many things in our lives. We wait for the arrival of a visitor. We wait for the birth of a baby. We wait for the results of important exams. We wait for our favorite TV show. We wait for our favorite love team to go steady. We wait for so many things, important or not.

Our Gospel for today appropriately opens the Season of Advent. Today, Jesus invites us not just to wait; he invites us to watch, to be vigilant. We have no idea when Jesus will be coming to judge us. Nevertheless, we are given a task as Christians and also as individuals. Each of us has a special task in this world. As Jesus said, "He leaves home and places his servants in charge, each with his own work..." (Mk 13:34). He expects us to be faithful to this work or task until He comes again. He tells us, "May he not come suddenly and find you sleeping." (Mk 13:36).

When we are expecting a critic or supervisor who will check the efficiency of our work, we always put our best foot forward. We make sure that he will see us at our best. This isn't bad. But sometimes, this has a negative bearing. The tendency is that we only give our best when we know that we are going to be evaluated. In the case of Jesus' coming, this kind of attitude will not work. How will we know when to put our best foot forward when we have no idea when He will come to "evaluate" the way we lived our lives? What if He comes when our "best foot" is being rested and our "inferior foot" (If there is such a thing!) is forward?

The solution: We should always put our best foot forward! We shouldn't give our best just because someone will evaluate us. We should always give our best in everything. Applying it in our daily lives and our spiritual lives also: we should be good always. We should live our whole lives as Catholic Christians. Holiness is not a mask that we wear only when inside the Church or when we want to make a good impression. It is a garment that we Christians should feel naked without.

There is wisdom in the words, "Live today as if it were the last day of your life." In the same way, we should always live as if Jesus were going to judge us soon! The Gospel is telling us to be good all the time. But it does not tell us that we should be good just because we might be punished. We should not do good just because we "dread the loss of heaven and the pains of hell." (Act of Contrition). We should grow from this reward-and-punishment morality to a more mature one. We should do good because of our faithfulness to and our love for God who is "all-good and deserving of all our love." (Act of Contrition).

Blessed are we if Jesus finds us faithful when He comes again! To end this reflection, let us take a glimpse at a character from The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry: the lamplighter. This lamplighter is ordered to light his lamp every night and to put it out every morning. The planet where he's staying rotated more rapidly as time went by. Eventually, a day in his planet became as short as a minute. Therefore, he had no time to sleep for he had to light and put out his lamp every single minute. He may be absurd, but he is faithful to his orders! When Jesus, our Master, comes back, how glad will He be if he finds us faithful to the task He left us with!